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Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat

#421

Post by kogepathic »

oakesm9 wrote: post #400
kogepathic wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Google Maps offline functionality include POIs? The last time I tried/was allowed to save Google Maps offline (it's not available in all regions) you could not navigate or search for POIs while offline. Here allows both navigation and POI search using an offline map. This is incredibly useful if you are in a country without service or where roaming data is very expensive.

They added offline support for POIs last year I think. Offline navigation works too, but it's not always as good as it lacks traffic data.

> They added offline support for POIs last year I think. Offline navigation works too, but it's not always as good as it lacks traffic data.

Must be only in certain regions. I went on a road trip in Western Europe this summer and the offline maps did not contain POIs an offline Navigation was not possible.

Actually, Navigation itself was impossible as the app crashed every minute on my Android 7 phone.

Meanwhile HERE Maps worked just fine offline and didn't crash my phone.

Last year I was travelling in Japan and Google Maps refused to let me download the maps to use offline. I installed OSM and downloaded the maps and it worked perfectly again. I was very surprised at the quality of OSM in Japan, it was fantastic! Even showing walking paths through temples.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#422

Post by pronik »

aluhut wrote: post #292
sytelus wrote: post #142

Many people don't realize why Google maps are so much better than anything out there. I would actually give lot of credit to Marissa Mayer who suddenly became in charge of maps from otherwise more higher position. Thanks to her influence in Google SLT and ability to make impressive arguments, she was able to make a case for maps as core pillar in Google's offering and consequently obtain huge investment and large tal…

No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci. https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci

You are right when it comes to streets and bicycle lanes and such. When talking about usability, display quality and search, not so much. I realize the value lies in the data, but for the casual map user there is a long way for OSM to go.

Besides, I don't see any reason why Google can't add OpenStreetMap as an additional data source in some or all areas (right in the spirit of the article). It will be interesting to see how the usage and development of OSM changes if that really happens.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#423

Post by therobotking »

nicolapede wrote: post #380
aluhut wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci. https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci

Wow, thanks a lot for sharing. It looks wonderful. One thing that I am wondering is: as much reluctant as I am in using Google services, I must admit that Google Map is unbeaten -- in my own experience -- in finding the quickest route in traffic. Is there any alternative service for this purpose?

They now owned by Google but I find Waze to consistently provide better and faster routing (by car) than Google Maps when I use them both on my Android phone.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#424

Post by Freak_NL »

ikurei wrote: post #411
Freak_NL wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, if OpenStreetMap is lacking in your local area, help out! OpenStreetMap thrives when local mappers are involved. Compare this section of a Dutch city: Google: https://www.google.nl/maps/@53.1983621,5.767509,16z?hl=nl OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/53.1986/5.7679 Apple: (I guess Apple maps can't be linked to on the web?) It also helps a lot if your government can be persuaded to open up their…

Notice that although it looks like Google doesn't have buildings in those links, they do. You just have to zoom in a bit for them to appear.

True. The outlines Google has are very inaccurate though (mostly just rough rectangles), and includes buildings razed years ago.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#425

Post by dagw »

mhaymo wrote: post #281
kbart wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google maps are so much better than anything out there." I'd take Nokia's Here anytime instead of Google Maps (offline maps alone are worth it). Also, I honestly don't understand a logic behind crediting something as complex to a single person ("a hero") -- "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects, I'm sure they would have been fi…

The Google Maps app on Android has offline maps.

Everywhere? I know at least in the past I've gotten "this region isn't available for offline viewing" for seemingly arbitrary parts of the world

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#426

Post by majewsky »

Ygg2 wrote: post #416
aluhut wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci. https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci

I've seen lot of data on OpenStreetMaps that is: A) Wrong/Outdated/Missing B) Just plain Vandalism

What are you looking at? I've never encountered vandalism in nearly 10 years of heavy OSM usage (and some light editing).

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#427

Post by dagw »

kogepathic wrote: post #302
mhaymo wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google Maps app on Android has offline maps.

Does Google Maps offline functionality include POIs? The last time I tried/was allowed to save Google Maps offline (it's not available in all regions) you could not navigate or search for POIs while offline. Here allows both navigation and POI search using an offline map. This is incredibly useful if you are in a country without service or where roaming data is very expensive.

Unfortunately POI search (even online) on Here sucks in my experience. Maybe 20-25% of the places I'm actually looking for are there. While with Google it's basically 100%. More often than not I find I have to use Google to find the address of the place I'm going before Here can navigate to it.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#428

Post by gambiting »

walshemj wrote: post #397
gambiting wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For navigation, Google Maps are just very poor, at least here in UK. Maybe it's better in the US, but here it frequently navigates over streets that are not connected at all, wrong way on one way streets, doesn't know about closed roads(even if said roads were closed for almost two years now), a lot of businesses are just wrong, I don't know if they were placed there maliciously or by some automated process. The only…

Google cant be blamed if companies mess up their LLM Local Listings Management or hide their store locations on their websites. This is why companies like DAC Yext etc exist

I don't blame google, I'm just saying that Google Maps is an inferior product(And yes, the counter argument here is that it's free).

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#429

Post by Grue3 »

sytelus wrote: post #142

Many people don't realize why Google maps are so much better than anything out there. I would actually give lot of credit to Marissa Mayer who suddenly became in charge of maps from otherwise more higher position. Thanks to her influence in Google SLT and ability to make impressive arguments, she was able to make a case for maps as core pillar in Google's offering and consequently obtain huge investment and large tal…

In Russia, Yandex Maps [1] and 2GIS [2] are superior to Google Maps. Particularly the latter, since they actually employ humans to collect information about businesses so they always have accurate business hours and locations (it only works in select cities though).

[1] http://maps.yandex.ru [2] https://2gis.ru/moscow

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#430

Post by upofadown »

> In downtown Los Angeles, Google’s buildings are so detailed that you can sometimes see the blades inside the rooftop fans.

Doesn't that mean that in that case we are just seeing image processing with no real meaning? I am not sure how this represents the first step in the creation of data from data. If we just want to see the buildings we can switch to "satellite" view.

Contrast this with something like Open Street Map where you end up with an explicit description of the area that a building covers with no extraneous detail.

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