Google maps are terrible.
My list of claims:
0) Outdated
1) Not only street names are not shown, local businesses too!
My typical use case: I want to check working hours. Expected - zoom to the address, tap on the icon and here it is. Reality - sometimes no matter how I zoom - icon not shown, I had to search store name, it zooms out to the whole city, zoom again and only now it can be seen!
2) Search is too exact, opposite to the main google search. When I enter “flowers” it shows me only businesses with flowers in the name but not all the flower shops around.
3) Several weeks ago they broke public transport navigation in my city. Public transport was not great before (it was absolutely wrong about timings and) but now it is gone completely.
Google Maps has become an eyesore
181–190 of 705 posts
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kills me is I'd easily pay 50~100 eur a month if Maps had to be non ad subsidized. This is to me Google's most everyday impacting product, and what makes the difference between me being stranded/lost or making it in time. The stories of people ending in a lake for blindly following directions are cheeky, but decent maps are just that important, and Google Maps, how flawed it can be, is currently the best for so…
The only case I can think of where google is the best is traffic updates. I use OSM primarily, osmand particularly for navigation, and I've tried going back to google a few times, every time I try it it's worse than the last time. You may be willing to pay €50 a month for it, but most people can't afford that and wouldn't pay it.
Google Maps has its pitfalls, but it's by far the most up to date in the cities I've used it.
OSM lacks a lot of details that completely change how you'd move from point A to point B (I was missing overpass bridges and crossable paths in residential neighboorhoods), and point to point navigation is also not great. Then it completely lacks all the more commercial features Google has built on top of Maps (store details, position sharing, timeline etc.)
On sheer readability I also prefer Google Maps, but I've been using it so long that that might be just familiarity.
I wish I'd like OSM a lot more, but every time I ended up back to Maps for a reason or another.
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#183The example in the article shows the San Francisco Hilton, with a big ad. They're going out of business.[1] (Hilton Hotels hasn't been a real hotel company in years, anyway. It's just a franchise name now, like RCA.)
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/park-hotels-leaving-san-francis...
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#184Fastcompany plays unrelated commercial over the article.
Not sure how they can peddle that headline without seeing their own efforts in the argument.
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
If google can't make money with maps, why isn't Maps taken out of google into a charity/non-profit backed thing. There's OpenStreetMap, and Wikipedia wouldn't mind having a Map I guess. That way it'd help a bit with the monopoly heat and maintaining it could be slightly cheaper. I don't know the legal stuff, but I'd rather have a company supporting a non-profit than burning money internally, so I hope the incentives…
> If google can't make money with maps, why isn't map taken out of google into a charity/non-profit backed thing. There's OpenStreetMap, and Wikipedia wouldn't mind having a Map I guess. Assuming maps still loses a good chunk of money, how would it survive as a charity or non-profit? Where would the money come from? Who would donate to the charity?
Without donations OpenStreetMap would also lose money. But obviously people (and companies) are much more willing to donate to a project when it's a charity/non-profit, instead of the product of one of the biggest companies in the world.
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#186Czech Republic is one of the few countries where Google has a meaningful local competitor, Seznam, for it's major services and maps is the service where I'm most glad for that. All the shortcomings from the article are so much more obvious and painful when you have an alternative that does it right. I wondered for a long time how Google can have such a bad product, like I literally can't recognize a place I know perfectly on the screen so I need to "search" for it so Google zooms into some indistinctive bland colored area for me. And I've realized that's exactly the point, that's the prime example of enshitification. Tool that works so bad that you think you need it more. I'm so glad for mapy.cz and that statement from the article, that I can choose only Google or Apple maps, is not true for me.
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#187I would add to this article that a major issue with Google Maps has been businesses trying to SEO-pad their business names on Google Maps, to the detriment of readability. This is also against their TOS – the "business name" form is supposed to be their legally registered business name, the one that they probably have signage for. Moderators simply don't enforce this, and with Map Maker basically gone, the community…
> {name of a local chain} - {neighborhood or city name} Wait, what's wrong with this? This is just good practice. It's helpful to be able to, when communicating with someone, unambiguously refer to the exact location, e.g. Westville Chelsea v Westville East v Westville Hudson v Westville Wall Street.
I already know where I’m looking.
And the map TOS state it should be the business name.
I pointed this out as a UX problem, which it is.
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> {name of a local chain} - {neighborhood or city name} Wait, what's wrong with this? This is just good practice. It's helpful to be able to, when communicating with someone, unambiguously refer to the exact location, e.g. Westville Chelsea v Westville East v Westville Hudson v Westville Wall Street.
I already know where I’m looking. And the map TOS state it should be the business name. I pointed this out as a UX problem, which it is.
> I already know where I’m looking.
You do, because you're native to the area. The person you're talking to, possibly not.
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#189You say: > In the perennial battle between mapping services, there are two main competitors: Google Maps and Apple Maps. Sorry but for me there is only one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/ And this is my app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.psyberia.o...
I’m an iPhone user and I’d pay good money for an OSM based app with these features:
- Hard focus on “general mapping” like Google Maps, so not outdoor trails or sailing or…
- Maps are streamed to my device, also when I zoom in to street level - no requirement to download offline maps first
- Search is working and good enough
- Routing is working and good enough
- Big plus if it does turn by turn navigation, or can kick me into Apple/Google Maps turn by turn with the address I found
- Big plus if I can choose from some map styles
Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes the classic dance of “zoom in slightly further, but this time without arbitrarily removing 3/4’s of my search results that I know exist here, and showing me other random locations” Or “good lord just show me the street name please”
I’d like to see a defence of the reason why it’s so often a bit of a job to be able to read the street name… on a map. If only for the laugh I would have.
They have a blog post about it from way back. Essentially the map changes depending on context so you don't need to see store names if you are zooming down the freeway by the side of it, you might see road names if walking and navigating, but not if you have gps in a car, you might see more restaurants if you came to maps from a restaurant search context etc etc