38 ms·

Google Maps' moat is evaporating (2020)

171 points by ivanvas 4y ago

kgwgk 4y ago
Discussed long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25568335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25568335
superchroma 4y ago
Is google maps profitable? It seems to be another thing done for the sake of maintaining a market dominance with no clear monetary justification or roadmap.
- YetAnotherNick 4y ago
  Its estimated revenue is $5 billion per year with plans for $11 billion in 4 years(from 2019). And based on the amount of ads I see there, it seems very believable. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-maps-poised-11-billion-063042568.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADCTUFjp0L2fZpXvK7PGc2wBgPdtR8g15IiPW_Qm5-jwsmmvvh9b00kCUwicaYTt9d9AhdxBCzM7eysndEgrv3zwtyczxwb-W434-w_ddyEmhaeaUK8kWPsdBpvyW5S-FqUx0v_hblAhV6eeQcCr5rijcw8xRnKLk6DADmfClFw9 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-maps-poised-11-billion...
  - dylan604 4y ago
    It never ceases to amaze me at the creativity in where they can shove an ad
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Maps seems like the expected place to put ads. Billboards have been around forever. Not blockable by ad blockers, you have people with intent to drive by certain places, or drive to certain places.
      - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
        Maps' ads are a little more pernicious than billboards. You'll note that Google doesn't display all the businesses that appear on a map every time, but if you pay up it will display your business, even make it prominent. OSM shows all businesses (as far as their data goes) and that is the right way to go. There are ways of dealing with clutter. The fact that I can't find what I know is there on Google Maps (unless I do a text search for it) is infuriating and a deal breaker.
- com2kid 4y ago
  Lots of B2B and embedded use cases. Want to make a product showing driving times between destinations? Google Maps API, $$. Want to show how busy a restaurant is? Places API. Someone just did a bike route and you want to tell them the elevation gain they did? API call. Google Maps and Places actually both have a ton of paid use cases, largely around being embedded in other apps. My defunct events startup made heavy use of both. Something this article neglects to mention is that Google Maps has an inherit advantage by being baked into Android. Even if Maps isn't using any private APIs or has any special permissions, the sheer install base that they can use to collect data gives them a technological lead over anyone who isn't Apple (or one of the large Chinese phone manufacturers in any of the markets they have large market share in). Traffic data? Aggregated from millions upon millions (billions) of Android users. Restaurant busyiness? Google knows how many of their users are at a location. For quite awhile (not sure if this is still the case) if you took a photo of a restaurant on your phone, Google would just outright ask you to upload it to Google maps. Yelp can't compete with that! As an aside, these are also some of the reasons why Microsoft kept fighting for some smartphone market share. There are so many things you can only do if you are installed by default everywhere. Google can go up to websites "You should enable Google accounts for login because literally 70% of smartphone users have a Google account". Boom, overnight market share in a related market, analytics data flows in at a furious rate, ad revenue keeps going up. "Let your customers pay with Google pay, double digit % of all smartphone users have it setup." Anyone who isn't Amazon or Apple (maybe Paypal due to historical market share) can replicate that salespitch, and for whatever reason Amazon stopped focusing on Pay with Amazon (no idea why, awesome product).
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- bee_rider 4y ago
  A (completely tangential, barely related) thought -- it was at one point pretty well known that Apple's app store was quite a bit better than Google's, in terms of $/download. I wonder if a similar trend can be seen in maps.
faebi 4y ago
I only recently noticed how far OSM has progressed compared to Google Maps. Yet, it's missing one dominant client which works nicely and user friendly across the board. Nothing comes close to Google Maps despite the way worse map data. And Google is compensating most of the missing map data by far superior routing with real world traffic data. The lack of map data starts to show up in niche routing like walking, hiking and biking though…
- delusional 4y ago
  The frustrating thing is that stuff like traffic data is available, it's just not used in any of the OSM plotters. I've been working on a faster OSM plotter for a while now, but the data format is really a pain.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    Mapbox offers traffic data that they collect themselves. I don't know how accurate it is compared to the tons of Android smartphones sharing their location to Google, but in areas with many Tesla it is good enough.
    - delusional 4y ago
      At least here in denmark the authoritative source for traffic information makes it available under a CC Universal license in the DatexII (european standard) format.
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      Mapbox traffic and routing is pretty far from ideal. Used it for driving directions for awhile because of the relative cost and ended up constantly wishing we could just use Google. I don't recall specific issues though.
- ugjka 4y ago
  Google maps routing is top notch for long distances but when I need some finer details of some place, I always turn to OsmAnd
jeffbee 4y ago
2020. Can we see the bottom of the moat yet? Let's consider the article's key argument: a combination of concerns including microsoft, facebook, and mapbox will kill Google Maps. Facebook is on the ropes, completely rudderless with a big phone attached to their collective face. Mapillary might as well have been converted to neutrinos when Facebook acquired it. Microsoft does not now nor did at any time possess a consumer map product that anybody gave a damn about. They do have a nice competitor to Google Earth Engine, that's cool. GEE is awesome by the way and the article fails to discuss it meaningfully. Mapbox the company completely imploded after taking a huge round from softbank, failing to IPO, and going to war against its own key staff members. Really the fact that the article goes all the way to the end without even mentioning Esri says a lot.
- adolph 4y ago
  > Microsoft does not now nor did at any time possess a consumer map product that anybody gave a damn about. Not a consumer map produce, but the maps, weather, and imagery in Flight Simulator is pretty awesome. https://www.polygon.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-guide/21371962/find-your-house-home-city-town-map-heading https://www.polygon.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-guide/213...
- debug-desperado 4y ago
  “going to war against its own key staff members” What happened here?
clairity 4y ago
as much as i wish it were true, it certainly isn't evaporating because of apple maps, as implied by the post. apple maps is serviceable for directions, but on just about everything else, it's inferior to google maps (and i say this very begrudgingly because i'm no fan of google). he notes 'look around' as an example of apple reaching parity, but that's such a minor feature, and a great example of where apple has misplaced its priorities. apple needs to do a much better job of getting accurate POI (places of interest) and being able to search on those on just about any facet a user can imagine. beyond the basics of roads, addresses, and directions, that's the killer feature of maps. instead, they create slightly better 3D renderings of urban buildings and tout that as some huge UX improvement in their annual keynote. apple, please actually improve the killer feature and not everything else. i want to retire google maps (and waze) for good on my devices.
- jahewson 4y ago
  It already happened. Apple is doing POI in-house now and it’s much improved.
- changoplatanero 4y ago
  I remember reading somewhere from someone on the google maps team that the most difficult challenge in maintaining google maps is keeping up to date and accurate information about the millions of small businesses in their map. Being able to trust the information about restaurants and businesses is why I use google maps.
  - wsinks 4y ago
    I've found recently that even in SF, google maps's small business data is out of date and untrustworthy. I can trust it to give me a phone number and sometimes the website, but the actual omnibox info is only useful for businesses that I know are really well trafficked by the younger demographic.
  - schoen 4y ago
    Are they now robocalling the small businesses (and having the robots speak with the staff) in order to confirm their details? I had that impression from somewhere, but I don't know if it's right.
glial 4y ago
I switched to Apple Maps as part of an attempt to de-googlify my life. It's pretty good 95% of the time. That 5% inconvenience is worth it, to me. However, after seeing the OSM mentions in the comments, I'm inclined to check that out... Apple Maps doesn't have offline navigation, and I wish it did.
- swozey 4y ago
  It's not free and has a pretty different use case but most of us in the Jeep community use Gaia GPS for offline maps, if you want to stay away from G it may be an option.
  - ralusek 4y ago
    The Jeep community sounds wild
    - swozey 4y ago
      We get lost a lot!
- db1234 4y ago
  What if this attitude catches on? i.e. ok with working well 95% of the time? Can that break Google's search dominance? What if there is a new search engine which does a good enough job of indexing top 'n' websites and not really care about hyper optimized results based on personal preferences? If such a search engine works well 95% of the time and that's good enough for most people, it could take significant traffic away from Google. People could still fallback on Google for those highly optimized results for complex search queries.
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  - jacobolus 4y ago
    DuckDuckGo works a higher percentage of the time than Google does for me, with a lot less visual clutter, advertising, or underhanded attempts to trick me. YMMV. (Though I would still prefer have Google search from ca. 2005–2010.) In particular, > highly optimized results for complex search queries Google has gotten almost completely worthless for these, but unfortunately no other search engine does a good job with them at this point either.
lowbloodsugar 4y ago
I don't remember the last time I used google maps. I use apple maps.
jordanmorgan10 4y ago
TIL just how huge Mapbox is. Good for them.
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throw8836 4y ago
I was a googler working on Google maps at the time of the API self immolation. There were strong complaints from within about the price changes. Obviously everyone couldn't believe what was being planned, and there were countless spreadsheets and reports and SQL queries showing how this was going to shit all over a lot of customers that we'd be guaranteed to lose to a competitor. Management didn't give a shit. I don't know what the rationale was apart from some vague claim about "charging for value". A lot of users of the API apparently were basically under the free limits or only spending less than 100 USD on API usage so I can kind of understand the line of thought, but I still.thibk they went way too far. I don't know what happened to the architects of the plan. I presume promo. Edit: I should add that this was not a knee-jerk thing or some exec just woke up one day with an idea in their dreams. It was a planned change that took many months to plan and prepare for with endless preparations and reporting and so on.
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- sentrms 4y ago
  Quite a drastic change of direction it was. I wasn't willing to pay what Google asked for my sites maps usage and went to Mapbox until they stated raising prices. Currently using OSM with osm-static-maps https://github.com/jperelli/osm-static-maps https://github.com/jperelli/osm-static-maps It's still pretty complicated to run your own tile-server, something I would love to do.
- nr2x 4y ago
  The CEO is an MBA who just lets the CFO run the place. I honestly think Larry and Sergei want their piggy bank to grow and put people in charge who would focus on on thing only: stock price.
upupandup 4y ago
I don't buy these outlandish claims. the fact is for most people on desktops and android device are staring at Google Maps. I have Apple Maps too but I simply do not use it because I've grown used to just typing maps.google similar to how i just type the keyword in the URL browser and expect it to work. Google is truly the king of monopolies. Maps, Videos, Search. It really is remarkable and they will juice this forever.
otterley 4y ago
(2020)
deleted 4y ago
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boredumb 4y ago
I try to shill https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete as much as I can and actively contribute in my area when ever I remember. One of my biggest motivating factors is that I'm nearly trapped in google search for things that involve local search and wanting to see a map, distance to drive, x,y or z in my area. I've also just recently stumbled onto the https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-android-4-1-released/ https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-android-4-1-released/ ability to load into my car so that's neat.
- raybb 4y ago
  Street Complete is great. I just wish they made it easier to enter the hours for a business. I don't know how they could do it but if a business has different hours each day it's quite painful to get that info into the app.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    Do you have any specific ideas how to make it easier? I admit that it can be obnoxious, especially if business has gap in the middle of the day. But it seems to me case where data to enter is simply complex and I see no obvious way to make it easier. What worse, typically multiple days have the same opening hours, so interface is optimized to make this kind of input easier (ability to select multiple days at once) (I am one of contributors to that software)
    - ViViDboarder 4y ago
      Funny. I work at Yelp and this was one of the interview questions I was asked almost 10 years ago.
    - frenchy 4y ago
      I actually thought it was suprisingly good, given the difficult problem domain. It's been a while since I used it, but one thing that might help would be to look at the interface the for Alarms in Android. It looks pretty similar, but it's a little bit different, and I think a little bit easier to use.
jimmaswell 4y ago
Perspective from someone who doesn't at all follow open maps or any of these other products: I've never felt a need to use anything else (besides when I want to use Google Earth for more niche reasons) and I didn't even know half of them existed. The Google Maps API is also used at work for various purposes and still seems to be the industry standard. I don't know about the fees but the API has been easy enough to work with.
- nicbou 4y ago
  If you need more information about your environment (road type/quality, trails, toilets), it's bad. If you need to do more things with a map (load tracks, show multiple things on the map at once, follow a very specific route), Google Maps is appallingly bad. It has a few very frustrating UX issues but that would be nitpicking. Now that they started forcing ads and social features, it got worse.
hrpnk 4y ago
For some time, links to Google Maps that I get over messages are opening up in the browser, which is hugely annoying. Else, one has to upgrade the App, but it's unclear why. Did they add new permissions to the App that it requires an explicit confirmation of upgrade? It does not get updated as part of the regular auto-updates.
adolph 4y ago
This is an article worth skimming. Key point is below. Interesting parts are links and summaries to the other mapping efforts. For example, I wasn't aware of Amazon's efforts. OpenStreetMap (OSM), over the next decade, has the potential to do to Google what Android did to Apple: dramatically grow the overall market while drawing a clear line between the larger “open” ecosystem and the smaller “proprietary” one. The difference is that while Google Maps probably makes billions annually, it also probably costs billions to maintain, leaving it wallowing in a low-margin no-man’s land compared to its big brother Google Search.
nr2x 4y ago
I’m not aware of anybody doing “eco friendly” routes with the intelligence, scale, or impact of google maps. Sure, it’s not a sexy cool thing, but it’s important.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Walking and biking are much more "eco friendly" than saving some fuel on a car ride, yet google maps has no idea where the bike lanes are half the time.
- nomel 4y ago
  For most cases, minimizing energy means minimizing accelerations (positive or negative). I think that's usually the same route that minimizes time, and that's how most roads are planned: as steady as possible traffic flow. In most places I've lived, there seems to be an intentional penalization going off the "main" road, with stops signs at every intersection, so you don't drive through the housing areas. Do you mean routes that might avoid great elevation changes or something?
  - nr2x 4y ago
    Shortest route is usually most fuel efficient, but in some cases it will surface a route that is three min longer but uses less energy for whatever reason.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  I tried the eco friendly routing on a few softwares; I think https://maps.openrouteservice.org https://maps.openrouteservice.org does it and our car also. In both cases, it turns highway traffic into city and B-road/Landstraße traffic. This is counter-productive: it produces more CO2 for all the braking and accelerating. What you need to do is don't drive 130 but drive 100 on the highway. Go behind a truck if you are okay with going that slowly (not to avoid wind, afaik then you'd have to be unsafely close, but behind a truck you cannot annoy other people because they need to overtake the truck anyhow). The downside: on an average commute of like 20 minutes, that costs you probably like 2 minutes extra (since top speed is far above average speed usually). The upside: your fuel consumption (fuel burned = CO2 created) is cut nearly in half, at least for the highway part of the trip. No braking also means less particulate matter from brake wear; no shifting back means less partial combustion. Or so I've read. The most efficient speed (afaik): as slow as your car allows (~1000 rpm) in the highest gear it has. I hope it goes without saying, though, that one should prioritize safety (go with the flow; worse/more(?) accidents happen in high speed difference zones) over efficiency gains.
renewiltord 4y ago
Apple Maps verbal directions are better but Google Maps often gets me there quicker and more early detects changes in the world (closures, temporary closures, accidents).
silversnitch 4y ago
Google maps moat isn’t evaporating. Most of the alternative mentioned here work only either in certain cities in US (like Apple Maps) or in specific countries. I’m a user in India and nothing, absolutely nothing comes close to Google maps in both urban and rural areas.
- bhupy 4y ago
  Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating. 10 years ago, most of the alternatives mentioned didn't even work in certain US cities or specific countries, and that's changed. It's only a matter of time before that holds true in India, and beyond. What that slow and steady march towards parity does to a moat can certainly be described as "evaporation".
  - filleduchaos 4y ago
    > Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating Personally I think it does because frankly speaking this sort of change tends to happen in the US/Canada and maybe a handful of other western countries at best and nowhere else, for reasons far greater than tech enthusiasts' belly-aching. Take Apple Maps as an alternative, for example, which is pretty much only available on Apple devices and can thus not march towards parity amongst populations that simply cannot afford Apple devices (which is the majority of people on Earth). It's not just "a matter of time" before Apple Maps is a real challenger in India, because iPhones have a low-single-digit market share there. It would take actual significant action such as Apple releasing Apple Maps for Android for it to even be in the running, and even if that happens then it would still need to contend with Google Maps' existing foothold.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Right and before the alternatives didn’t even work in those specific places. Ergo there’s no reason to think there won’t be changes to competitors in 5 years in India.
asdff 4y ago
Speaking of maps, anyone want to finally make a biking maps app that doesn't suck? Both google and apple maps throw you to busy arterial instead of parallel running residential roads that see no traffic at all. They are also both terrible for hills. "Pretty flat" usually just means less than 1000ft of elevation change in my experience. It basically leads you into false flats unless you go through the routing by hand with an actual topographical map (which google maps and these other competitors do not provide, I go to us govt sources).
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  I’ve been building (OSM-based) bike routing at https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map. Web only for now but iOS app in beta testing. Always happy to hear feedback!
  - asdff 4y ago
    I tested it out with my typical work commute and the routing seemed pretty reasonable actually, beyond unprotected straights and left turns on major arteries that just aren't going to be easy to do. My issues are of course the osm layer view has a lot of seemingly useless information that I can't make any sense of. Look at the region around Beverly Blvd and Silverlake Blvd in Los Angeles: What is all that red stuff randomly on roads and alleyways supposed to represent? It's also on the stands in the hollywood bowl. Bike lanes are also not demarked on here, although weird things like the 'official' route of route 66 through LA are demarked clear as day although I'm not sure why anyone would ever need that piece of information. There's also a dotted purple line on some streets that I'm not sure what it could possibly represent, because its kinda like the red lines just randomly applied without any significance seemingly. Another issue seems to be that I can't type an address at all, I need to zoom in and choose it with the mouse. Good luck with the project, hope my feedback helps some.
  - benhurmarcel 4y ago
    Quite nice; I've also tested my commute and the proposed route is quite good. I usually like https://brouter.de/brouter-web/ https://brouter.de/brouter-web/ but a mobile app would be very convenient.
stuart78 4y ago
I switched to Apple Maps several years ago and whenever I go back to Google, particularly on mobile, my preference for Apple Maps is confirmed. Google has too many ads (especially showing the ever-present Walgreens icon) and too much visual clutter. I do prefer Google's pins to Apple's dots, but Apple makes it easy for me to categorize locations with different lists and different colors. Google lets me do much of this, but doesn't allow me to set differing colors by list. Also, their 'favorite' list is just the most recent 500 starred places, so once something goes to 501, it simply disappears. Definitely still room for improvement from Apple here, but they seem way more engaged and invested than Google does at this point.
- what_ever 4y ago
  You can have multiple lists in Google Maps and the Maps can show those lists together on the UI. I have "Favorites", "Want to Go" among other lists with different pins (including colors). Disc: Googler but nowhere close to the Maps team.
  - stuart78 4y ago
    Thanks, I think I didn't write that clearly. I do have multiple custom lists, and as far as I can tell there are five categories: Want to go, Favorites, Travel plans, Starred Places and custom. Each of these presents differently, but if you have multiple custom options (I have a dozen or so) there is no distinction between them, at least available on web that I can find. They are all turquoise pins. I will also readily admit that I may be a marginal case here, but Apple's more subtle treatment serves obsessive pinners like me without cluttering the map.
- ericbarrett 4y ago
  I don't know if it's still the case, but GMaps drove me away from using it for nav a couple years ago by recommending "shortcuts" that led to dangerous situations, for example an uncontrolled crossing of 6-lane surface roads, just to avoid a single crowded intersection. Adjusting the "aggression" of recommendations (I forgot the setting) did not seem to help. Have never had the problem with Apple Maps. Nowadays the ads seem really bad when I see somebody else using it.
lallysingh 4y ago
The moat can't go fast enough. It's still there, and I don't use Apple Maps so I can't tell if that's much better, but really, Maps hasn't improved in years, and generally seems worse. I'd eat the pain of going Osm (and I've been paying for OsmAnd+ for years) but it doesn't know where anything is, and when it does, the routes are pretty bad.
extragood 4y ago
The article seems to completely ignore one simple thing that guarantees that Apple Maps can never fully compete with Google Maps: Apple Maps is only available on Apple devices. Today, iOS represents 27.5% of all mobile users, meaning that the best they can hope for is 1/3 market share. That assumes that Apple doesn't make any radical changes to their closed ecosystem philosophies.
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  A lot of the comments here also completely ignore that basic fact when talking about alternatives to Google.
- impulser_ 4y ago
  Google Maps is in the top 5 most downloaded iOS apps worldwide. So even Apple users don't want to use Apple Maps.
  - labster 4y ago
    Or, like me, you download Google Maps as a backup map app. Not having a map available is higher risk than most apps breaking; it’s worth it to have a second option if Apple goes down.
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  - nequo 4y ago
    > Google Maps is in the top 5 most downloaded iOS apps worldwide. It was listed in 7th place in this 2021 year-end round-up: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/02/apple-most-downloaded-apps-2021/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/02/apple-most-downloaded-a... > So even Apple users don't want to use Apple Maps. I don't think that this follows from your claim. I have both Google Maps and Apple Maps but use Google Maps only for street view. I use Apple Maps for nearly everything including navigation.
    - 4y ago
mongol 4y ago
So many different uses for maps. I use different apps for different purposes. While Google Maps have the commercial info, it is poor as a recreational map (hiking etc). For that I use Locus Map. For car navigation I have started to use HERE. And then there are the official websites, such as in Sweden Lantmäteriet, with property borders etc that Google has nothing on. So I choose app depending on use.
- debesyla 4y ago
  Same. For hiking (geocaching) I just use OpenStreetMap and especially the german version of it (for some reason german version of Lithuania map seems more accurate...).
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  +1 for Here Maps navigation (especially like the speed limits and speed trap features), but they make keeping a list of locations really painful. You'd think they purposefully trying to make it unusable.
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faebi 4y ago
I still wonder at which point we can use machine learning to auto-extend OSM maps based on satellite images. Or even better, at which point Tesla on-the-fly data can be used to create persistent maps. I mean just have a look at the visible amount of data in that link. You literally can see the swans. https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 Ignoring Tesla FSD itself, just look at the generated map data. Imagine how much more we can get if we don't need to run this at 20fps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkXcySUnJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkXcySUnJk
- habi 4y ago
  > I still wonder at which point we can use machine learning to auto-extend OSM maps based on satellite images. There’s https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/RapiD https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/RapiD which helps users to add features based on AI predictions. Each feature has to be properly reviewed though. A blank import of such features won’t happen anytime soon. > I mean just have a look at the visible amount of data in that link. You literally can see the swans. https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 The swisstopo imagery is one of the better ones you can get, but swans should not be mapped in OSM ;)
eruci 4y ago
As I was saying a few days ago: https://twitter.com/geolytica/status/1550787103268769792 https://twitter.com/geolytica/status/1550787103268769792 Google maps is going the way if google search. I looked up directions from orikum to rinas and i first get a full page ads that's tricky to take off. Then 2/3 of the page is hotel ads.
Fomite 4y ago
Moving to a more rural area (though still a college town) has been eye opening. I've lived in my house for two years. Google Maps still doesn't know it exists (Apple Maps does, but that is a recent development). The number of business whose websites, directions, etc. have to note that Google Maps is lying to you, and under no circumstances turn right there, are staggering. As is the algorithm's deep desire to take you off a highway and send you down a gravel road because it's theoretically faster.
somat 4y ago
I feel osmand has restored so much of my agency in regards to phone maps it is painful to go back to google maps. So far it has proved to be, by far, my favorite map application. I hope their weird mixture of opensource application with paid version makes them enough money to keep the lights on. Because it sure has made an excellent program. One of the things I especially like about osmand. is that the developers(developer?) don't have some designer running rampant, reducing user agency in the name of minimalism. If I want 15 different status overlays cluttering up my map I can have them. It is great.
fleddr 4y ago
"These are the actions of an organization that is annoyed they ever let people become their customers." A perfect description of Google as a whole.
client4 4y ago
Google Earth is showing its age as well. If you haven't seen it check out https://www.placemark.io/ https://www.placemark.io/ . Multiple editors, GeoJSON, web based, etc.
NoToP 4y ago
Google maps has been becoming worse over time. It used to show metro lines by default. Now, you have to turn that on as a layer. It used to show all the stations on those lines. Now, depending on zoom, it algorithmically decides that some aren't important enough to show. It also stopped showing things like station names and what stops there. So you can no longer use it as a transit map, and just glance at it for directions. The alternative is the far more tedious interaction of typing in your destination and waiting for the server to respond with step by step idiot-proof directions when all you actually needed was the line number. But then it gets worse. Suppose the page is still loading. For some arcane reason, part of the interface loads, then the map, then the rest of the interface. If you can't find the navigation buttons for pan and zoom, they are exactly where you first looked they simply weren't displayed yet. The interface also used to make it easy to drop pins and measure distances. Just basic quality of life utility that a good online map should have. How did gmaps get worse? If they did literally nothing it would be better. Someone came in at some point and decided "this isn't designed enough" and proceeded to hide or rip out features. Superficial minimalism. It's not simplification, it's reduction.
tony-allan 4y ago
Streetview / Lookaround is mostly a useless features internationally because the data doesn't exist or is updated every couple of years. Many modern buildings just show a view of a building site!
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Google maps has gotten worse in that it doesn’t remember that my default search is for driving, not walking.
motoboi 4y ago
My experience as enterprise user of google product and services is that the client is as annoyance for them. I believe even the poor account managers have a miserable life trying to convince the company to care for the clients. Microsoft is the worst cloud, but I can talk to human beings quickly. Last month I had a question about a (sadly inferior) stream processing service from Microsoft and was greet by a very good answer from the PRODUCT OWNER on stack overflow. Fell in love for the product after that. So, google, please stop selling services because you don't want to deal with costumers.
leobg 4y ago
Off-topic, but does anyone know of an app to “walk” Street View (Google or Apple version) in VR/AR mode? Which is to say, where you control your view by rotating the device (so you get a real feel for direction). And perhaps go forwards/backwards by tilting the screen or something? I think that would be great to familiarize yourself with a place you’ve never been to. More intuitive and less disorienting than tapping around on the screen.

171 points by ivanvas 4y ago

Discussed long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25568335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25568335

Is google maps profitable? It seems to be another thing done for the sake of maintaining a market dominance with no clear monetary justification or roadmap.

YetAnotherNick 4y ago
Its estimated revenue is $5 billion per year with plans for $11 billion in 4 years(from 2019). And based on the amount of ads I see there, it seems very believable. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-maps-poised-11-billion-063042568.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADCTUFjp0L2fZpXvK7PGc2wBgPdtR8g15IiPW_Qm5-jwsmmvvh9b00kCUwicaYTt9d9AhdxBCzM7eysndEgrv3zwtyczxwb-W434-w_ddyEmhaeaUK8kWPsdBpvyW5S-FqUx0v_hblAhV6eeQcCr5rijcw8xRnKLk6DADmfClFw9 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-maps-poised-11-billion...
- dylan604 4y ago
  It never ceases to amaze me at the creativity in where they can shove an ad
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Maps seems like the expected place to put ads. Billboards have been around forever. Not blockable by ad blockers, you have people with intent to drive by certain places, or drive to certain places.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
      Maps' ads are a little more pernicious than billboards. You'll note that Google doesn't display all the businesses that appear on a map every time, but if you pay up it will display your business, even make it prominent. OSM shows all businesses (as far as their data goes) and that is the right way to go. There are ways of dealing with clutter. The fact that I can't find what I know is there on Google Maps (unless I do a text search for it) is infuriating and a deal breaker.
com2kid 4y ago
Lots of B2B and embedded use cases. Want to make a product showing driving times between destinations? Google Maps API, $$. Want to show how busy a restaurant is? Places API. Someone just did a bike route and you want to tell them the elevation gain they did? API call. Google Maps and Places actually both have a ton of paid use cases, largely around being embedded in other apps. My defunct events startup made heavy use of both. Something this article neglects to mention is that Google Maps has an inherit advantage by being baked into Android. Even if Maps isn't using any private APIs or has any special permissions, the sheer install base that they can use to collect data gives them a technological lead over anyone who isn't Apple (or one of the large Chinese phone manufacturers in any of the markets they have large market share in). Traffic data? Aggregated from millions upon millions (billions) of Android users. Restaurant busyiness? Google knows how many of their users are at a location. For quite awhile (not sure if this is still the case) if you took a photo of a restaurant on your phone, Google would just outright ask you to upload it to Google maps. Yelp can't compete with that! As an aside, these are also some of the reasons why Microsoft kept fighting for some smartphone market share. There are so many things you can only do if you are installed by default everywhere. Google can go up to websites "You should enable Google accounts for login because literally 70% of smartphone users have a Google account". Boom, overnight market share in a related market, analytics data flows in at a furious rate, ad revenue keeps going up. "Let your customers pay with Google pay, double digit % of all smartphone users have it setup." Anyone who isn't Amazon or Apple (maybe Paypal due to historical market share) can replicate that salespitch, and for whatever reason Amazon stopped focusing on Pay with Amazon (no idea why, awesome product).
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bee_rider 4y ago
A (completely tangential, barely related) thought -- it was at one point pretty well known that Apple's app store was quite a bit better than Google's, in terms of $/download. I wonder if a similar trend can be seen in maps.

faebi 4y ago

I only recently noticed how far OSM has progressed compared to Google Maps. Yet, it's missing one dominant client which works nicely and user friendly across the board. Nothing comes close to Google Maps despite the way worse map data. And Google is compensating most of the missing map data by far superior routing with real world traffic data. The lack of map data starts to show up in niche routing like walking, hiking and biking though…

delusional 4y ago
The frustrating thing is that stuff like traffic data is available, it's just not used in any of the OSM plotters. I've been working on a faster OSM plotter for a while now, but the data format is really a pain.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  Mapbox offers traffic data that they collect themselves. I don't know how accurate it is compared to the tons of Android smartphones sharing their location to Google, but in areas with many Tesla it is good enough.
  - delusional 4y ago
    At least here in denmark the authoritative source for traffic information makes it available under a CC Universal license in the DatexII (european standard) format.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    Mapbox traffic and routing is pretty far from ideal. Used it for driving directions for awhile because of the relative cost and ended up constantly wishing we could just use Google. I don't recall specific issues though.
ugjka 4y ago
Google maps routing is top notch for long distances but when I need some finer details of some place, I always turn to OsmAnd

jeffbee 4y ago

2020. Can we see the bottom of the moat yet? Let's consider the article's key argument: a combination of concerns including microsoft, facebook, and mapbox will kill Google Maps. Facebook is on the ropes, completely rudderless with a big phone attached to their collective face. Mapillary might as well have been converted to neutrinos when Facebook acquired it. Microsoft does not now nor did at any time possess a consumer map product that anybody gave a damn about. They do have a nice competitor to Google Earth Engine, that's cool. GEE is awesome by the way and the article fails to discuss it meaningfully. Mapbox the company completely imploded after taking a huge round from softbank, failing to IPO, and going to war against its own key staff members. Really the fact that the article goes all the way to the end without even mentioning Esri says a lot.

adolph 4y ago
> Microsoft does not now nor did at any time possess a consumer map product that anybody gave a damn about. Not a consumer map produce, but the maps, weather, and imagery in Flight Simulator is pretty awesome. https://www.polygon.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-guide/21371962/find-your-house-home-city-town-map-heading https://www.polygon.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-guide/213...
debug-desperado 4y ago
“going to war against its own key staff members” What happened here?

clairity 4y ago

as much as i wish it were true, it certainly isn't evaporating because of apple maps, as implied by the post. apple maps is serviceable for directions, but on just about everything else, it's inferior to google maps (and i say this very begrudgingly because i'm no fan of google). he notes 'look around' as an example of apple reaching parity, but that's such a minor feature, and a great example of where apple has misplaced its priorities. apple needs to do a much better job of getting accurate POI (places of interest) and being able to search on those on just about any facet a user can imagine. beyond the basics of roads, addresses, and directions, that's the killer feature of maps. instead, they create slightly better 3D renderings of urban buildings and tout that as some huge UX improvement in their annual keynote. apple, please actually improve the killer feature and not everything else. i want to retire google maps (and waze) for good on my devices.

jahewson 4y ago
It already happened. Apple is doing POI in-house now and it’s much improved.
changoplatanero 4y ago
I remember reading somewhere from someone on the google maps team that the most difficult challenge in maintaining google maps is keeping up to date and accurate information about the millions of small businesses in their map. Being able to trust the information about restaurants and businesses is why I use google maps.
- wsinks 4y ago
  I've found recently that even in SF, google maps's small business data is out of date and untrustworthy. I can trust it to give me a phone number and sometimes the website, but the actual omnibox info is only useful for businesses that I know are really well trafficked by the younger demographic.
- schoen 4y ago
  Are they now robocalling the small businesses (and having the robots speak with the staff) in order to confirm their details? I had that impression from somewhere, but I don't know if it's right.

glial 4y ago

I switched to Apple Maps as part of an attempt to de-googlify my life. It's pretty good 95% of the time. That 5% inconvenience is worth it, to me. However, after seeing the OSM mentions in the comments, I'm inclined to check that out... Apple Maps doesn't have offline navigation, and I wish it did.

swozey 4y ago
It's not free and has a pretty different use case but most of us in the Jeep community use Gaia GPS for offline maps, if you want to stay away from G it may be an option.
- ralusek 4y ago
  The Jeep community sounds wild
  - swozey 4y ago
    We get lost a lot!
db1234 4y ago
What if this attitude catches on? i.e. ok with working well 95% of the time? Can that break Google's search dominance? What if there is a new search engine which does a good enough job of indexing top 'n' websites and not really care about hyper optimized results based on personal preferences? If such a search engine works well 95% of the time and that's good enough for most people, it could take significant traffic away from Google. People could still fallback on Google for those highly optimized results for complex search queries.
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- jacobolus 4y ago
  DuckDuckGo works a higher percentage of the time than Google does for me, with a lot less visual clutter, advertising, or underhanded attempts to trick me. YMMV. (Though I would still prefer have Google search from ca. 2005–2010.) In particular, > highly optimized results for complex search queries Google has gotten almost completely worthless for these, but unfortunately no other search engine does a good job with them at this point either.

lowbloodsugar 4y ago

I don't remember the last time I used google maps. I use apple maps.

jordanmorgan10 4y ago

TIL just how huge Mapbox is. Good for them.

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throw8836 4y ago

I was a googler working on Google maps at the time of the API self immolation. There were strong complaints from within about the price changes. Obviously everyone couldn't believe what was being planned, and there were countless spreadsheets and reports and SQL queries showing how this was going to shit all over a lot of customers that we'd be guaranteed to lose to a competitor. Management didn't give a shit. I don't know what the rationale was apart from some vague claim about "charging for value". A lot of users of the API apparently were basically under the free limits or only spending less than 100 USD on API usage so I can kind of understand the line of thought, but I still.thibk they went way too far. I don't know what happened to the architects of the plan. I presume promo. Edit: I should add that this was not a knee-jerk thing or some exec just woke up one day with an idea in their dreams. It was a planned change that took many months to plan and prepare for with endless preparations and reporting and so on.

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sentrms 4y ago
Quite a drastic change of direction it was. I wasn't willing to pay what Google asked for my sites maps usage and went to Mapbox until they stated raising prices. Currently using OSM with osm-static-maps https://github.com/jperelli/osm-static-maps https://github.com/jperelli/osm-static-maps It's still pretty complicated to run your own tile-server, something I would love to do.
nr2x 4y ago
The CEO is an MBA who just lets the CFO run the place. I honestly think Larry and Sergei want their piggy bank to grow and put people in charge who would focus on on thing only: stock price.

upupandup 4y ago

I don't buy these outlandish claims. the fact is for most people on desktops and android device are staring at Google Maps. I have Apple Maps too but I simply do not use it because I've grown used to just typing maps.google similar to how i just type the keyword in the URL browser and expect it to work. Google is truly the king of monopolies. Maps, Videos, Search. It really is remarkable and they will juice this forever.

otterley 4y ago

(2020)

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boredumb 4y ago

I try to shill https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete as much as I can and actively contribute in my area when ever I remember. One of my biggest motivating factors is that I'm nearly trapped in google search for things that involve local search and wanting to see a map, distance to drive, x,y or z in my area. I've also just recently stumbled onto the https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-android-4-1-released/ https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-android-4-1-released/ ability to load into my car so that's neat.

raybb 4y ago
Street Complete is great. I just wish they made it easier to enter the hours for a business. I don't know how they could do it but if a business has different hours each day it's quite painful to get that info into the app.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  Do you have any specific ideas how to make it easier? I admit that it can be obnoxious, especially if business has gap in the middle of the day. But it seems to me case where data to enter is simply complex and I see no obvious way to make it easier. What worse, typically multiple days have the same opening hours, so interface is optimized to make this kind of input easier (ability to select multiple days at once) (I am one of contributors to that software)
  - ViViDboarder 4y ago
    Funny. I work at Yelp and this was one of the interview questions I was asked almost 10 years ago.
  - frenchy 4y ago
    I actually thought it was suprisingly good, given the difficult problem domain. It's been a while since I used it, but one thing that might help would be to look at the interface the for Alarms in Android. It looks pretty similar, but it's a little bit different, and I think a little bit easier to use.

jimmaswell 4y ago

Perspective from someone who doesn't at all follow open maps or any of these other products: I've never felt a need to use anything else (besides when I want to use Google Earth for more niche reasons) and I didn't even know half of them existed. The Google Maps API is also used at work for various purposes and still seems to be the industry standard. I don't know about the fees but the API has been easy enough to work with.

nicbou 4y ago
If you need more information about your environment (road type/quality, trails, toilets), it's bad. If you need to do more things with a map (load tracks, show multiple things on the map at once, follow a very specific route), Google Maps is appallingly bad. It has a few very frustrating UX issues but that would be nitpicking. Now that they started forcing ads and social features, it got worse.

hrpnk 4y ago

For some time, links to Google Maps that I get over messages are opening up in the browser, which is hugely annoying. Else, one has to upgrade the App, but it's unclear why. Did they add new permissions to the App that it requires an explicit confirmation of upgrade? It does not get updated as part of the regular auto-updates.

adolph 4y ago

This is an article worth skimming. Key point is below. Interesting parts are links and summaries to the other mapping efforts. For example, I wasn't aware of Amazon's efforts. OpenStreetMap (OSM), over the next decade, has the potential to do to Google what Android did to Apple: dramatically grow the overall market while drawing a clear line between the larger “open” ecosystem and the smaller “proprietary” one. The difference is that while Google Maps probably makes billions annually, it also probably costs billions to maintain, leaving it wallowing in a low-margin no-man’s land compared to its big brother Google Search.

nr2x 4y ago

I’m not aware of anybody doing “eco friendly” routes with the intelligence, scale, or impact of google maps. Sure, it’s not a sexy cool thing, but it’s important.

TremendousJudge 4y ago
Walking and biking are much more "eco friendly" than saving some fuel on a car ride, yet google maps has no idea where the bike lanes are half the time.
nomel 4y ago
For most cases, minimizing energy means minimizing accelerations (positive or negative). I think that's usually the same route that minimizes time, and that's how most roads are planned: as steady as possible traffic flow. In most places I've lived, there seems to be an intentional penalization going off the "main" road, with stops signs at every intersection, so you don't drive through the housing areas. Do you mean routes that might avoid great elevation changes or something?
- nr2x 4y ago
  Shortest route is usually most fuel efficient, but in some cases it will surface a route that is three min longer but uses less energy for whatever reason.
lucb1e 4y ago
I tried the eco friendly routing on a few softwares; I think https://maps.openrouteservice.org https://maps.openrouteservice.org does it and our car also. In both cases, it turns highway traffic into city and B-road/Landstraße traffic. This is counter-productive: it produces more CO2 for all the braking and accelerating. What you need to do is don't drive 130 but drive 100 on the highway. Go behind a truck if you are okay with going that slowly (not to avoid wind, afaik then you'd have to be unsafely close, but behind a truck you cannot annoy other people because they need to overtake the truck anyhow). The downside: on an average commute of like 20 minutes, that costs you probably like 2 minutes extra (since top speed is far above average speed usually). The upside: your fuel consumption (fuel burned = CO2 created) is cut nearly in half, at least for the highway part of the trip. No braking also means less particulate matter from brake wear; no shifting back means less partial combustion. Or so I've read. The most efficient speed (afaik): as slow as your car allows (~1000 rpm) in the highest gear it has. I hope it goes without saying, though, that one should prioritize safety (go with the flow; worse/more(?) accidents happen in high speed difference zones) over efficiency gains.

renewiltord 4y ago

Apple Maps verbal directions are better but Google Maps often gets me there quicker and more early detects changes in the world (closures, temporary closures, accidents).

silversnitch 4y ago

Google maps moat isn’t evaporating. Most of the alternative mentioned here work only either in certain cities in US (like Apple Maps) or in specific countries. I’m a user in India and nothing, absolutely nothing comes close to Google maps in both urban and rural areas.

bhupy 4y ago
Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating. 10 years ago, most of the alternatives mentioned didn't even work in certain US cities or specific countries, and that's changed. It's only a matter of time before that holds true in India, and beyond. What that slow and steady march towards parity does to a moat can certainly be described as "evaporation".
- filleduchaos 4y ago
  > Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating Personally I think it does because frankly speaking this sort of change tends to happen in the US/Canada and maybe a handful of other western countries at best and nowhere else, for reasons far greater than tech enthusiasts' belly-aching. Take Apple Maps as an alternative, for example, which is pretty much only available on Apple devices and can thus not march towards parity amongst populations that simply cannot afford Apple devices (which is the majority of people on Earth). It's not just "a matter of time" before Apple Maps is a real challenger in India, because iPhones have a low-single-digit market share there. It would take actual significant action such as Apple releasing Apple Maps for Android for it to even be in the running, and even if that happens then it would still need to contend with Google Maps' existing foothold.
skinnymuch 4y ago
Right and before the alternatives didn’t even work in those specific places. Ergo there’s no reason to think there won’t be changes to competitors in 5 years in India.

asdff 4y ago

Speaking of maps, anyone want to finally make a biking maps app that doesn't suck? Both google and apple maps throw you to busy arterial instead of parallel running residential roads that see no traffic at all. They are also both terrible for hills. "Pretty flat" usually just means less than 1000ft of elevation change in my experience. It basically leads you into false flats unless you go through the routing by hand with an actual topographical map (which google maps and these other competitors do not provide, I go to us govt sources).

Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
I’ve been building (OSM-based) bike routing at https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map. Web only for now but iOS app in beta testing. Always happy to hear feedback!
- asdff 4y ago
  I tested it out with my typical work commute and the routing seemed pretty reasonable actually, beyond unprotected straights and left turns on major arteries that just aren't going to be easy to do. My issues are of course the osm layer view has a lot of seemingly useless information that I can't make any sense of. Look at the region around Beverly Blvd and Silverlake Blvd in Los Angeles: What is all that red stuff randomly on roads and alleyways supposed to represent? It's also on the stands in the hollywood bowl. Bike lanes are also not demarked on here, although weird things like the 'official' route of route 66 through LA are demarked clear as day although I'm not sure why anyone would ever need that piece of information. There's also a dotted purple line on some streets that I'm not sure what it could possibly represent, because its kinda like the red lines just randomly applied without any significance seemingly. Another issue seems to be that I can't type an address at all, I need to zoom in and choose it with the mouse. Good luck with the project, hope my feedback helps some.
- benhurmarcel 4y ago
  Quite nice; I've also tested my commute and the proposed route is quite good. I usually like https://brouter.de/brouter-web/ https://brouter.de/brouter-web/ but a mobile app would be very convenient.

stuart78 4y ago

I switched to Apple Maps several years ago and whenever I go back to Google, particularly on mobile, my preference for Apple Maps is confirmed. Google has too many ads (especially showing the ever-present Walgreens icon) and too much visual clutter. I do prefer Google's pins to Apple's dots, but Apple makes it easy for me to categorize locations with different lists and different colors. Google lets me do much of this, but doesn't allow me to set differing colors by list. Also, their 'favorite' list is just the most recent 500 starred places, so once something goes to 501, it simply disappears. Definitely still room for improvement from Apple here, but they seem way more engaged and invested than Google does at this point.

what_ever 4y ago
You can have multiple lists in Google Maps and the Maps can show those lists together on the UI. I have "Favorites", "Want to Go" among other lists with different pins (including colors). Disc: Googler but nowhere close to the Maps team.
- stuart78 4y ago
  Thanks, I think I didn't write that clearly. I do have multiple custom lists, and as far as I can tell there are five categories: Want to go, Favorites, Travel plans, Starred Places and custom. Each of these presents differently, but if you have multiple custom options (I have a dozen or so) there is no distinction between them, at least available on web that I can find. They are all turquoise pins. I will also readily admit that I may be a marginal case here, but Apple's more subtle treatment serves obsessive pinners like me without cluttering the map.
ericbarrett 4y ago
I don't know if it's still the case, but GMaps drove me away from using it for nav a couple years ago by recommending "shortcuts" that led to dangerous situations, for example an uncontrolled crossing of 6-lane surface roads, just to avoid a single crowded intersection. Adjusting the "aggression" of recommendations (I forgot the setting) did not seem to help. Have never had the problem with Apple Maps. Nowadays the ads seem really bad when I see somebody else using it.

lallysingh 4y ago

The moat can't go fast enough. It's still there, and I don't use Apple Maps so I can't tell if that's much better, but really, Maps hasn't improved in years, and generally seems worse. I'd eat the pain of going Osm (and I've been paying for OsmAnd+ for years) but it doesn't know where anything is, and when it does, the routes are pretty bad.

extragood 4y ago

The article seems to completely ignore one simple thing that guarantees that Apple Maps can never fully compete with Google Maps: Apple Maps is only available on Apple devices. Today, iOS represents 27.5% of all mobile users, meaning that the best they can hope for is 1/3 market share. That assumes that Apple doesn't make any radical changes to their closed ecosystem philosophies.

dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
A lot of the comments here also completely ignore that basic fact when talking about alternatives to Google.
impulser_ 4y ago
Google Maps is in the top 5 most downloaded iOS apps worldwide. So even Apple users don't want to use Apple Maps.
- labster 4y ago
  Or, like me, you download Google Maps as a backup map app. Not having a map available is higher risk than most apps breaking; it’s worth it to have a second option if Apple goes down.
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- nequo 4y ago
  > Google Maps is in the top 5 most downloaded iOS apps worldwide. It was listed in 7th place in this 2021 year-end round-up: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/02/apple-most-downloaded-apps-2021/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/02/apple-most-downloaded-a... > So even Apple users don't want to use Apple Maps. I don't think that this follows from your claim. I have both Google Maps and Apple Maps but use Google Maps only for street view. I use Apple Maps for nearly everything including navigation.
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mongol 4y ago

So many different uses for maps. I use different apps for different purposes. While Google Maps have the commercial info, it is poor as a recreational map (hiking etc). For that I use Locus Map. For car navigation I have started to use HERE. And then there are the official websites, such as in Sweden Lantmäteriet, with property borders etc that Google has nothing on. So I choose app depending on use.

debesyla 4y ago
Same. For hiking (geocaching) I just use OpenStreetMap and especially the german version of it (for some reason german version of Lithuania map seems more accurate...).
dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
+1 for Here Maps navigation (especially like the speed limits and speed trap features), but they make keeping a list of locations really painful. You'd think they purposefully trying to make it unusable.
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faebi 4y ago

I still wonder at which point we can use machine learning to auto-extend OSM maps based on satellite images. Or even better, at which point Tesla on-the-fly data can be used to create persistent maps. I mean just have a look at the visible amount of data in that link. You literally can see the swans. https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 Ignoring Tesla FSD itself, just look at the generated map data. Imagine how much more we can get if we don't need to run this at 20fps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkXcySUnJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkXcySUnJk

habi 4y ago
> I still wonder at which point we can use machine learning to auto-extend OSM maps based on satellite images. There’s https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/RapiD https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/RapiD which helps users to add features based on AI predictions. Each feature has to be properly reviewed though. A blank import of such features won’t happen anytime soon. > I mean just have a look at the visible amount of data in that link. You literally can see the swans. https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401 The swisstopo imagery is one of the better ones you can get, but swans should not be mapped in OSM ;)

eruci 4y ago

As I was saying a few days ago: https://twitter.com/geolytica/status/1550787103268769792 https://twitter.com/geolytica/status/1550787103268769792 Google maps is going the way if google search. I looked up directions from orikum to rinas and i first get a full page ads that's tricky to take off. Then 2/3 of the page is hotel ads.

Fomite 4y ago

Moving to a more rural area (though still a college town) has been eye opening. I've lived in my house for two years. Google Maps still doesn't know it exists (Apple Maps does, but that is a recent development). The number of business whose websites, directions, etc. have to note that Google Maps is lying to you, and under no circumstances turn right there, are staggering. As is the algorithm's deep desire to take you off a highway and send you down a gravel road because it's theoretically faster.

somat 4y ago

I feel osmand has restored so much of my agency in regards to phone maps it is painful to go back to google maps. So far it has proved to be, by far, my favorite map application. I hope their weird mixture of opensource application with paid version makes them enough money to keep the lights on. Because it sure has made an excellent program. One of the things I especially like about osmand. is that the developers(developer?) don't have some designer running rampant, reducing user agency in the name of minimalism. If I want 15 different status overlays cluttering up my map I can have them. It is great.

fleddr 4y ago

"These are the actions of an organization that is annoyed they ever let people become their customers." A perfect description of Google as a whole.

client4 4y ago

Google Earth is showing its age as well. If you haven't seen it check out https://www.placemark.io/ https://www.placemark.io/ . Multiple editors, GeoJSON, web based, etc.

NoToP 4y ago

Google maps has been becoming worse over time. It used to show metro lines by default. Now, you have to turn that on as a layer. It used to show all the stations on those lines. Now, depending on zoom, it algorithmically decides that some aren't important enough to show. It also stopped showing things like station names and what stops there. So you can no longer use it as a transit map, and just glance at it for directions. The alternative is the far more tedious interaction of typing in your destination and waiting for the server to respond with step by step idiot-proof directions when all you actually needed was the line number. But then it gets worse. Suppose the page is still loading. For some arcane reason, part of the interface loads, then the map, then the rest of the interface. If you can't find the navigation buttons for pan and zoom, they are exactly where you first looked they simply weren't displayed yet. The interface also used to make it easy to drop pins and measure distances. Just basic quality of life utility that a good online map should have. How did gmaps get worse? If they did literally nothing it would be better. Someone came in at some point and decided "this isn't designed enough" and proceeded to hide or rip out features. Superficial minimalism. It's not simplification, it's reduction.

tony-allan 4y ago

Streetview / Lookaround is mostly a useless features internationally because the data doesn't exist or is updated every couple of years. Many modern buildings just show a view of a building site!

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Google maps has gotten worse in that it doesn’t remember that my default search is for driving, not walking.

motoboi 4y ago

My experience as enterprise user of google product and services is that the client is as annoyance for them. I believe even the poor account managers have a miserable life trying to convince the company to care for the clients. Microsoft is the worst cloud, but I can talk to human beings quickly. Last month I had a question about a (sadly inferior) stream processing service from Microsoft and was greet by a very good answer from the PRODUCT OWNER on stack overflow. Fell in love for the product after that. So, google, please stop selling services because you don't want to deal with costumers.

leobg 4y ago

Off-topic, but does anyone know of an app to “walk” Street View (Google or Apple version) in VR/AR mode? Which is to say, where you control your view by rotating the device (so you get a real feel for direction). And perhaps go forwards/backwards by tilting the screen or something? I think that would be great to familiarize yourself with a place you’ve never been to. More intuitive and less disorienting than tapping around on the screen.