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Cartography Comparison: Google Maps and Apple Maps
- dingo_bat 10y agoI liked the previous article and this one too but the website layout is just annoying. 50% width of the page is blank.
- nandhp 10y agoAnd the images are too small.
- snopesbuffert 10y agoClick on them and they will get bigger.
- CamperBob2 10y agoCan't say that helps much. http://i.imgur.com/CI33nx3.jpg http://i.imgur.com/CI33nx3.jpg
- CamperBob2 10y agoAgreed. Call it prejudice -- which it is -- but I'm having trouble believing that someone who would lay out a page like this: http://i.imgur.com/9kBV5o5.png http://i.imgur.com/9kBV5o5.png ... is going to have anything insightful to say about a mapping application. Yes, I get it. It's hard to make use of a display with a large number of pixels, especially when no two displays seem to have the same size and scale. But you know what? That's something you have to deal with in this business. You don't get to punt by removing or hiding every bit of information possible, or by presenting your thoughts an awkward single-column format inspired by some study or another that was conducted back in the newspaper era.
- rspeer 10y agoAnd I'd be fine with that width for text -- short lines are easier to read, up to a point -- but when the article is about images, really, let me use a reasonable amount of my screen to see the images. I know you can zoom by clicking on the image. That zoom is barely acceptable. That should have been the size of the image in the article, and clicking on them should zoom more and let me scroll.
- gumby 10y agopersonally I like that I can just read the text and not have other random crud wasting my time and attention. It was trivial to increase the text size so that the text took the right amount of space for me.
- sangnoir 10y ago> And both are in a race to become the world’s first Universal Map — that is, the first map used by a majority of the global population First I've heard someone say that about any Apple product.
- pkaye 10y agoIt will be difficult for Apple to do this unless they can get their maps software on Android or make the iPhone more affordable everywhere (compared to the Android)
- qqg3 10y agoImportant to point out this guy used to work for Apple on the maps product. So he may be a little biased.
- chocochoco 10y agoI looked him up also. He spoke at Google IO a few years ago. I can't tell if he worked at Google, but he also wrote some posts on their Geo Dev blog. So he could biased toward Google too. Anyway, I read the post twice (it was good) and had trouble even finding bias. It reads more like a lab report than an opinion piece and he had criticisms of both maps. Kinda can't believe he even worked on apple maps. The post was surprisingly fair.
- distances 10y agoApple Maps is only available for Apple products, right? The claim in the article that it could become some kind of a universal map seems simply ridiculous. I've never seen anyone use it, I've never heard a good word about it. Here Maps, Bing Maps, and OpenStreetMap all seem to have a larger following. Then again, I've been wrong countless times before.
- moogleii 10y agoI've seen people use it, and I've heard good things about it. Never seen anyone use bing maps, or say anything good about it. Having said that, I agree: there's no way in hell Apple Maps could ever become a universal map.
- rz2k 10y agoI think Bing's maps are the best for looking at multiple countries in a region, since it seems to better at choosing which detail to drop or keep, and it does a better job stitching photography so that the imagery isn't as obviously from different days or years. The "bird's eye" view is also good for getting an overview of a town you are visiting. I've never used it for directions, but I don't know it's bad for that purpose either.
- nfriedly 10y agoBing maps sometimes has better satelite views than google, so that's something. (I think its actually aerial photos rather than satellites for some areas.)
- gumby 10y agoI was not aware there was a bing maps. (not a troll, just a random data point). I agree that apple's effort in developing maps has to scale over a smaller user base than google's efforts, which doesn't encourage the same level of investment. Plus apple doesn't appear to be able/willing to monetize their user's usage the way Google can/does which also increases google's incentive to do a good job. Honestly, I really like and use many Apple products but I don't really understand their long term play.
- CephalopodMD 10y agoIsn't it fallacious to count users of both types of maps since they're installed by default on each of the two tech giants' OS?
- zuppy 10y agoApple maps is beyond awful where I live (Romania), it's not even worth mentioning it as an option. The problem is not only with the maps, but also with the points of interest.
- berntb 10y ago<Cough> Google Maps risked my life a few years back, in Transylvania. (Going to Cluj from the south west of the mountains; that "road" was more a cattle lane unsuitable for bicycles, much less cars). I assume/hope it is better now.
- chocochoco 10y agoI'm in Chile. It totally blows here too.
- statictype 10y agoApple Maps is useless in India and South Asia in general. It was useless on Day 1 and is pretty much just as useless today. Google Maps on the other hand, not only has turn-by-turn directions, but has even customized it to give directions the way they do it locally (using buildings and landmarks instead of streets where applicable). If Apple Maps wants to become a Universal Map platform, they have a very long way to go. I don't see it in their DNA to make these types of platforms.
- yalogin 10y agoOf course they started at least 10 years after Google.
- statictype 10y agoGoogle had to wait for the tech to catch up. Apple didn't have to. Apple is the world's richest company - ´ if they really wanted to make maps work everywhere they could have. Its simply not a priority for them (which is fine).
- bane 10y agoIf I had to tl;dr my conclusions from this post it's this, Google is better at showing you how to navigate, Apple is better at showing you places worth going to. Really great analysis. I wish it was a bit more succinct, but there's a lot of great information here. One thing that's not clear in each comparison is "which is better?" The analysis seems to be indicating that the answer is "more", but I'm not entirely convinced that's correct in all cases.
- chocochoco 10y ago"The analysis seems to be indicating that the answer is "more"," That wasn't my read at all. What made you think that?
- sandworm101 10y agoTo simplify: I'd say Google is for drivers, while Apple is for people being driven. Apple is much more informative, but only where you have the time/energy to focus on the map, such as someone in the back of a taxi wanting to find some tiny location. Google is much easier to read at a glance, ie by someone actually doing something other then using the phone and needing the info to inform that task minute by minute.
- matt4077 10y agoThere are uses for maps that that don't even involve cars at all! I know I've spend a fair amount of time just browsing around.
- weird_css 10y agoI love this website. Very clear.
- Criticism123 10y agoApple Maps is great because 1. the sign it shows actually matches the sign on the roads 2 UI is clean and clutter free 3. Takes less battery life 4. uses lock screen properly unlike gmaps 5. Better voice Google Maps on the other hand is just a buggy app and a battery hog. However there're few things Google Maps does better 1. Which lane to use 2. Suggest new route mid route for faster speed For me (in US) routes are exactly the same all the time.
- pkulak 10y agoSounds like you're using Google Maps on iOS? Shouldn't you then use Apple Maps on Android for a more fair comparison?
- Criticism123 10y agoI've never used Android. I'm providing my personal experience of these two tools on the platform I have.
- babayega2 10y agoAlso you're referring to Western world. In Africa and other less known countries Apple Map is inefficient.
- Criticism123 10y agoLet's be honest here, all the apps are pretty much written for the Western world. The amount of revenue software products make from the non-western world is less than 5% of the total revenue.
- Spooky23 10y agoMy main use case for directions is inter-city travel in the US with an iOS device. From a mapping capability standpoint, the two products are equals at the intercity level. (Google local directions are better at finding places) But... Google is seemingly committed to making the maps app more obtuse to use as time goes on. So I find myself using Apple as my map app with Waze as a backup.
- IkmoIkmo 10y agoGod, if there was ever a need for use of an appendix on the internet, this article would be it. Really didn't need to see 90% of the images. The article was so verbose, too, taking ten pages to conclude a simple arithmetic count of cities and road shields. Didn't help that on my screen the content/white distribution was literally 30/70, like I'm running a mobile phone simulator on my laptop spent a minute in the CSS to change it. Anyway this was a great first pass, although it feels to me like the least interesting. Why? Because maps start to really make or break as a utility tool, once you introduce some kind of goal, which has some level of interaction, configuration and changes to the map. For example, search (say by voice) for Starbucks and everything pops up. The notion that Starbucks didn't show on the default map view at the default zoom, is pretty meaningless. Or pick a location and then press 'navigate', and relevant roads and shields pop up. The notion immediately prior to this interaction all roads and shields they weren't sprinkled all across the map in all directions, isn't really important. But none of that functionality was examined, which is THE driving force between differences in maps for actual human beings with actual human being purposes. Anyway I'm sure it'll get covered in the future, but I felt it to be a surprisingly weak article. Let's not forget this isn't just some random guy writing an essay, this is one of the leads of the Apple Maps cartography for almost half a decade. I think one thing went missing too in the focus on two of the biggest anglo-saxan cities in the world and the backyard of Apple/Google, which is that the world's population doesn't live there, and that Apple sucks and Google functions in less Western areas. Just read this thread and you'll find lots of anecdotal evidence.
- chocochoco 10y agoironic that this comment needs an appendix