6 ms·

Google Maps has been a really garbage experience for me lately, so much so that I've been actively looking for alternatives. Sadly, there aren't many. Some of

by drtz 4y ago

Google Maps has been a really garbage experience for me lately, so much so that I've been actively looking for alternatives. Sadly, there aren't many. Some of problems I've had with Google Maps recently: - Routing gives me weird bypasses that aren't necessary and often actually add time to the trip. I've started to not trust the routing. - The UX when searching for places is extremely difficult to navigate, especially when trying to use map view instead of list view - planning a route _without_ asking for directions is near impossible because many street and landmark names are not displayed - Landmarks are drowned out by the overwhelming clutter of business names (paid ads) - Maps are sometimes wrong in my area and I have no idea how to get them fixed. I've started using OsmAnd for most of my mapping needs lately, and it's better in almost every way _as a map_. The only major thing it's lacking for me is traffic-aware navigation.

kybernetyk 4y ago
Google Maps has a few quirks. Here in Germany it always prefers to send you through 30km/h residential zones. Which might be somewhat faster than taking congested main roads but those 30km/h zones are terrible to drive through. There's always cars parked at one side of the street so you have to wait for oncoming traffic. The streets usually are very narrow. So the stress level to the driver is way higher. I also noticed a quirk where it would send me 2km down a road just to turn back and drive the 2km back to where I came from. First few times I thought I must have added a waypoint but nope - sometimes it just makes you waste time. Apple Maps might be better but I can't use it as it has a quirk with "Environmental Zones" in Germany. There are 3 kinds of zones: Red, Yellow and Green. Your car has a badge with a color (depends on how environmentaly friendly it is). So a green badge can enter every zone, a yellow badge only yellow and red zones, and a red badge only red zones. Now whenever Apple Maps encounters such a zone in the route the navigation switches to a waaaay zoomed out view (tends to display the whole route on a map). So you can't really see the next turn, etc. To get rid of that view Apple Maps expects you to click on OK. Which really sucks while driving. What's infuriating is that you can't turn off the env zone checking or even just tell Maps that "my car has a green badge so PLEAS FOR F SAKES STOP PESTERING ME EVERY TIME YOU ENCOUNTER A ZONE". (Those zones are very common - every bigger town is a green zone. So Apple Maps becomes _really_ unusable on longer trips).
- b4je7d7wb 4y ago
  That sounds horrible for yellow and red cars. I hope all new cars are green.
  - kybernetyk 4y ago
    yeah, yellow is like very old diesels and red is for cars without a catalytic converter. so most cars (even my RAM 1500) have a green badge
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Electric cars are all green, gas cars are green if they meet EURO 1, and diesel cars are green if they meet EURO 4 (or EURO 3 + retrofitted particulate filter)[1]. This is pretty loose for passenger cars: any made in the last fifteen years should all qualify [2]. [1] https://www.germanemissionssticker.com https://www.germanemissionssticker.com [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards
  - cyclever 4y ago
    I hope cars are mostly forbidden in cities soon.
    - kybernetyk 4y ago
      They are in most European cities anyway. I'm in a - for the US small, for Europe mid sized city with a pop of roughly 400k. City center is banned to cars. You're supposed to park on the outskirts or take public transport into the center. (Or bicycle). The result is that almost no one goes there anymore. All the inner city shops are closing down - while the mall style shopping centers on the outskirts are flourishing. Walkable cities sound great in theory. Until you realize that shopping groceries _really_ sucks when you have to carry full bags for 3 kilometers or have to use over-filled public transport.
- izacus 4y ago
  I'm just annoyed that Google Maps still has no support for displaying speed limits in Germany or most of Europe. TomTom does show them.
colanderman 4y ago
> - planning a route _without_ asking for directions is near impossible because many street and landmark names are not displayed This drives me absolutely batty. No matter how much I zoom in, I cannot see exit number labels. Sometimes they show up, at random places along the exit ramp, but I haven't figured out the rhyme or reason how. Real maps clearly label exit numbers of every exit. I don't understand why this is so hard for Google Maps.
- danuker 4y ago
  Navigating through Romania using Google Maps, I can't see the names of towns. I have switched to OsmAnd, and the only thing I miss now and then is a good geocoder.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Or I'll see a street name I'm looking for, zoom in directly on that name, and it disappears.
FpUser 4y ago
>The only major thing it's lacking for me is traffic-aware navigation." This. I use mostly OsmAnd, I especially like it when on bike or pedestrian mode. But yes sometime traffic info is a must so I use GM few times per year for this.
seanw444 4y ago
OsmAnd+ is my go-to maps app as well lately. It's fantastic. The only problem I have with it is the rendering for the actual map is super unoptimized, and leads to it having a very low refresh rate. Which, for someone who got a phone with 120 Hz as soon as I possibly could because the smoothness matters so much to me, it's a tad frustrating. Especially when I'm trying to scroll around the map manually. When I leave it in navigation mode while driving, the refresh rate doesn't really matter. According to the GitHub Issues/Dicussions, this isn't an issue with the iOS implementation. Just the Android one. Hopefully something they can fix.
bmurphy1976 4y ago
It drives me INSANE that I carefully align the map UI with the area I want to search, enter my search term, and then bam Google Maps automatically expands to the entire region. This is NOT what I want ever. Another thing that bothers me, when using the my phone as the map display I can search for places along my route and go back to normal navigation mode. Then as I drive whatever I am searching for will pop up along the route when we get close to it (say restaurants or gas stations). You can't do this in Android Auto, you have to always select the location or clear the results entirely.

by drtz 4y ago

kybernetyk 4y ago

Google Maps has a few quirks. Here in Germany it always prefers to send you through 30km/h residential zones. Which might be somewhat faster than taking congested main roads but those 30km/h zones are terrible to drive through. There's always cars parked at one side of the street so you have to wait for oncoming traffic. The streets usually are very narrow. So the stress level to the driver is way higher. I also noticed a quirk where it would send me 2km down a road just to turn back and drive the 2km back to where I came from. First few times I thought I must have added a waypoint but nope - sometimes it just makes you waste time. Apple Maps might be better but I can't use it as it has a quirk with "Environmental Zones" in Germany. There are 3 kinds of zones: Red, Yellow and Green. Your car has a badge with a color (depends on how environmentaly friendly it is). So a green badge can enter every zone, a yellow badge only yellow and red zones, and a red badge only red zones. Now whenever Apple Maps encounters such a zone in the route the navigation switches to a waaaay zoomed out view (tends to display the whole route on a map). So you can't really see the next turn, etc. To get rid of that view Apple Maps expects you to click on OK. Which really sucks while driving. What's infuriating is that you can't turn off the env zone checking or even just tell Maps that "my car has a green badge so PLEAS FOR F SAKES STOP PESTERING ME EVERY TIME YOU ENCOUNTER A ZONE". (Those zones are very common - every bigger town is a green zone. So Apple Maps becomes _really_ unusable on longer trips).

b4je7d7wb 4y ago
That sounds horrible for yellow and red cars. I hope all new cars are green.
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  yeah, yellow is like very old diesels and red is for cars without a catalytic converter. so most cars (even my RAM 1500) have a green badge
- jefftk 4y ago
  Electric cars are all green, gas cars are green if they meet EURO 1, and diesel cars are green if they meet EURO 4 (or EURO 3 + retrofitted particulate filter)[1]. This is pretty loose for passenger cars: any made in the last fifteen years should all qualify [2]. [1] https://www.germanemissionssticker.com https://www.germanemissionssticker.com [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards
- cyclever 4y ago
  I hope cars are mostly forbidden in cities soon.
  - kybernetyk 4y ago
    They are in most European cities anyway. I'm in a - for the US small, for Europe mid sized city with a pop of roughly 400k. City center is banned to cars. You're supposed to park on the outskirts or take public transport into the center. (Or bicycle). The result is that almost no one goes there anymore. All the inner city shops are closing down - while the mall style shopping centers on the outskirts are flourishing. Walkable cities sound great in theory. Until you realize that shopping groceries _really_ sucks when you have to carry full bags for 3 kilometers or have to use over-filled public transport.
izacus 4y ago
I'm just annoyed that Google Maps still has no support for displaying speed limits in Germany or most of Europe. TomTom does show them.

colanderman 4y ago

> - planning a route _without_ asking for directions is near impossible because many street and landmark names are not displayed This drives me absolutely batty. No matter how much I zoom in, I cannot see exit number labels. Sometimes they show up, at random places along the exit ramp, but I haven't figured out the rhyme or reason how. Real maps clearly label exit numbers of every exit. I don't understand why this is so hard for Google Maps.

danuker 4y ago
Navigating through Romania using Google Maps, I can't see the names of towns. I have switched to OsmAnd, and the only thing I miss now and then is a good geocoder.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Or I'll see a street name I'm looking for, zoom in directly on that name, and it disappears.

FpUser 4y ago

>The only major thing it's lacking for me is traffic-aware navigation." This. I use mostly OsmAnd, I especially like it when on bike or pedestrian mode. But yes sometime traffic info is a must so I use GM few times per year for this.

seanw444 4y ago

OsmAnd+ is my go-to maps app as well lately. It's fantastic. The only problem I have with it is the rendering for the actual map is super unoptimized, and leads to it having a very low refresh rate. Which, for someone who got a phone with 120 Hz as soon as I possibly could because the smoothness matters so much to me, it's a tad frustrating. Especially when I'm trying to scroll around the map manually. When I leave it in navigation mode while driving, the refresh rate doesn't really matter. According to the GitHub Issues/Dicussions, this isn't an issue with the iOS implementation. Just the Android one. Hopefully something they can fix.

bmurphy1976 4y ago

It drives me INSANE that I carefully align the map UI with the area I want to search, enter my search term, and then bam Google Maps automatically expands to the entire region. This is NOT what I want ever. Another thing that bothers me, when using the my phone as the map display I can search for places along my route and go back to normal navigation mode. Then as I drive whatever I am searching for will pop up along the route when we get close to it (say restaurants or gas stations). You can't do this in Android Auto, you have to always select the location or clear the results entirely.