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Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

joemorrison.substack.com

11–20 of 442 posts

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#11
post #6

Anecdotally, a potential counterpoint: https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat And the discussion that came with it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965653

It should be noted that this article is from 2017.

I highly recommend checking out Justin’s blog for more of his posts, the most recent being in December 2020.

He’s a passionate cartographer, and has been posting about maps since 2010, 2017 being his rise to popularity not withstanding.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#12

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.

imo for the 95%-task of get-me-to-this-address i find the apple routing actually superior to gmaps (in germany that is)

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#13

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.

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…

Can't speak about Eastern Europe, but here in the Netherlands the public transport with Google Maps is really good. Including live-timing as to when your tram will arrive.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#14
post #8

This is a familiar refrain I've recently begun to hear about many of Google's products and I'm starting to see the point. Technology has evolved significantly in the last ten years. It is now significantly easier to build a search engine with its own index and crawl the entirety of the Internet than it was ten years ago. Maps too, will go that way soon. It took IBM and Intel, who were regarded the same way Google is…

> It is now significantly easier to build a search engine with its own index and crawl the entirety of the Internet than it was ten years ago.

ReCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, CloudFlare definitely don't make it easier to crawl the web than it was ten years ago

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#15
post #9

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.

In Easter Europe even Google Maps are much worse that OpenStreetMaps.

Here maps is good too. I'm always amazed how it consistently gets the speed limit right even in sparsely populated areas and small towns, where the speed limit often changes literally every 50 meters.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#16
post #9

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.

In Easter Europe even Google Maps are much worse that OpenStreetMaps.

I'm not sure "much worse", maybe worse, but yet comparable and still useful. Apple Maps, on the other hand... sheesh.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#17
post #12

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.

imo for the 95%-task of get-me-to-this-address i find the apple routing actually superior to gmaps (in germany that is)

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.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#18
I 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 and give you many options based on cost or time or preference for one transport type (e.g. preferring tubes versus buses). Citymapper also gives multi-modal directions: e.g. walking PLUS take an Uber. Or walking, tube, then a cab. Not only this, but it ALSO tells you where you should sit on a train so you have the least walk when you exit the train.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#19

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.

> ...it'll take decades ...

I'm very literal.

Google maps was released in 2005. The upper limit on how long it would take Apple to build the whole thing from literally nothing is 15 years, if they are investing to improve their service.

Let alone with computer vision, satellite imagery, hardware improvements and the ability to lazily copy the interface Google has created which would speed the process up.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#20

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 a large green blob instead of the terrain with contour lines with altitude markings, all trails and roads and POI. Yes, Mapy.cz can't compete with car navigation, but everything else is miles better (and navigation on foot is better too).
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