The more competition the better, though article’s take might be somewhat rosy-eyed.
In the end-user apps domain, alternatives including Apple Maps lose to Google Maps miserably in all regions I have been to in the past 2–3 years with the exception of mainland China. If I need to get somewhere and accurately estimate arrival time, I am not happy feeding Google my movement data but I will since it’ll be the most reliable option available no matter where I am.
As far as developer-oriented solutions, I know that Algolia Places shut down earlier this year citing insufficient quality of OSM data[0]. If Mapbox is indeed getting there and we’re about to have some proper competition in this space, I’m all for it.
What’s up HN?! Always fun to find an article of mine on here. What I’ve learned so far: I’ve underestimated the important of their place data to the rest of the search apparatus, and likely underestimated the relevance of Maps to their autonomous vehicle strategy. What I remain curious about that I’d love your speculation on: why do they bother with the Google Maps Platform at all? They have plenty of ways to monetiz…
Google wants to control all the ways people search the web so that they don't have to share profits and so that a competitor can't emerge. That's why we have Maps (location), Android (mobile), Home & Assistant (voice), and Chrome (URL bar).
Apple 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.
Apple is behind, yes, but you overestimate how dependant many core services are towards Google Maps. Many Nordic services like transit apps and websites among others use either OSM with the country's own Land Survey's map data.
As long as Apple and competitors can a) have businesses add their locations easily and b) have public transit companies' timetables in their system, they are already within arm's reach of GMaps.
Apple 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.
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…
>They have full coverage of high resolution pictures taken from planes and not satellites
...as opposed to google maps not using aerial photography? AFAIK most urban "satellite" picture on google maps is also taken with planes.
I really want to use Apple Maps full time on my iPhone, just because of how much clutter Google Maps has accumulated on the screen. If anything tells me Google is losing the ability to innovate it's the newly added pill buttons for pre-set searches and branded POIs on the map. I remember when this was added to MapQuest circa 2010, and was the transition from trying to have an excellent mapping experience to just addi…
Apple Maps is for from parity with Google Maps. I use both extensively. I tend to use Apple Maps more since I like how the Apple Watch integration works, and prefer the UI on CarPlay, among some other benefits. Though I usually always and going to places I know that are not far, and use it more so I now if say their is unexpected traffic and I should take a different route, and well as gentle reminder that a turn is coming up when the kids are distracting me. I'm in New England we have the 'new' maps, though when going some where new I more often than not still always run into issues with Apple Maps, where the place I'm going the location on the map isn't correct, or directions stop prematurely when there is a small road your suppsoe to take or who knows what else, where is I almost never have those issues with Google Maps/Waze. Also anytime say I store closes and moves, or a new store opens, Google Maps shows it within a day or so, where is Apple Maps most often can go weeks or months, and often I am the one submitting the issue to Apple Maps (Which they then correct but takes a while vs Google Maps where I submit an issue and its fixed very quickly). So while Apple Maps is getting much better, there reporting feature is far behind Google Maps and until that changes I don't see how they will be able to be as good. And for many of us Waze is preferred over Google Maps or Apple Maps, when on the highway, since knowing when police are ahead, or a road hazard in real time is invaluable. Though for me, like many Apple Maps is usually good enough, and when it shows the wrong end result, I simply quickly open up Waze or Google Maps to get me the last mile.
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…
> Google Maps just isn't very good for hiking
I find openstreetmap.org to be great for showing hiking trails. At least for my local area.
I thought that's because Google stopped doing street view because of German privacy laws. Without the street view cars roaming around there's a lot less street level data to be had.
I'm not sure how important Streetview is for street level data. I was always under the impression that "paved" (or similar) streets were pretty easy to get right (and can possibly be obtained from a governmental agency?). For smaller footpaths I always assumed that they were using movement data (the same they use for traffic forecasting) to detect where they are. They also resumed Streetview in parts of Germany this…
They do feature extraction; store names, addresses, traffic controls, etc.
Google Maps Platform's Terms of Service are really quite onerous. You're not allowed to combine their data with any other data, so you're pretty much stuck with exercising just the features the API provides without any room for creativity. But you're also not allowed to create anything that competes with Google's own app offerings[0]. So it is very unclear just what exactly you're expected to do with these APIs.
[0] Of course, not that they provide enough features through the APIs that you could. Things like StreetView photospheres are only available through a black box viewer widget or small, rectangular snapshots at configurable view angles. You can recreate the photosphere by combining several dozen of these shots, but each of them will have a very visible copyright watermark that you are contractually obligated to retain. You also don't get any access to their LIDAR depth data, so you can't do any sort of stereo reproduction. This all boils down to making the data source essentially useless for VR. Which would probably be considered as "competing with Google Earth" anyway.