7 ms·

> It's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps I struggling to see how anything could be "definitely" better than "crappy" Google Maps. To me, G

> It's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps I struggling to see how anything could be "definitely" better than "crappy" Google Maps. To me, GMaps has made navigation about as exciting as using a door knob. It works without fail, and is so incredibly mundane, that the thought of forming a strong opinion about it makes me drowsy.

tus666 4y ago
Does it work without fail when you drive out of range of mobile reception?
- NavinF 4y ago
  Yes as long as I've downloaded offline maps which I always do when I leave the bay area.
- devilbunny 4y ago
  If it has planned the route while within service, it actually does. It guided me from Vegas to Yosemite (via Lee Vining and the Tioga Pass) without trouble despite several areas of no service. It had registered the waypoints and knew where it was, even if I couldn't load any additional map data. (I had not saved the area for offline use.)
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
> It works without fail So long as you have a data connection or planned ahead with a downloaded region.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  - And don't trust the routing in the actually remote areas, and prep your drive by putting GPS coordinates in your driving route -- but that's true of the competition too. - And have a vehicle that's the size of a normal passenger car. (I used to own a special "RV GPS" that had better data on bridge heights and weight limits.)
gambiting 4y ago
In my experience - it's just frequently wrong, to a point where I don't feel confident using it. Telling you to turn where you can't, going wrong way up one-way streets, showing you that streets connect on the map where they actually don't.......I could keep going. I keep reporting errors and they never get fixed. Like I mentioned in another comment there's a road near my work which has a no-left-turn sign but Google maps still keeps telling me to turn left there - I've been reporting that error since at least 2018 but no one cares. One of my friends lives on a new(5 years old) estate and Google still doesn't recognize his address despite many submissions to Google to fix this. Another lives in a Victorian house that hasn't moved for over a century last time I checked, yet you won't find it on Google maps - Google still insists his address is several streets over. Maybe it's just the UK maps and it works fine elsewhere, I don't know.
- jasonfarnon 4y ago
  does it rely much on user reporting? I figured google maps was smarter than that. it would have the data to see that no one takes a left at that no-left street you mentioned.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Except that people absolutely take that left turn despite the sign - it's just a very convenient shortcut, and UK has extremely lax enforcement on the road. The chances of getting a ticket for taking an illegal turn are close to zero. So Google will have the data that a left turn is indeed possible there, because clearly - people are taking it. Me reporting the "no left turn" sign is probably treated as malicious since clearly - in real life people are taking this turn all the time.
- ThamesJ 4y ago
  It’s interesting how anecdotal people’s perspectives on Google maps navigation ends up being. Personally GMaps has never failed me (UK based) in the best part of a decade, if anything it has been consistently worryingly accurate, and everyone I know has had a similar experience. As I’ve seen others say in this thread “it just works” without fail. Due to that it’s unbelievable (to me) that others have had such an experience as yours. Do you think a fault in alphabet’s mapping processes in certain geographic areas may have caused this?
98codes 4y ago
It (and all other GPS apps I've tried) work well enough, until you try to go somewhere you know well and have to turn it off to stop it from trying to reroute you over & over again. If any app would allow me to have some sort of ability to let me set a level of "pain" (traffic, stoplights, smaller roads, extra turns) that's acceptable vs. a level of time savings, I'd use that app and never look back. The number of times I've gone seemingly way out of the way only to rejoin a highway 30 minutes later in order to save 2 minutes total (vs the traffic I would have sat in) is way too damn high.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  > until you try to go somewhere you know well and have to turn it off to stop it from trying to reroute you over & over again. In those cases I just mute it, there's always a mute button.
- zepppotemkin 4y ago
  Yeah, in Chicago at least google maps tends to go into a panic attack, it's distracting and has nearly caused me a few accidents
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >If any app would allow me to have some sort of ability to let me set a level of "pain" (traffic, stoplights, smaller roads, extra turns) that's acceptable vs. a level of time savings, I'd use that app and never look back. In all seriousness, have you tried Waze? Gives multiple options each time you search, allowing to choose routes that are simpler, or maybe partially but not fully use tolls.
  - 98codes 4y ago
    I used Waze constantly in the DC area, was a godsend. Then I moved to Seattle where apparently comparatively nobody uses it -- without a ton of users, Waze isn't much better than the rest, sadly.
- gknoy 4y ago
  I'd love a setting that would silence directions when I am within $distance of home, and have home set as my destination. I don't really need to be told to turn on my own street, or the streets I always use to get to my street.
HollowEyes 4y ago
I just can't get on with gmaps, I stumble with the UI every time.
- jasonfarnon 4y ago
  I remember how many years it refused to save route preferences like "avoid tolls" or "avoid highways". You would have to set them anew for each route search.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  I've seen a marked decline in the speed and usefulness of google maps over the last 10 years or so. I'm not sure whether they are cramming too many features into it, so the UI becomes too cumbersome from it's original use case, or that they are having issues with data quality, but I find needing to retype different searches more often, and just interacting with the UI more to get the same information (which in my case is almost always "find the nearest X" and then "plan a route from where I am to X".)
snarfy 4y ago
Purpose-built tools are always superior to multi-tools for the purpose they were built. A phone running google maps is a multi-tool.
ForHackernews 4y ago
Do you live in California, USA? Google Maps is quite terrible in many parts of the world that are not-America. In Europe, it routinely suggests absolutely insane "shorcuts" because it doesn't seem to understand that even though a narrow, winding country lane with stone walls on either side may have a 90 kph speed limit, it would be suicide to actually drive at that speed.
nottorp 4y ago
YMMV. Google sent me to shortcuts that couldn't be called roads at least 3 times since i've been using it. They also have a tendency to make you stick to the main - congested - roads. You won't notice unless you're a local to the area though, so let's say that's good enough. Waze in my experience seems to have more realistic ETAs and is better at routing around traffic jams. Even though it's built on Google Maps. However I'm in Romania and I do long weekends in mountain retreats in the middle of nowhere. As I said, YMMV.
lm28469 4y ago
It really depends on where you live and what you do. One time it wanted me to walk through the waste/sewer pipes of Mallorca to go from a beach to the city center, let me tell you it's not a pedestrian path.
gertrunde 4y ago
The short version is that Google Maps is 'free', it's not terrible, and it's better than nothing. (And often better than the integrated in-car satnav systems - although that's not so much because Maps is good as because the in-car systems are often quite bad - the Tomtom & Garmin integrated options being a notable exception). But Maps is definitely worse than dedicated navigation devices, although it does improve over time. There are certain things it is particularly bad at, for example routing down slow 20mph residential roads with speed bumps. But... are the dedicated navigation devices so much better than Google Maps to justify the increased cost? Probably not for 99% of people. I used to use a Garmin satnav, and plug it in to my laptop and use Garmin's software to do my travel expenses, full tracking of all my movements, and it's my data to do with as I wish with no concerns. I can do the same thing through Google Timeline... but it's not even close to as well executed, and gives me serious data privacy concerns... because Google.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
Same, the integration and sharing and real time traffic of Google and Apple Maps are basically impossible to compete with, in areas where they are available.
hbn 4y ago
I try to not use Google services where I can help it, but not using Google Maps to me just feels like risking screwing up my day. The fact that it's what everyone uses makes it the safe bet. They have so many users being tracked in real-time to reroute me around detours and traffic jams as soon as they happen, I don't really want to try anything else. If I use an alternative and get stuck in traffic, I'm not gonna be thinking about how proud I am of myself for sitting in traffic in the name of sticking it to Google. I'm gonna be thinking "should have used Google Maps"
- groovybits 4y ago
  I've been using Apple Maps as my regular navigator since iOS 15.0 general release, and I've been impressed. The audio directions are much clearer - e.g. "Go through this light, and at the next one turn right". The integration with Siri and CarPlay is very handy - e.g. "Hey Siri, get directions to Bob's house". And the traffic data is noticeably better in the last year. Disclaimer: I live in suburban U.S. - I've heard less good things about AM in rural areas.
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    Apple Maps still can't accurately route people to my house in suburban California. They end up one block over.
    - llbeansandrice 4y ago
      Have you tired submitting an issue? No one could map to a place I used to live out in the sticks accurately but I submitted a bug/issue to Google Maps and Apple and they fixed it.
      - jupp0r 4y ago
        No I haven't. Will totally do that in order to save time explaining to friends why they can't use Apple Maps for navigation to my house. I just assumed that submitting maps bugs is the same /dev/null form as normal bugs for Apple software, but it seems it's a separate process and they are actually responsive. Thanks!

tus666 4y ago

Does it work without fail when you drive out of range of mobile reception?

NavinF 4y ago
Yes as long as I've downloaded offline maps which I always do when I leave the bay area.
devilbunny 4y ago
If it has planned the route while within service, it actually does. It guided me from Vegas to Yosemite (via Lee Vining and the Tioga Pass) without trouble despite several areas of no service. It had registered the waypoints and knew where it was, even if I couldn't load any additional map data. (I had not saved the area for offline use.)

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

> It works without fail So long as you have a data connection or planned ahead with a downloaded region.

yencabulator 4y ago
- And don't trust the routing in the actually remote areas, and prep your drive by putting GPS coordinates in your driving route -- but that's true of the competition too. - And have a vehicle that's the size of a normal passenger car. (I used to own a special "RV GPS" that had better data on bridge heights and weight limits.)

gambiting 4y ago

In my experience - it's just frequently wrong, to a point where I don't feel confident using it. Telling you to turn where you can't, going wrong way up one-way streets, showing you that streets connect on the map where they actually don't.......I could keep going. I keep reporting errors and they never get fixed. Like I mentioned in another comment there's a road near my work which has a no-left-turn sign but Google maps still keeps telling me to turn left there - I've been reporting that error since at least 2018 but no one cares. One of my friends lives on a new(5 years old) estate and Google still doesn't recognize his address despite many submissions to Google to fix this. Another lives in a Victorian house that hasn't moved for over a century last time I checked, yet you won't find it on Google maps - Google still insists his address is several streets over. Maybe it's just the UK maps and it works fine elsewhere, I don't know.

jasonfarnon 4y ago
does it rely much on user reporting? I figured google maps was smarter than that. it would have the data to see that no one takes a left at that no-left street you mentioned.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Except that people absolutely take that left turn despite the sign - it's just a very convenient shortcut, and UK has extremely lax enforcement on the road. The chances of getting a ticket for taking an illegal turn are close to zero. So Google will have the data that a left turn is indeed possible there, because clearly - people are taking it. Me reporting the "no left turn" sign is probably treated as malicious since clearly - in real life people are taking this turn all the time.
ThamesJ 4y ago
It’s interesting how anecdotal people’s perspectives on Google maps navigation ends up being. Personally GMaps has never failed me (UK based) in the best part of a decade, if anything it has been consistently worryingly accurate, and everyone I know has had a similar experience. As I’ve seen others say in this thread “it just works” without fail. Due to that it’s unbelievable (to me) that others have had such an experience as yours. Do you think a fault in alphabet’s mapping processes in certain geographic areas may have caused this?

98codes 4y ago

It (and all other GPS apps I've tried) work well enough, until you try to go somewhere you know well and have to turn it off to stop it from trying to reroute you over & over again. If any app would allow me to have some sort of ability to let me set a level of "pain" (traffic, stoplights, smaller roads, extra turns) that's acceptable vs. a level of time savings, I'd use that app and never look back. The number of times I've gone seemingly way out of the way only to rejoin a highway 30 minutes later in order to save 2 minutes total (vs the traffic I would have sat in) is way too damn high.

TulliusCicero 4y ago
> until you try to go somewhere you know well and have to turn it off to stop it from trying to reroute you over & over again. In those cases I just mute it, there's always a mute button.
zepppotemkin 4y ago
Yeah, in Chicago at least google maps tends to go into a panic attack, it's distracting and has nearly caused me a few accidents
AussieWog93 4y ago
>If any app would allow me to have some sort of ability to let me set a level of "pain" (traffic, stoplights, smaller roads, extra turns) that's acceptable vs. a level of time savings, I'd use that app and never look back. In all seriousness, have you tried Waze? Gives multiple options each time you search, allowing to choose routes that are simpler, or maybe partially but not fully use tolls.
- 98codes 4y ago
  I used Waze constantly in the DC area, was a godsend. Then I moved to Seattle where apparently comparatively nobody uses it -- without a ton of users, Waze isn't much better than the rest, sadly.
gknoy 4y ago
I'd love a setting that would silence directions when I am within $distance of home, and have home set as my destination. I don't really need to be told to turn on my own street, or the streets I always use to get to my street.

HollowEyes 4y ago

I just can't get on with gmaps, I stumble with the UI every time.

jasonfarnon 4y ago
I remember how many years it refused to save route preferences like "avoid tolls" or "avoid highways". You would have to set them anew for each route search.
rsj_hn 4y ago
I've seen a marked decline in the speed and usefulness of google maps over the last 10 years or so. I'm not sure whether they are cramming too many features into it, so the UI becomes too cumbersome from it's original use case, or that they are having issues with data quality, but I find needing to retype different searches more often, and just interacting with the UI more to get the same information (which in my case is almost always "find the nearest X" and then "plan a route from where I am to X".)

snarfy 4y ago

Purpose-built tools are always superior to multi-tools for the purpose they were built. A phone running google maps is a multi-tool.

ForHackernews 4y ago

Do you live in California, USA? Google Maps is quite terrible in many parts of the world that are not-America. In Europe, it routinely suggests absolutely insane "shorcuts" because it doesn't seem to understand that even though a narrow, winding country lane with stone walls on either side may have a 90 kph speed limit, it would be suicide to actually drive at that speed.

nottorp 4y ago

YMMV. Google sent me to shortcuts that couldn't be called roads at least 3 times since i've been using it. They also have a tendency to make you stick to the main - congested - roads. You won't notice unless you're a local to the area though, so let's say that's good enough. Waze in my experience seems to have more realistic ETAs and is better at routing around traffic jams. Even though it's built on Google Maps. However I'm in Romania and I do long weekends in mountain retreats in the middle of nowhere. As I said, YMMV.

lm28469 4y ago

It really depends on where you live and what you do. One time it wanted me to walk through the waste/sewer pipes of Mallorca to go from a beach to the city center, let me tell you it's not a pedestrian path.

gertrunde 4y ago

The short version is that Google Maps is 'free', it's not terrible, and it's better than nothing. (And often better than the integrated in-car satnav systems - although that's not so much because Maps is good as because the in-car systems are often quite bad - the Tomtom & Garmin integrated options being a notable exception). But Maps is definitely worse than dedicated navigation devices, although it does improve over time. There are certain things it is particularly bad at, for example routing down slow 20mph residential roads with speed bumps. But... are the dedicated navigation devices so much better than Google Maps to justify the increased cost? Probably not for 99% of people. I used to use a Garmin satnav, and plug it in to my laptop and use Garmin's software to do my travel expenses, full tracking of all my movements, and it's my data to do with as I wish with no concerns. I can do the same thing through Google Timeline... but it's not even close to as well executed, and gives me serious data privacy concerns... because Google.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

Same, the integration and sharing and real time traffic of Google and Apple Maps are basically impossible to compete with, in areas where they are available.

hbn 4y ago

I try to not use Google services where I can help it, but not using Google Maps to me just feels like risking screwing up my day. The fact that it's what everyone uses makes it the safe bet. They have so many users being tracked in real-time to reroute me around detours and traffic jams as soon as they happen, I don't really want to try anything else. If I use an alternative and get stuck in traffic, I'm not gonna be thinking about how proud I am of myself for sitting in traffic in the name of sticking it to Google. I'm gonna be thinking "should have used Google Maps"

groovybits 4y ago
I've been using Apple Maps as my regular navigator since iOS 15.0 general release, and I've been impressed. The audio directions are much clearer - e.g. "Go through this light, and at the next one turn right". The integration with Siri and CarPlay is very handy - e.g. "Hey Siri, get directions to Bob's house". And the traffic data is noticeably better in the last year. Disclaimer: I live in suburban U.S. - I've heard less good things about AM in rural areas.
- jupp0r 4y ago
  Apple Maps still can't accurately route people to my house in suburban California. They end up one block over.
  - llbeansandrice 4y ago
    Have you tired submitting an issue? No one could map to a place I used to live out in the sticks accurately but I submitted a bug/issue to Google Maps and Apple and they fixed it.
    - jupp0r 4y ago
      No I haven't. Will totally do that in order to save time explaining to friends why they can't use Apple Maps for navigation to my house. I just assumed that submitting maps bugs is the same /dev/null form as normal bugs for Apple software, but it seems it's a separate process and they are actually responsive. Thanks!