Can someone explain the sentence about him being only six years old? Some kind of inside joke?
I = the blog
Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
51–60 of 442 posts
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#52I live in London and for commuting around via public transport OR walking I always use Citymapper, which is massively superior than Google Maps for directions. I suspect they are using Googles APIs underneath it all, but their UI is better than Google maps and also their recommended public transport directions are orders of magnitude better than Google Maps. Citymapper will get you between any two locations in London…
Citymapper is nice, but I disagree that it's massively superior:
1- When I was living south of London, Citymapper was completely pointless, since it only showed commuting options with SouthWest trains, and not Southern trains (my station was served by both). I suspect Citymapper might've fixed this since.
2- Maps also gives you all different options, and since some time ago they also started to offer mixed ride-hailing and public transport (they appear to offer that only if your public transport station is far enough from you probably > ~15 minutes walk?)
3- The other features are not that useful: since you'd use a monthly travelcard or pay as you go on your oyster/bank card, the cost estimate is not really something that you have to worry about. If you're a cash-strapped student, you're probably just going to always opt for the bus to save one or two pounds compared to the tube... so, just picking Bus as your preferred mode of transport is enough to cover that use case.
4- Citymapper is/was also inferior to Google maps when you need to quickly check/compare a (different) train that you just managed to hop into if it's not shown in the UI (maybe because it was delayed, and so it was not shown among the options). With Google maps you could just amend the start time for your trip.
5- One really nice feature that Citymapper has is the instructions for which tube exit to use when you arrive at the destination. It really helps to diminish the "which side is north?" disorientation. Otoh, you don't get that unless you actually start the trip (if you only use Citymapper to browse the route options, for example). OTOH, Google maps has AR navigation, which covers the same use case (orient yourself when you do the last bit of your trip on foot)
6- Both Maps and Citymapper have alert notifications for when you should get out at your stop. I almost never use the feature though, because I missed my tube stop a couple of times due to Citymapper triggering their notification AFTER the stop was already past)
7- Both Maps and Citymapper have a way to share your trip with other people. Citymapper is nicer though, since you can see all of the people that shared a trip with you on the same map (nice when you're meeting with more than 1 other friend from different parts of London)
That said, I dislike monopolies, so when I'll travel around London again (after the end of the pandemic) I'm planning to try to use maps.me (which uses the OSM data) as my first option.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#53Meta: could someone explain/clarify the sentence "Back in 2012, I had not yet been born (I am, in fact, only six years old)." please? I highly doubt a 6-years-old wrote this article, so is it a joke? Or is it alluding to some mapping alternative being 6 years old?
It is a joke.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#54I live in London and for commuting around via public transport OR walking I always use Citymapper, which is massively superior than Google Maps for directions. I suspect they are using Googles APIs underneath it all, but their UI is better than Google maps and also their recommended public transport directions are orders of magnitude better than Google Maps. Citymapper will get you between any two locations in London…
Citymapper compute their own routes, so that definitely doesn't come from Google. I'm not sure where they get their map data from, though.
I'm curious as well. I was in Asia on business and their navigation is top notch.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#55It’s becoming nearly impossible to fix map problems with google. I have a bunch of weird one way and foot only pathways near me in London and the routing is always awful for delivery drivers. Telling them to come the wrong way down a street etc. despite having a very good history of submissions nothing is ever fixed in the routing despite opening dozens of reports.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#56Apple is so far behind outside of the places they prioritize that it'll take decades at this pace to get on Google Maps' current level. It's really useless in places like Eastern Europe, where Apple has no interest in supporting and isn't likely that it'll turn that around any time soon.
Google Maps is not that great in places they don’t prioritize. They have no ability to handle tolls and direction of roads that are based on day of the week and hour. Local examples from the DC Area: I-66 is marked as a toll road 100% of the time despite only being tolled at rush hour in one direction; Clara Barton parkway is always marked as two way, but it becomes one way during rush hour, I regularly am routed down it by Google maps when it is one way the opposite direction.
I frequently am sent down nonexistent roads in rural Massachusetts, meanwhile there is a paved road in Bristol, NH that Google refuses to route people on; it is used by Apple Maps.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mapy.cz is far better than Google in case of Slovakia or Czech Republic. They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellites. Also these contain all the hiking, cycling and other routes. The native Android and iOS apps work great and support offline maps - you can download the whole map for a country with one click. Google Maps is unusable for sport or hiking because you only see…
Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking. But it's not just a map, it's got the yellow pages, Yelp, and, depending on where you are, various other things like hotel booking and public transport routing thrown in. My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic. Much of this is stuff the software based on OSM isn't even trying, or doing so only very half…
To be fair the crowded functionality in a map is something only Google could pull of since they are tracking all phones and locations. And it still has a bunch of restaurants listed in my neighbourhood that is clearly only containing rental houses and very outdated roads compared to Openstreetmaps.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mapy.cz is far better than Google in case of Slovakia or Czech Republic. They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellites. Also these contain all the hiking, cycling and other routes. The native Android and iOS apps work great and support offline maps - you can download the whole map for a country with one click. Google Maps is unusable for sport or hiking because you only see…
Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking. But it's not just a map, it's got the yellow pages, Yelp, and, depending on where you are, various other things like hotel booking and public transport routing thrown in. My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic. Much of this is stuff the software based on OSM isn't even trying, or doing so only very half…
> My recent favorite feature is the live estimation of how crowded a store is, very useful during the pandemic.
Unfortunately it's been completely useless in my area. I wish stores just allowed access to the cctv cameras on their parking lots so I could estimate for myself.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#59Meta: could someone explain/clarify the sentence "Back in 2012, I had not yet been born (I am, in fact, only six years old)." please? I highly doubt a 6-years-old wrote this article, so is it a joke? Or is it alluding to some mapping alternative being 6 years old?
It is a joke.
An simple outlandish claim doesn't make constitute a joke unless it's referencing something. I think that reference is what GP is asking about.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#60Apple is so far behind outside of the places they prioritize that it'll take decades at this pace to get on Google Maps' current level. It's really useless in places like Eastern Europe, where Apple has no interest in supporting and isn't likely that it'll turn that around any time soon.
Also in central Europe. Maps and navigation in the Croatian countryside is comically broken. Not only are the locations of addresses way off, if you travel to that location, they'll then send you somewhere else and eventually in a circle. Maybe they don't care about poor countries with lower usage, but I'd be embarrassed to have that in my product. Having said that, rich western Europe is in some ways no better. If y…
Google map is amazing in India (a poor country albeit with higher usage).
It is not uncommon to see cab or auto (tuk-tuk) drivers use smartphones to navigate the city roads.
Map technology in general has become a great leveller, where it enables outsider to start driving cabs in complex cities roads (which otherwise would be almost impossible without direction from passenger).