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I’m curious - does anyone reading this agree with the notion that Apple maps is becoming comparable to Google maps? I haven’t given it a fair shot in almost a

I’m curious - does anyone reading this agree with the notion that Apple maps is becoming comparable to Google maps? I haven’t given it a fair shot in almost a decade I guess, and it was almost unusable then. Does anyone here use it as a daily driver? What are the strong and weak points?

moogleii 5y ago
I greatly prefer the UX of Apple Maps for navigation, but the search is still bad compared to Google Maps. The verbal directions and UI are clearer IMO. Both have been equally bad at keeping directions up to date, though, but I live in a relatively mutable city. If I were living in the burbs, I would probably stick with Apple Maps.
vikingcaffiene 5y ago
I made the switch back to Apple Maps a while back. It’s great. I’m not sure what specific features you want to know about.
zepto 5y ago
I agree with the notion. It was pretty terrible for the first 3 years. A second place contender for a few years after that, but for the last few years it has been clearly as good. I am not going to enumerate strong and weak points. It’s a matter of taste at this point. Just try it again.
olivertaylor 5y ago
I almost entirely use Apple Maps. I live in a large city so the data is very accurate. And I only really use it for driving, so I can't compare transit, hiking trails, etc. When I travel to less populated parts of the country Google Maps is far more accurate and complete. That's the only difference I've noticed.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Google Maps is pretty good for transit and pretty bad for hiking trails. Can't speak to Apple Maps. While imperfect, OpenStreetMaps is fairly reliable for hiking trails, including unofficial ones, in populated areas of the US at any rate.
  - chalst 5y ago
    Exactly the same experience in Germany. I use Google Maps for driving directions and OSM for everything else. I recently had GM tell me to go the wrong way up a one-way street; OSM knew better.
toyg 5y ago
I used it occasionally, at one point it was better than GMaps when data connection was spotty. But sooner or later I'd always go back, because directions-related features always felt better in the Google world. This is in Northern England though. In the Big Smoke it might be different.
hellisothers 5y ago
Apple Maps has a different tracking/lag time on your location compared to Google Maps such that every time I try to switch I start missing (a lot of) turns while driving. Maybe it’s time to just get used to the different cursor…
- tppiotrowski 5y ago
  This happens to me too. It's like the turn is very far away and next thing you know you passed it. Apple needs to improve this.
brnt 5y ago
Wherever I've been (I hike a lot), I find that OSM is superior to both.
- tppiotrowski 5y ago
  I agree. Organic Maps also has climbing/mountaineering routes that are completely hidden on Google/Apple maps. My friends download GPX files prior to going out, I just open up OSM. :)
brundolf 5y ago
I've been exclusively using Apple Maps for 3 years, never looked back. Spending most of my time in urban-ish areas, it'll not know about some destination maybe once a year. The UX for live directions is great; it'll give you little details like "go past this stop sign and turn at the one right after it" which are really nice. The UI is generally less crowded too.
voisin 5y ago
I use Apple Maps as my primary GPS in my vehicle. I have spent the last few years on the road driving across North America and Google Maps repeatedly made objectively incorrect decisions in rural areas that would take me in quasi-off road situations. After I got frustrated being led astray I started comparing routes on both and found that it seems to be a logic issue for Google Maps, where it would save 5 km of distance and not recognize the unpaved backroads with tons of twists and turns would add significant time. Apple Maps somehow did recognize this. I only kept Google Maps installed for info on things along a route or opening hours but since then I’ve deleted it and just use Duck Duck Go to do searches, combined with Apple Maps for GPS. Edit: one more thing: in the city I am from there has been a lot of development. Google is missing a ton of roads in near areas where Apple Maps is not.
- dilly_li 5y ago
  I think that's probably because Apple doesn't even know that backroads existed so Apple Maps couldn't optimize the route. If Apple Maps had knew those backroards, they would probably output the same routes! :-D
  - voisin 5y ago
    I thought that might be the case but when I zoom in I can see the back roads in Apple Maps. I am pretty sure it is a algorithm issue. Google doesn’t have enough data about how slow those back roads are and maybe relies on that data more than Apple does.
- heliodor 5y ago
  The bad choices in rural areas for Google Maps seems to be a recent thing. My guess is that it's a result of a new approach of combining computer vision of satellite imagery with phone location data from ranchers driving on their private dirt roads.
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    Google Maps took me down all sorts of goofy unpacked backroads in Crete this past month. It’d cut the driving distance in half and double the driving time. Although my Fiat Panda rental did surprisingly well on uneven, unpaved roads.
dwighttk 5y ago
I use Apple Maps when I use maps and haven’t had any issue. However I generally don’t use any turn by turn instructions until I’m close to a place I haven’t been before. Haven’t used Google maps since my very first smartphone (probably late 2011) kept trying to send me the wrong way down one way streets in Atlanta.
h0l0cube 5y ago
It's mostly fine. But I can't trust it to be up-to-date for business locations and opening hours. Some places (even high-traffic places like McDonalds) are missing, some closed places haven't been removed after months (years?), and opening hours are just as broken. I'll always double check with a Google search. It's been fine for public transport and driving navigation.
- brundolf 5y ago
  I've had the occasional issue with location metadata but it's pretty rare in my experience
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  Business information in Apple Maps -- at least in the US -- comes from Yelp. I haven't really had the experiences you're describing, but I live in northern California, where Yelp seems to be pretty up-to-date most of the time. (With a caveat that it's been worse in 2020, but I suppose that's not unexpected for a crowdsourced directory during a year most of the crowd wasn't going out.)
  - pfranz 5y ago
    I don't know if that's entirely true. I wouldn't say I lean on business hours in the app often, but things have gotten weird with Covid. In the last month I found a bunch of hours wrong in both Yelp and Apple Maps--they each had different wrong hours listed. Maybe Apple pulls from Yelp monthly or quarterly? Maybe Apple populated their own database years ago and maintain it separately? Whatever the method they each have their own way for users to report incorrect hours.
    - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
      That is interesting! I haven't noticed discrepancies between Yelp and Apple Maps before, but now I feel like I'm going to have to start checking more closely. My assumption -- which now seems shakier -- is that if you reported an issue through Apple Maps, it basically got forwarded to Yelp.
illuminati1911 5y ago
I use Apple Maps in Shanghai. It's very fast, accurate and shows bicycle/scooter lanes, indoor maps for malls etc. very well. Google Maps even with VPN (to bypass the censorship) is nearly unusable here by modern map software standards.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  It's not a fair comparison in China, where Apple has decided to provide the Chinese govt with data so they can operate and Google has refused to.
  - voisin 5y ago
    Source? Genuinely surprised to hear Google had the superior privacy policy.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Well, Google doesn't operate services in China so is not giving data to China. If you look carefully in the TOS for your Apple products, you'll see that iCloud data (including like messages) are operated by Apple with the exception of China, where they are operated by a third-party contractor who does the dirty work of complying with Chinese government speech laws/police requests. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...
      - voisin 5y ago
        Interesting. I didn't realize Google did not operate any services in China. I thought the Chinese government filtered certain services that they didn't have the ability to censor.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        Well, for instance, there is no Google.cn, there is only Google Hong Kong. Google Maps will still give you very basic maps in China, but at least in both Beijing and Shanghai the maps are unusable unfortunately. You're correct that they are blocked by China. The reason they are blocked is because they haven't built a censored version of their search and don't provide China with data from emails, etc. - this is in contrast with Apple's approach. I don't know where it falls on censorship, since Apple isn't in the search business, but my guess is you would notice differences in Siri's behavior (for instance).
ribit 5y ago
Apple Maps is quite good if you use it one of the major US cities… but it’s still weak in most other places. As a European customer, Google maps have more up to date information, better traffic data, public construction information etc.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  I’m in Europe and use both depending on what I need. If you don’t know where you want to go yet, or you need data about a business, Google is better. For the rest I prefer Apple’s UX.
acdha 5y ago
Yes. I stopped using Google Maps years ago because Apple’s estimates are far more accurate and less stressful (mostly DC-Boston corridor). Google would suggest routes which were allegedly faster but that was based on assuming no traffic anywhere so things like unprotected left turns across major roads would be a net time savings. Actual arrival times tended to be about the same as Apple’s original estimates when, say, it turned out that I-95 really did have traffic at the same places it always does.
- zerocrates 5y ago
  Huh. I know for sure here (DC metro area) Google's navigation definitely takes traffic into account both for time estimates and routing. It'd be pretty useless otherwise: traffic is pretty much the major component of travel time for many/most trips.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    I haven't used Google Maps in a while, but I remember joking that it gave time estimates as if everyone was driving Ferraris: they always seemed to be extremely optimistic. The OP's comment about Google's directions often giving you things like unprotected left turns across major roads matches my experience with Waze, so I wonder if Google is pulling in more data/algorithms from them now. I know lots of people love (loved?) Waze and I used to be one of them, but I eventually just couldn't handle how almost every ride with Waze had become the algorithmic equivalent of your crazy uncle saying "I know a shortcut. Trust me."
  - acdha 5y ago
    It seemed to take current conditions into account - route around areas that are already bad but it didn’t seem to account for typical volume at the time you’ll likely be somewhere. We used to get these routes showing normal speeds all the way through NYC, even though it was obvious that conditions would be different by the time we go there. I’d hope they’ve improved it since then. I mostly stopped using it because I’d get tons of unprotected left turns on major roads or zig-zag routes through neighborhoods and it just wasn’t worth having to deal with that to save a minute.
stevehawk 5y ago
I consider Apple maps to be trash most everywhere I use it, which is the American midwest. Last time i searched for "lawnmower repair" in my area it netted one result. I believe there's more than a dozen within ten minutes of me though. I normally have to look something up in Google Maps (where i keep location services disabled), then copy and paste the address into Apple Maps for Carplay. The other day when watching a Silicon Valley rerun I couldn't help but laugh because they said "is it Apple maps bad?" and i thought "THAT JOKE HASN'T AGED BECAUSE IT'S STILL TERRIBLE."
- boopmaster 5y ago
  On the flipside Google maps gives me all kinds of local business number to services that either do not exist or are definitely not local. Pairs nicely with street view images of destructed empty space overgrown with brush.
konart 5y ago
Depends on your location. Apple maps is almost unusable here in Russia. Then again - even Google Maps have hard time competing with Yandex and 2Gis
fossuser 5y ago
I’ve been using Apple Maps exclusively for the last couple of years. I find it to be better, but there’s a major caveat that I primarily use it in the Bay Area. Outside the bay it’s worked for me too, but it’s just rare that I test it in that way (where failures are a lot more likely). UI is much nicer and app performance feels way faster too.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Same here, been using it for a few years in the Bay Area. The main reason I prefer Apple Maps is that the user interface is vastly better, especially in a car with CarPlay. I’ve used it on long road trips in the US as well, but I will often do a route sanity check against Google Maps in areas I’m very unfamiliar with.
  - beagle3 5y ago
    I only drive in rather large cities, and find that Waze >> Apple >> Google from a usability perspective; Waze and Google Maps supposedly Use the same backend these days, but somehow both UI and navigation in Waze seems to work better. I really really like OSM through Organic Maps (previously through maps.me) but it has no congestion data, so mostly useless for driving during business hours.
bengale 5y ago
I use it as my primary GPS now and I live in south of the UK.
dan-robertson 5y ago
One thing that really winds me up is that the colour scheme in google maps is ‘wrong’ in the sense that it does not match existing local maps. Apple maps have put a lot of effort into making the colour scheme and labels match existing maps. At least where I live in the uk. Motorways show up in blue with white-on-blue-rounded-rectangle labels (matching road signs) with A-roads in green. Junction numbers show up as white-in-black-rounded-rectangle like on road signs. On google maps, the motorways and A-roads are yellow. Motorways get blue labels but it’s the wrong shade and shape. A-road labels are slightly better. A failure of apple maps is that they don’t show junction numbers on the regular maps while google does. But their maps mostly look like the road atlases I remember. If I look at public transport, apple have made a much better attempt to match the look of underground maps in London (failure example: the map doesn’t make it obvious that the jubilee line stops at green park.) Google maps don’t get such good results though they try to match colours of lines. Google maps don’t have national rail but apple do. If I look at New York, apple have tried to capture the different style of their metro network (also their American road labels look like the road signs and this seems less the case for google but I don’t know so much about US road signs.) The feature I really wish for, especially in car play, is plan views of road junctions like roundabouts or weird intersections. Neither maps app does this.
adrr 5y ago
How do you use Apple Maps in rural areas? The lack of an offline mode makes it impossible to use without internet. Google maps I can download the area.
theshrike79 5y ago
I prefer the driving and lane instructions on Apple Maps. With a few notable exceptions it has gotten me where I'm going every time. The few exceptions are places near me where the address is a bit wonky on Apple Maps and the driving instructions are either completely bonkers (routes around a house through a parking lot instead of directly) or off by one street. The address is correct, but the access road doesn't have a name, so it gets confused.
hackmiester 5y ago
Spoken directions in Apple Maps are unmatched. "Go past this stop sign, then at the light, turn right on X Avenue" - it's exactly how you would expect human directions. Google Maps is absolutely worst in class, behind all competitors I have ever used, in spoken directions. Here is a very common Google Maps direction from where I live: "In 300 feet, keep left toward Alabama 231 South / Alabama 431 South / Memorial Parkway Southwest, then keep left onto Memorial Parkway Southwest." By the time Google Maps finishes reading this direction, it's taken so long that you will actually miss the next step in the directions. Google Maps doesn't interrupt itself in this situation, and it is often extremely long winded. Even when you start directions on Google Maps, you get a mostly pointless, long-winded direction. "Head east on Pratt Avenue Northeast." And if you start by traveling perpendicular to that direction, you'll often get, "Head east on -- Head east on -- Head east on -- Head east on --", repeating every time you pass an intersection, until you finally comply by heading east. Good luck if you don't know which direction is east. Speaking of this nightmare scenario, Google Maps will also get stuck rapidly talking over itself if you accidentally select walking directions, but you are driving. Apple Maps detects this situation and automatically fixes it. So I guess I use Apple Maps because it doesn't have any of these extremely frustrating and borderline dangerous problems.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Even when you start directions on Google Maps, you get a mostly pointless, long-winded direction. "Head east on Pratt Avenue Northeast." Argh, don't you just love that. Hey, dumbasses: if I knew which way was east, I wouldn't have needed to ask you!
- gajjanag 5y ago
  This right here. I am fairly new to driving, and Apple Maps has been great for my driving confidence. Such crisp, ahead of time, clear directions in major metro US. It also does a much better job at rerouting than Google Maps. I avoid rush hour highways right now, and Apple maps does a good job of figuring out an alternative route once I head on it a bit. Google Maps has given me directions that just increase my stress level on the road.
chadlavi 5y ago
I deleted google maps from my phone in 2017 or so and haven't missed it at all.
shanty 5y ago
These conversations pop up every now and again on HN. I was getting frustrated with Google Maps a few years ago, when I read one of these articles on here about how Apple Maps is better than Google Maps. I decided to give it a try (and fully uninstalled GMaps so that I would be forced to use it.) I live around Austin, TX, so there could be variations in my experience, but generally for common use cases, Apple Maps is on par. Where I find it excels above Google Maps is on navigation and directions, hands down. When my wife puts on Gmaps navigation on her phone I put on Apple Maps on mine. (we have same phone and network). If there ever is a mistake, slow update, mispronunciation, etc. it is always on Google Maps side. This has cost us a lot of time, until we finally switched over to rely on Apple Maps for navigation. The search and interface are also about the same, but I prefer the Apple Maps a bit more, but that is more personal preference. Where it underperforms is in the search and reviews avenue, as it primarily relies on yelp reviews rather than native reviews, which can be hit or miss. I don't really miss it, but if it do, I just search google for the place to read their reviews. Also, Some place results lack correct details in Apple Maps (rare)--I think since many places have to update the info themselves, this might drive the issue. Example would be updated menu links or hours for holidays. Many of the other posts on this thread point out the differences along other use cases, where Google Maps excels, but for daily, average use, I am happy to use Apple Maps as daily driver.
spideymans 5y ago
I’ve been using Apple Maps in Canada, and I’d say it’s decidedly better than the competition. Navigation is at least as good as Google and Waze, and the UI/UX is far superior. Biggest deficiency is search and POI information. I’ll usually search a location on Google Maps to get general information about it, before using Apple Maps to navigate there.
travisparker 5y ago
I use an iPhone, keep all my casual media and textbooks on an iPad, and use a MacBook Pro for work. I'd really like to use Apple if I could, but I have no idea why all these people are supporting Apple maps. I tried desperately to use it for half a year (in the US), gritting my teeth at the endless frustrations. From the inability to get info on any business or location other than a highly biased Yelp popup, to the voice directions telling me to turn as I'm approaching the turn before it actually wants me to turn, to the flat-out wrong streets. I've found myself being led to random dead-ends that the map said should be a thoroughfare, but obviously never had been and would unlikely be in any near future. Similarly, I'm astonished at the bad service in their cloud, files, photos, music, and suite of office document programs. Just terrible for such a huge company. I can only conclude that they don't care, since they're making more than enough money on hardware.
jrnichols 5y ago
Yes. We actually use Apple Maps for emergency vehicle routing. It is the default option for one of our call notification apps. A 911 call comes in, and we can map to it before dispatch even gives us the information. At least in Northern California and where I worked in both Texas and Oklahoma, Apple has done a magical job of mapping.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
It's okay, I use it as my main GPS since I switched over to iphone because I was trying to get (mostly) outside the google ad cabal.

moogleii 5y ago

I greatly prefer the UX of Apple Maps for navigation, but the search is still bad compared to Google Maps. The verbal directions and UI are clearer IMO. Both have been equally bad at keeping directions up to date, though, but I live in a relatively mutable city. If I were living in the burbs, I would probably stick with Apple Maps.

vikingcaffiene 5y ago

I made the switch back to Apple Maps a while back. It’s great. I’m not sure what specific features you want to know about.

zepto 5y ago

I agree with the notion. It was pretty terrible for the first 3 years. A second place contender for a few years after that, but for the last few years it has been clearly as good. I am not going to enumerate strong and weak points. It’s a matter of taste at this point. Just try it again.

olivertaylor 5y ago

I almost entirely use Apple Maps. I live in a large city so the data is very accurate. And I only really use it for driving, so I can't compare transit, hiking trails, etc. When I travel to less populated parts of the country Google Maps is far more accurate and complete. That's the only difference I've noticed.

ghaff 5y ago
Google Maps is pretty good for transit and pretty bad for hiking trails. Can't speak to Apple Maps. While imperfect, OpenStreetMaps is fairly reliable for hiking trails, including unofficial ones, in populated areas of the US at any rate.
- chalst 5y ago
  Exactly the same experience in Germany. I use Google Maps for driving directions and OSM for everything else. I recently had GM tell me to go the wrong way up a one-way street; OSM knew better.

toyg 5y ago

I used it occasionally, at one point it was better than GMaps when data connection was spotty. But sooner or later I'd always go back, because directions-related features always felt better in the Google world. This is in Northern England though. In the Big Smoke it might be different.

hellisothers 5y ago

Apple Maps has a different tracking/lag time on your location compared to Google Maps such that every time I try to switch I start missing (a lot of) turns while driving. Maybe it’s time to just get used to the different cursor…

tppiotrowski 5y ago
This happens to me too. It's like the turn is very far away and next thing you know you passed it. Apple needs to improve this.

brnt 5y ago

Wherever I've been (I hike a lot), I find that OSM is superior to both.

tppiotrowski 5y ago
I agree. Organic Maps also has climbing/mountaineering routes that are completely hidden on Google/Apple maps. My friends download GPX files prior to going out, I just open up OSM. :)

brundolf 5y ago

I've been exclusively using Apple Maps for 3 years, never looked back. Spending most of my time in urban-ish areas, it'll not know about some destination maybe once a year. The UX for live directions is great; it'll give you little details like "go past this stop sign and turn at the one right after it" which are really nice. The UI is generally less crowded too.

voisin 5y ago

I use Apple Maps as my primary GPS in my vehicle. I have spent the last few years on the road driving across North America and Google Maps repeatedly made objectively incorrect decisions in rural areas that would take me in quasi-off road situations. After I got frustrated being led astray I started comparing routes on both and found that it seems to be a logic issue for Google Maps, where it would save 5 km of distance and not recognize the unpaved backroads with tons of twists and turns would add significant time. Apple Maps somehow did recognize this. I only kept Google Maps installed for info on things along a route or opening hours but since then I’ve deleted it and just use Duck Duck Go to do searches, combined with Apple Maps for GPS. Edit: one more thing: in the city I am from there has been a lot of development. Google is missing a ton of roads in near areas where Apple Maps is not.

dilly_li 5y ago
I think that's probably because Apple doesn't even know that backroads existed so Apple Maps couldn't optimize the route. If Apple Maps had knew those backroards, they would probably output the same routes! :-D
- voisin 5y ago
  I thought that might be the case but when I zoom in I can see the back roads in Apple Maps. I am pretty sure it is a algorithm issue. Google doesn’t have enough data about how slow those back roads are and maybe relies on that data more than Apple does.
heliodor 5y ago
The bad choices in rural areas for Google Maps seems to be a recent thing. My guess is that it's a result of a new approach of combining computer vision of satellite imagery with phone location data from ranchers driving on their private dirt roads.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  Google Maps took me down all sorts of goofy unpacked backroads in Crete this past month. It’d cut the driving distance in half and double the driving time. Although my Fiat Panda rental did surprisingly well on uneven, unpaved roads.

dwighttk 5y ago

I use Apple Maps when I use maps and haven’t had any issue. However I generally don’t use any turn by turn instructions until I’m close to a place I haven’t been before. Haven’t used Google maps since my very first smartphone (probably late 2011) kept trying to send me the wrong way down one way streets in Atlanta.

h0l0cube 5y ago

It's mostly fine. But I can't trust it to be up-to-date for business locations and opening hours. Some places (even high-traffic places like McDonalds) are missing, some closed places haven't been removed after months (years?), and opening hours are just as broken. I'll always double check with a Google search. It's been fine for public transport and driving navigation.

brundolf 5y ago
I've had the occasional issue with location metadata but it's pretty rare in my experience
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
Business information in Apple Maps -- at least in the US -- comes from Yelp. I haven't really had the experiences you're describing, but I live in northern California, where Yelp seems to be pretty up-to-date most of the time. (With a caveat that it's been worse in 2020, but I suppose that's not unexpected for a crowdsourced directory during a year most of the crowd wasn't going out.)
- pfranz 5y ago
  I don't know if that's entirely true. I wouldn't say I lean on business hours in the app often, but things have gotten weird with Covid. In the last month I found a bunch of hours wrong in both Yelp and Apple Maps--they each had different wrong hours listed. Maybe Apple pulls from Yelp monthly or quarterly? Maybe Apple populated their own database years ago and maintain it separately? Whatever the method they each have their own way for users to report incorrect hours.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    That is interesting! I haven't noticed discrepancies between Yelp and Apple Maps before, but now I feel like I'm going to have to start checking more closely. My assumption -- which now seems shakier -- is that if you reported an issue through Apple Maps, it basically got forwarded to Yelp.

illuminati1911 5y ago

I use Apple Maps in Shanghai. It's very fast, accurate and shows bicycle/scooter lanes, indoor maps for malls etc. very well. Google Maps even with VPN (to bypass the censorship) is nearly unusable here by modern map software standards.

whimsicalism 5y ago
It's not a fair comparison in China, where Apple has decided to provide the Chinese govt with data so they can operate and Google has refused to.
- voisin 5y ago
  Source? Genuinely surprised to hear Google had the superior privacy policy.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Well, Google doesn't operate services in China so is not giving data to China. If you look carefully in the TOS for your Apple products, you'll see that iCloud data (including like messages) are operated by Apple with the exception of China, where they are operated by a third-party contractor who does the dirty work of complying with Chinese government speech laws/police requests. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...
    - voisin 5y ago
      Interesting. I didn't realize Google did not operate any services in China. I thought the Chinese government filtered certain services that they didn't have the ability to censor.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Well, for instance, there is no Google.cn, there is only Google Hong Kong. Google Maps will still give you very basic maps in China, but at least in both Beijing and Shanghai the maps are unusable unfortunately. You're correct that they are blocked by China. The reason they are blocked is because they haven't built a censored version of their search and don't provide China with data from emails, etc. - this is in contrast with Apple's approach. I don't know where it falls on censorship, since Apple isn't in the search business, but my guess is you would notice differences in Siri's behavior (for instance).

ribit 5y ago

Apple Maps is quite good if you use it one of the major US cities… but it’s still weak in most other places. As a European customer, Google maps have more up to date information, better traffic data, public construction information etc.

benhurmarcel 5y ago
I’m in Europe and use both depending on what I need. If you don’t know where you want to go yet, or you need data about a business, Google is better. For the rest I prefer Apple’s UX.

acdha 5y ago

Yes. I stopped using Google Maps years ago because Apple’s estimates are far more accurate and less stressful (mostly DC-Boston corridor). Google would suggest routes which were allegedly faster but that was based on assuming no traffic anywhere so things like unprotected left turns across major roads would be a net time savings. Actual arrival times tended to be about the same as Apple’s original estimates when, say, it turned out that I-95 really did have traffic at the same places it always does.

zerocrates 5y ago
Huh. I know for sure here (DC metro area) Google's navigation definitely takes traffic into account both for time estimates and routing. It'd be pretty useless otherwise: traffic is pretty much the major component of travel time for many/most trips.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  I haven't used Google Maps in a while, but I remember joking that it gave time estimates as if everyone was driving Ferraris: they always seemed to be extremely optimistic. The OP's comment about Google's directions often giving you things like unprotected left turns across major roads matches my experience with Waze, so I wonder if Google is pulling in more data/algorithms from them now. I know lots of people love (loved?) Waze and I used to be one of them, but I eventually just couldn't handle how almost every ride with Waze had become the algorithmic equivalent of your crazy uncle saying "I know a shortcut. Trust me."
- acdha 5y ago
  It seemed to take current conditions into account - route around areas that are already bad but it didn’t seem to account for typical volume at the time you’ll likely be somewhere. We used to get these routes showing normal speeds all the way through NYC, even though it was obvious that conditions would be different by the time we go there. I’d hope they’ve improved it since then. I mostly stopped using it because I’d get tons of unprotected left turns on major roads or zig-zag routes through neighborhoods and it just wasn’t worth having to deal with that to save a minute.

stevehawk 5y ago

I consider Apple maps to be trash most everywhere I use it, which is the American midwest. Last time i searched for "lawnmower repair" in my area it netted one result. I believe there's more than a dozen within ten minutes of me though. I normally have to look something up in Google Maps (where i keep location services disabled), then copy and paste the address into Apple Maps for Carplay. The other day when watching a Silicon Valley rerun I couldn't help but laugh because they said "is it Apple maps bad?" and i thought "THAT JOKE HASN'T AGED BECAUSE IT'S STILL TERRIBLE."

boopmaster 5y ago
On the flipside Google maps gives me all kinds of local business number to services that either do not exist or are definitely not local. Pairs nicely with street view images of destructed empty space overgrown with brush.

konart 5y ago

Depends on your location. Apple maps is almost unusable here in Russia. Then again - even Google Maps have hard time competing with Yandex and 2Gis

fossuser 5y ago

I’ve been using Apple Maps exclusively for the last couple of years. I find it to be better, but there’s a major caveat that I primarily use it in the Bay Area. Outside the bay it’s worked for me too, but it’s just rare that I test it in that way (where failures are a lot more likely). UI is much nicer and app performance feels way faster too.

tshaddox 5y ago
Same here, been using it for a few years in the Bay Area. The main reason I prefer Apple Maps is that the user interface is vastly better, especially in a car with CarPlay. I’ve used it on long road trips in the US as well, but I will often do a route sanity check against Google Maps in areas I’m very unfamiliar with.
- beagle3 5y ago
  I only drive in rather large cities, and find that Waze >> Apple >> Google from a usability perspective; Waze and Google Maps supposedly Use the same backend these days, but somehow both UI and navigation in Waze seems to work better. I really really like OSM through Organic Maps (previously through maps.me) but it has no congestion data, so mostly useless for driving during business hours.

bengale 5y ago

I use it as my primary GPS now and I live in south of the UK.

dan-robertson 5y ago

One thing that really winds me up is that the colour scheme in google maps is ‘wrong’ in the sense that it does not match existing local maps. Apple maps have put a lot of effort into making the colour scheme and labels match existing maps. At least where I live in the uk. Motorways show up in blue with white-on-blue-rounded-rectangle labels (matching road signs) with A-roads in green. Junction numbers show up as white-in-black-rounded-rectangle like on road signs. On google maps, the motorways and A-roads are yellow. Motorways get blue labels but it’s the wrong shade and shape. A-road labels are slightly better. A failure of apple maps is that they don’t show junction numbers on the regular maps while google does. But their maps mostly look like the road atlases I remember. If I look at public transport, apple have made a much better attempt to match the look of underground maps in London (failure example: the map doesn’t make it obvious that the jubilee line stops at green park.) Google maps don’t get such good results though they try to match colours of lines. Google maps don’t have national rail but apple do. If I look at New York, apple have tried to capture the different style of their metro network (also their American road labels look like the road signs and this seems less the case for google but I don’t know so much about US road signs.) The feature I really wish for, especially in car play, is plan views of road junctions like roundabouts or weird intersections. Neither maps app does this.

adrr 5y ago

How do you use Apple Maps in rural areas? The lack of an offline mode makes it impossible to use without internet. Google maps I can download the area.

theshrike79 5y ago

I prefer the driving and lane instructions on Apple Maps. With a few notable exceptions it has gotten me where I'm going every time. The few exceptions are places near me where the address is a bit wonky on Apple Maps and the driving instructions are either completely bonkers (routes around a house through a parking lot instead of directly) or off by one street. The address is correct, but the access road doesn't have a name, so it gets confused.

hackmiester 5y ago

Spoken directions in Apple Maps are unmatched. "Go past this stop sign, then at the light, turn right on X Avenue" - it's exactly how you would expect human directions. Google Maps is absolutely worst in class, behind all competitors I have ever used, in spoken directions. Here is a very common Google Maps direction from where I live: "In 300 feet, keep left toward Alabama 231 South / Alabama 431 South / Memorial Parkway Southwest, then keep left onto Memorial Parkway Southwest." By the time Google Maps finishes reading this direction, it's taken so long that you will actually miss the next step in the directions. Google Maps doesn't interrupt itself in this situation, and it is often extremely long winded. Even when you start directions on Google Maps, you get a mostly pointless, long-winded direction. "Head east on Pratt Avenue Northeast." And if you start by traveling perpendicular to that direction, you'll often get, "Head east on -- Head east on -- Head east on -- Head east on --", repeating every time you pass an intersection, until you finally comply by heading east. Good luck if you don't know which direction is east. Speaking of this nightmare scenario, Google Maps will also get stuck rapidly talking over itself if you accidentally select walking directions, but you are driving. Apple Maps detects this situation and automatically fixes it. So I guess I use Apple Maps because it doesn't have any of these extremely frustrating and borderline dangerous problems.

CamperBob2 5y ago
Even when you start directions on Google Maps, you get a mostly pointless, long-winded direction. "Head east on Pratt Avenue Northeast." Argh, don't you just love that. Hey, dumbasses: if I knew which way was east, I wouldn't have needed to ask you!
gajjanag 5y ago
This right here. I am fairly new to driving, and Apple Maps has been great for my driving confidence. Such crisp, ahead of time, clear directions in major metro US. It also does a much better job at rerouting than Google Maps. I avoid rush hour highways right now, and Apple maps does a good job of figuring out an alternative route once I head on it a bit. Google Maps has given me directions that just increase my stress level on the road.

chadlavi 5y ago

I deleted google maps from my phone in 2017 or so and haven't missed it at all.

shanty 5y ago

These conversations pop up every now and again on HN. I was getting frustrated with Google Maps a few years ago, when I read one of these articles on here about how Apple Maps is better than Google Maps. I decided to give it a try (and fully uninstalled GMaps so that I would be forced to use it.) I live around Austin, TX, so there could be variations in my experience, but generally for common use cases, Apple Maps is on par. Where I find it excels above Google Maps is on navigation and directions, hands down. When my wife puts on Gmaps navigation on her phone I put on Apple Maps on mine. (we have same phone and network). If there ever is a mistake, slow update, mispronunciation, etc. it is always on Google Maps side. This has cost us a lot of time, until we finally switched over to rely on Apple Maps for navigation. The search and interface are also about the same, but I prefer the Apple Maps a bit more, but that is more personal preference. Where it underperforms is in the search and reviews avenue, as it primarily relies on yelp reviews rather than native reviews, which can be hit or miss. I don't really miss it, but if it do, I just search google for the place to read their reviews. Also, Some place results lack correct details in Apple Maps (rare)--I think since many places have to update the info themselves, this might drive the issue. Example would be updated menu links or hours for holidays. Many of the other posts on this thread point out the differences along other use cases, where Google Maps excels, but for daily, average use, I am happy to use Apple Maps as daily driver.

spideymans 5y ago

I’ve been using Apple Maps in Canada, and I’d say it’s decidedly better than the competition. Navigation is at least as good as Google and Waze, and the UI/UX is far superior. Biggest deficiency is search and POI information. I’ll usually search a location on Google Maps to get general information about it, before using Apple Maps to navigate there.

travisparker 5y ago

I use an iPhone, keep all my casual media and textbooks on an iPad, and use a MacBook Pro for work. I'd really like to use Apple if I could, but I have no idea why all these people are supporting Apple maps. I tried desperately to use it for half a year (in the US), gritting my teeth at the endless frustrations. From the inability to get info on any business or location other than a highly biased Yelp popup, to the voice directions telling me to turn as I'm approaching the turn before it actually wants me to turn, to the flat-out wrong streets. I've found myself being led to random dead-ends that the map said should be a thoroughfare, but obviously never had been and would unlikely be in any near future. Similarly, I'm astonished at the bad service in their cloud, files, photos, music, and suite of office document programs. Just terrible for such a huge company. I can only conclude that they don't care, since they're making more than enough money on hardware.

jrnichols 5y ago

Yes. We actually use Apple Maps for emergency vehicle routing. It is the default option for one of our call notification apps. A 911 call comes in, and we can map to it before dispatch even gives us the information. At least in Northern California and where I worked in both Texas and Oklahoma, Apple has done a magical job of mapping.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

It's okay, I use it as my main GPS since I switched over to iphone because I was trying to get (mostly) outside the google ad cabal.