5 ms·

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

by ed312 7y ago

bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
Shits hard yo
- dang 7y ago
  It is, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
s3r3nity 7y ago
It's a super tough problem. Even Google Maps messages you that it's a feature in progress (paraphrasing of course), and they've had years of a head start on this.
- Invictus0 7y ago
  Would you mind elaborating on why this is such a difficult problem?
  - penagwin 7y ago
    I think you ninja'd me, I just made a comment contemplating some of the different challenges of bike navigation.
- penagwin 7y ago
  You know that got me thinking, biking rules vary far more than for cars. Depending on your location, pedestrian traffic, streets, street traffic, etc. It might be best for you to be on the sidewalk. Or maybe you should instead be on the road since the road is only 25mph and there's pedestrians on the sidewalk. Maybe there's a bike lane, maybe there isn't. Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road. Are you allowed to cut through parking lots? Is it a dirt road? Can everyone's bikes handle dirt roads? What if it just rained, cars can still cross a wet dirt road, but I'd rather take a different route if possible on a bike. That's not including the terrain challenges (which google seems to incorporate). I'd far rather take a route that takes an extra 5 minutes and is basically level vs a route that saves time but requires you to go down and uphill. Heck even wind conditions change can change the "optimal route" in some cases.
  - taylorlapeyre 7y ago
    I think you could release a simplified version of biking directions that isn't perfect, but better than nothing: - For a limited number of cities, determine which streets the city lists as having separated bike lanes, painted bike lanes, or city-designated "bike friendly" streets. Mark them on the map appropriately in a different map overlay (or on the transit overlay) - Bicycle directions prioritize those streets. It's not perfect, but this would be enough for me to use the app.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      Painted bike lanes are really unreliable, but otherwise that sounds like a great idea. Most of the painted bike lanes I see in suburban Washington are painted in some of the least safe bike routes. There's a ton of bike lanes that are just painted along major thoroughfares with actual top speeds of 40 or 45 miles per hour. They should really do it by speed limit and presence of features that obstruct car traffic. Streets that are a pain in the ass to drive on are the best streets to bike on. Even some of the Bike Routes in Seattle are on roads that I wouldn't feel safe biking on because traffic typically clocks at 10 or 15 MPH higher than the speed limit around the curves on the route.
  - MayeulC 7y ago
    Well, I'm quite happy with Openstreetmap's directions for biking (I mostly use OSMand, but there are other apps/routers). They have elevation, private/public roads, road surface, bike lanes, etc, and routers can take it into account. Of course, that doesn't really take into account varying laws, but that might be reflected in the maps themselves (private/public places, bikes allowed/disallowed, etc). See also https://www.opencyclemap.org https://www.opencyclemap.org
    - Lio 7y ago
      Openstreermap drives me crazy. They use the designations “town” and “city” as a way of ranking places in terms of importance. Here in the UK that designation is almost arbitrary. There are several large towns with greater population and navigational importance than surrounding smaller cities. All the commercial map providers, including Apple Maps, grok that. Only opensteetmap seems still rigidly to the town < city thing. Would be much better if they could use population instead.
- Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
  There are of course plenty of bike routing sites online, generally based on OpenStreetMap source data. I run cycle.travel (https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map) which offers super-fast bike directions in Europe, North America and Australia/NZ. It has a number of unique features under the hood that I think lift the quality of its routes above other similar sites (but then I would say that). Always happy to entertain offers if Apple want to buy me...
graeme 7y ago
I suspect it may be california-centrism. Bikes are a vital mode in Europe and many other parts of the road. In california car is king, bikes are either recreational or for hardcore commutes. You can see similar assumptions in how Siri is designed. (“Users only speak one language at a time”) or the effectiveness of multilanguage support in autocorrect. Most people outside north america use their own language + english fairly frequently. At least those in apple’s customer demographic.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Or maybe they’re busy rolling this massive update out (they’ve barely completed the US and have yet to finish Europe).
  - robin_reala 7y ago
    Yet to start with Europe.
- klodolph 7y ago
  Sure, there’s plenty of California-centrism, but from where I’m sitting, a multilingual Siri sounds like a massive technical challenge. I also remember how long it took Google to roll out bike directions, and just how awful it was at first, when it was rolling out. Bicycle directions are more challenging than directions for cars, public transit, and walking. I’m just speaking from my own personal experience, here. In every city I’ve lived in, I’ve had to test out different bicycle commuting routes until I found one which I liked. Walking and driving I will just take the fastest route and be done with it. Everyone has different preferences for bicycling for how much elevation climb they can handle, how much traffic they tolerate, etc.
- chapium 7y ago
  Counterpoint: google has bike directions and exists in California.
  - PascLeRasc 7y ago
    Google Maps' icon is also a location pin, while Apple Maps' is a highway. Google also has 21% of its local staff bike to work [1]. Apple's campus is so far that you can't realistically live in SF proper, you mostly have to drive. These kind of different motivations and cultures bleed through to their products. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/this-heat-map-shows-a-fundamental-problem-of-working-at-google-2015-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/this-heat-map-shows-a-fundam...
woahitsraj 7y ago
Because unlike Google, Apple is a California and especially Cupertino centric company so most of their employees have probably never used mapping outside the confines of their car. Transit and walking directions are decent on Apple Maps but still leaps and bounds behind Google Maps. Just shows how forcing all your employees to live and work in the same place is incredibly limiting
- xenadu02 7y ago
  That is not accurate at all. Biking is huge and many employees use public transit all across the Bay Area.

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

by ed312 7y ago

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

bobbylarrybobby 7y ago

Shits hard yo

dang 7y ago
It is, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

s3r3nity 7y ago

It's a super tough problem. Even Google Maps messages you that it's a feature in progress (paraphrasing of course), and they've had years of a head start on this.

Invictus0 7y ago
Would you mind elaborating on why this is such a difficult problem?
- penagwin 7y ago
  I think you ninja'd me, I just made a comment contemplating some of the different challenges of bike navigation.
penagwin 7y ago
You know that got me thinking, biking rules vary far more than for cars. Depending on your location, pedestrian traffic, streets, street traffic, etc. It might be best for you to be on the sidewalk. Or maybe you should instead be on the road since the road is only 25mph and there's pedestrians on the sidewalk. Maybe there's a bike lane, maybe there isn't. Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road. Are you allowed to cut through parking lots? Is it a dirt road? Can everyone's bikes handle dirt roads? What if it just rained, cars can still cross a wet dirt road, but I'd rather take a different route if possible on a bike. That's not including the terrain challenges (which google seems to incorporate). I'd far rather take a route that takes an extra 5 minutes and is basically level vs a route that saves time but requires you to go down and uphill. Heck even wind conditions change can change the "optimal route" in some cases.
- taylorlapeyre 7y ago
  I think you could release a simplified version of biking directions that isn't perfect, but better than nothing: - For a limited number of cities, determine which streets the city lists as having separated bike lanes, painted bike lanes, or city-designated "bike friendly" streets. Mark them on the map appropriately in a different map overlay (or on the transit overlay) - Bicycle directions prioritize those streets. It's not perfect, but this would be enough for me to use the app.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    Painted bike lanes are really unreliable, but otherwise that sounds like a great idea. Most of the painted bike lanes I see in suburban Washington are painted in some of the least safe bike routes. There's a ton of bike lanes that are just painted along major thoroughfares with actual top speeds of 40 or 45 miles per hour. They should really do it by speed limit and presence of features that obstruct car traffic. Streets that are a pain in the ass to drive on are the best streets to bike on. Even some of the Bike Routes in Seattle are on roads that I wouldn't feel safe biking on because traffic typically clocks at 10 or 15 MPH higher than the speed limit around the curves on the route.
- MayeulC 7y ago
  Well, I'm quite happy with Openstreetmap's directions for biking (I mostly use OSMand, but there are other apps/routers). They have elevation, private/public roads, road surface, bike lanes, etc, and routers can take it into account. Of course, that doesn't really take into account varying laws, but that might be reflected in the maps themselves (private/public places, bikes allowed/disallowed, etc). See also https://www.opencyclemap.org https://www.opencyclemap.org
  - Lio 7y ago
    Openstreermap drives me crazy. They use the designations “town” and “city” as a way of ranking places in terms of importance. Here in the UK that designation is almost arbitrary. There are several large towns with greater population and navigational importance than surrounding smaller cities. All the commercial map providers, including Apple Maps, grok that. Only opensteetmap seems still rigidly to the town < city thing. Would be much better if they could use population instead.
Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
There are of course plenty of bike routing sites online, generally based on OpenStreetMap source data. I run cycle.travel (https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map) which offers super-fast bike directions in Europe, North America and Australia/NZ. It has a number of unique features under the hood that I think lift the quality of its routes above other similar sites (but then I would say that). Always happy to entertain offers if Apple want to buy me...

graeme 7y ago

I suspect it may be california-centrism. Bikes are a vital mode in Europe and many other parts of the road. In california car is king, bikes are either recreational or for hardcore commutes. You can see similar assumptions in how Siri is designed. (“Users only speak one language at a time”) or the effectiveness of multilanguage support in autocorrect. Most people outside north america use their own language + english fairly frequently. At least those in apple’s customer demographic.

toasterlovin 7y ago
Or maybe they’re busy rolling this massive update out (they’ve barely completed the US and have yet to finish Europe).
- robin_reala 7y ago
  Yet to start with Europe.
klodolph 7y ago
Sure, there’s plenty of California-centrism, but from where I’m sitting, a multilingual Siri sounds like a massive technical challenge. I also remember how long it took Google to roll out bike directions, and just how awful it was at first, when it was rolling out. Bicycle directions are more challenging than directions for cars, public transit, and walking. I’m just speaking from my own personal experience, here. In every city I’ve lived in, I’ve had to test out different bicycle commuting routes until I found one which I liked. Walking and driving I will just take the fastest route and be done with it. Everyone has different preferences for bicycling for how much elevation climb they can handle, how much traffic they tolerate, etc.
chapium 7y ago
Counterpoint: google has bike directions and exists in California.
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  Google Maps' icon is also a location pin, while Apple Maps' is a highway. Google also has 21% of its local staff bike to work [1]. Apple's campus is so far that you can't realistically live in SF proper, you mostly have to drive. These kind of different motivations and cultures bleed through to their products. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/this-heat-map-shows-a-fundamental-problem-of-working-at-google-2015-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/this-heat-map-shows-a-fundam...

woahitsraj 7y ago

Because unlike Google, Apple is a California and especially Cupertino centric company so most of their employees have probably never used mapping outside the confines of their car. Transit and walking directions are decent on Apple Maps but still leaps and bounds behind Google Maps. Just shows how forcing all your employees to live and work in the same place is incredibly limiting

xenadu02 7y ago
That is not accurate at all. Biking is huge and many employees use public transit all across the Bay Area.