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Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe especially for medium sized cities (in big cities apple works fine but still a lot worse then google). For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)
I’m curious - does anyone reading this agree with the notion that Apple maps is becoming comparable to Google maps? I haven’t given it a fair shot in almost a decade I guess, and it was almost unusable then. Does anyone here use it as a daily driver? What are the strong and weak points?
It's mostly fine. But I can't trust it to be up-to-date for business locations and opening hours. Some places (even high-traffic places like McDonalds) are missing, some closed places haven't been removed after months (years?), and opening hours are just as broken. I'll always double check with a Google search. It's been fine for public transport and driving navigation.
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I’ve been using Apple Maps exclusively for the last couple of years. I find it to be better, but there’s a major caveat that I primarily use it in the Bay Area. Outside the bay it’s worked for me too, but it’s just rare that I test it in that way (where failures are a lot more likely). UI is much nicer and app performance feels way faster too.
Same here, been using it for a few years in the Bay Area. The main reason I prefer Apple Maps is that the user interface is vastly better, especially in a car with CarPlay. I’ve used it on long road trips in the US as well, but I will often do a route sanity check against Google Maps in areas I’m very unfamiliar with.
I really really like OSM through Organic Maps (previously through maps.me) but it has no congestion data, so mostly useless for driving during business hours.
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The bad choices in rural areas for Google Maps seems to be a recent thing. My guess is that it's a result of a new approach of combining computer vision of satellite imagery with phone location data from ranchers driving on their private dirt roads.
Google Maps took me down all sorts of goofy unpacked backroads in Crete this past month. It’d cut the driving distance in half and double the driving time. Although my Fiat Panda rental did surprisingly well on uneven, unpaved roads.
Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe especially for medium sized cities (in big cities apple works fine but still a lot worse then google). For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)
Yeah, the data on Apple Maps is just not good enough here. The opening hours are frequently just wrong and can’t be trusted. Part of the reason for that is they use Yelp as a data source which is pretty much non-existent here. If I look at a popular local restaurant on Apple Maps (one which has thousands of reviews on both Google and TripAdvisor) then the opening hours are just wrong and seemingly pulled from Yelp wh…
While Maps also has some discrepancies between cities and also different countries, in general it's a lot more consistent and features roll out more widely.
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Yes. I stopped using Google Maps years ago because Apple’s estimates are far more accurate and less stressful (mostly DC-Boston corridor). Google would suggest routes which were allegedly faster but that was based on assuming no traffic anywhere so things like unprotected left turns across major roads would be a net time savings. Actual arrival times tended to be about the same as Apple’s original estimates when, say…
Huh. I know for sure here (DC metro area) Google's navigation definitely takes traffic into account both for time estimates and routing. It'd be pretty useless otherwise: traffic is pretty much the major component of travel time for many/most trips.
The OP's comment about Google's directions often giving you things like unprotected left turns across major roads matches my experience with Waze, so I wonder if Google is pulling in more data/algorithms from them now. I know lots of people love (loved?) Waze and I used to be one of them, but I eventually just couldn't handle how almost every ride with Waze had become the algorithmic equivalent of your crazy uncle saying "I know a shortcut. Trust me."
Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe especially for medium sized cities (in big cities apple works fine but still a lot worse then google). For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)
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Source? Genuinely surprised to hear Google had the superior privacy policy.
Well, Google doesn't operate services in China so is not giving data to China. If you look carefully in the TOS for your Apple products, you'll see that iCloud data (including like messages) are operated by Apple with the exception of China, where they are operated by a third-party contractor who does the dirty work of complying with Chinese government speech laws/police requests. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/t…
Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe especially for medium sized cities (in big cities apple works fine but still a lot worse then google). For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)
I would rather give my data to the qualitatively better option OSM than a controversial foreign firm that has questionable stance on user privacy.
I opened up my settings to allow Google maps to have access to my location all the time, even when not using the app. I have found the Timeline feature in Google maps to be a huge game changer in terms of 'where ive been' and 'what Ive done'. I can look back months, see exactly what routes I went down, where I was at a given time. It will even match pictures with the locations. Especially for journaling vacations (so…
> I can look back months, see exactly what routes I went down, where I was at a given time. So can Google. I'd love to have these features but the price is just too high. The price would be too high even if I trusted Google (which I don't), because every company that collects personal information will be hacked because no company is properly incentivised to protect users' data.
Certainly, some people will want to minimize the number of parties that know you were in location X at time Y. But I’d guess that for many people, myself included, that data simply isn’t that sensitive or interesting.
[1] All the major U.S. carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) have been fined for reselling users’ location data without consent: https://www.govtech.com/network/wireless-carriers-face-200m-...