Hi everyone! Less than happy to read this news, as my husband and I have been working on a similar solution for some time now. We've created an app https://maplog.it/ which allows you to create different lists, share them with others and give you better recommendations for places to go out. We are currently working on an iOS and Android apps. Do you think it makes any sense to continue or should we just drop the idea? Would love to hear what you think!
Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
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Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#62> “Today, our users aren’t just asking for the fastest route to a place but also what’s happening around them, what the new places are and what the locals are doing in their neighborhood,” Google VP for engineering and product management Jen Fitzpatrick noted in today’s keynote. Are users really asking for this? I only ever use Google Maps for driving directions. I like that I can type the name of a place and it find…
All the responses are talking about finding places to eat but I think Google still has a little ways to go in their recommendation / AI engine that they keep toting out in marketing events.
Take for instance my silly effort to get the assistant to help me out while I was driving on the highway a few weeks ago and had an emergency suddenly crawl up on me: https://imgur.com/v2Y1hsC
I didn't really expect that to work, but it would've been nice if it could've pulled up the closest business with a public washroom... I know Google maps is always asking me questions on that type of stuff.
Or the time where I hit the road towards a blizzard last winter and I asked Google to tell me what the highway conditions were like and I got some search recommendation for road conditions in a different country.
Maybe improvements to "recommendations" in general can solve these other problems that I figure are very navigation-centric in nature.
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 reasons. 1) they’ve only acknowledged doing this on iPhone 6 and later. 2) it’s slow as shit on my brand spanking new iPhone X as well. A slower phone def doesn’t help, but it’s not the primary issue here.
Whoa, really? I noticed Google Maps being slow as shit on my Galaxy S5 and thought it was just because it was an old phone. I guess getting a new phone isn't going to help then? (I've been meaning to upgrade to a new er phone, maybe an LG V10 or V20, soon for several reasons; the S5 has been great but it's now 4 years old. But I guess Google Maps being slow isn't a valid reason any more.)
It’s fast on my iPhone X. There’s probably other factors in play
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#64> "Google will soon launch a new version of Google Maps that will give you more personalized recommendations" I've used enough of Google's products by now to know that the word "better" in this title is probably inaccurate. :)
I'm looking forward to the momentum this will give OpenStreetMap through the sheer annoyance at Google.
But I sure wish Google would stop trying to read my mind and just do what I tell it to. Guess the descent is inevitable, since we're the commodity we have to fight with the service, explicitly or implicitly. But oh how I yearn for the days of old when they pretended to be nice.
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#65Two things: 1) I generally don't want to do what everyone else in a given area is doing. I prefer the off-the-beaten-path stuff. Will Google know this? 2) Will Google monetize the inclusion in the "local hot spot tonight" recommendations?
Yes. The kind of recommendations I want are things like: "Go for a walk in this park you've never been to. There are benches to read on." and "Go for a bike ride on this route. You'll see parts of the city you'd normally never see."
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 reasons. 1) they’ve only acknowledged doing this on iPhone 6 and later. 2) it’s slow as shit on my brand spanking new iPhone X as well. A slower phone def doesn’t help, but it’s not the primary issue here.
Whoa, really? I noticed Google Maps being slow as shit on my Galaxy S5 and thought it was just because it was an old phone. I guess getting a new phone isn't going to help then? (I've been meaning to upgrade to a new er phone, maybe an LG V10 or V20, soon for several reasons; the S5 has been great but it's now 4 years old. But I guess Google Maps being slow isn't a valid reason any more.)
It's really strange to me, that Apple Maps is so smooth in comparison to iOS Google Maps. (Whether or not it is helpful is another question that I'm disregarding here.)
In a technical sense, both apps are displaying all the same kinds of things: satellite tiles, scalable road vectors, rotated outlined text for street names, 3D buildings if you like, etc. But Google Maps is dog-slow compared to Apple Maps at doing it.
Is efficient painting logic for a maps app on mobile a genuinely-hard problem that Apple Maps is being really clever at solving? Or is it an easy problem that Google Maps is being really stupid at solving?
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Maybe it's because I'm using an iPhone 5S It's not.
I don't know. Just tried it on my OG Pixel. Maps loaded in about a second, and the search field activated instantly when I tapped it. So... maybe it is? Or maybe the Maps app on iOS is just slow?
On my Pixel 2, and the 1 before it, the Maps UI is sometimes weirdly jerky. Purely anecdotally, it feels like there is some blocking network IO on the main thread.
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#68Largely via Android Auto, I've had mixed experiences with Google Maps recommendations in the past.
What I really want it to do is look at my calendar, and if I have something scheduled soon with a location attached, suggest providing navigation to that. This has worked sometimes, but it's completely not reliable as it sometimes simply doesn't do it.
What I really don't want it to do is blindly suggest navigating to locations I've previously been to. The last couple times I went to the dentist (something I do approximately twice a year) it's asked if I want to navigate there every day for the following week.
The only thing I've found (mostly) reliable about it is if I get in my car at the end of the day, the navigation suggestion is 'home', and in the morning, it's 'work'.
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#69Hi everyone! Less than happy to read this news, as my husband and I have been working on a similar solution for some time now. We've created an app https://maplog.it/ which allows you to create different lists, share them with others and give you better recommendations for places to go out. We are currently working on an iOS and Android apps. Do you think it makes any sense to continue or should we just drop the idea…
Hey magdadc,
I founded a company competing with Google Maps on another level (map tiles & other geoservices), and I think it's super important to have competition in the mapping space (just look at how much it costs if you want to use Google's data anywhere!).
Your site looks super polished. Keep up the good work!
One thing I don't particularly like is having to sign in to see a map of things nearby. I'd love a main view that shows me just the map with interesting places marked as pins. (E.g., "Places Near Me" takes me to a signup page, which immediately turns me off.)
Best of luck!
Re: Google Maps will soon give you better recommendations
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think asking locals can be one solution. If not, check out a blog of the city you are visiting, they might publish new places there.
I get a local newspaper that shows restaurant openings and closings; it seems like a much better fit for that kind of information than something global like google maps. Google maps should be answering two questions: Where is it, and how do I get there. "What's cool and new in my city" seems like a feature that's being shoehorned on because it's a possible revenue channel. >asking locals I like that for hippie reason…
If you have access to a local who's tastes (and temperament and budget) are calibrated to your own, it's a good strategy. If you are in a place for a while and want the most out of it, researching on blogs etc is absolutely the right thing to do. But if you are passing by and looking for a place to have lunch, that's not feasible. Heck, even finding a local who routinely eats out in the local area (in a great many places, people will eat at home most of the time) can be a challenge - in touristic areas, the great majority of people will be other tourists or trying to sell you something. Google Maps, on the other hand, can instantly tell you if the brasserie on the main square is a tourist trap or decent, or if there is a small independent café with great salads on a side street five minutes from you. That's the problem Google Maps is solving.