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In a lot of ways, electronic maps are still inferior to the Triptik. Even the Rand McNally showed highway rest areas and picnic areas. The Triptik also showed

In a lot of ways, electronic maps are still inferior to the Triptik. Even the Rand McNally showed highway rest areas and picnic areas. The Triptik also showed gas stations. Electronic maps often lack this entirely, at least in easy form. The Triptik shows what you need to know while on a long motor trip. The electronic map emphasizes details I don't need. At a glance the paper map tells me whether a road is free limited-access, toll limited-access, multi-lane divided, two lanes but major, two lanes and minor, a country lane, or a dirt road. Electronic map only tells me this if I zoom in on a satellite view, and it might even route me over a two-lane road to save five minutes on a two-hour trip when there's a much safer freeway that most drivers would prefer. Paper map has little dotted lines for scenic routes. Electronic map doesn't. Mostly I'm surprised the electronic maps don't have these things after all these years. Maybe Apple will get them eventually. Google is busy stuffing ads into its maps.

wyclif 4y ago
Former land surveyor here. Big fan of paper maps, even though I still use Gaia, FarOut, etc. My faves are the USGS topographical map sets. There's just something you can't replace about the experience of navigating using topo maps and a compass.
nemonemo 4y ago
Those two types of maps are targeting different groups -- paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users who know the basic navigation and have little need to consult the legend. The electronic maps target much wider audience and can be dumbed down since people can interact with the map. Sure, the electronic maps probably can stuff more info to be shown at a glance, but my impression is that they chose not to.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Some of these things are too annoying to do at scale so they just skipped it rather than choosing to intentionally dumb it down. Making the call on what is a “scenic route” isn’t something you can just pull directly from highway department data.
  - dmurray 4y ago
    You could predict it from Streetview data though! A small bit of computer vision would go a long way here. Actually this seems like a fun project for someone inside or (if the API is not too throttled) outside Google.
    - eternityforest 4y ago
      Or better yet, when someone drives anywhere, predict if there was a faster way they could have gone, and take that as a candidate scenic view.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  > paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users Since when did using a map become an "advanced" life skill? Is "Idiocracy" becoming a documentary?
  - eternityforest 4y ago
    Since it became unnecessary for most people? Phones can break, so it's always good to know the paper skills... but it's definitely not an everyday thing anymore. Besides, even before phones, it was somewhat advanced, they were never easy, as shown by how often people got lost, and still get lost with perfectly functional GPS just by making one bad turn because their memory failed since last time they checked the screen.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      Next you'll be telling me that people don't know how to darn their socks any more.
      - eternityforest 4y ago
        I'd even argue that darning socks might be more relevant to everyday life than map reading, even though map reading is more important in emergencies and people should probably know both. If you can darn socks you can probably fix holes in your pants, and if you have a car charger, getting lost happens a lot less than clothes repair, at least in the city.
        worthless-trash 4y ago
        I dunno man, I think most people would be lost without the iDarn app.
        eternityforest 4y ago
        iDarn sells data to the NSAGBCP, darnIT is well worth the subscription and has a community tier that only crashes a few times in 10min.
kortilla 4y ago
>Mostly I'm surprised the electronic maps don't have these things after all these years. Maybe Apple will get them eventually. Google is busy stuffing ads into its maps. Yeah, google is always going to be trash for anything that doesn’t align well with advertising. Better to show a Starbucks than a rest area, etc.
- dylan604 4y ago
  so it's the gas station's fault for not buying Google Ads then, right? Google can't possibly be blamed. The don't do evil. It's just the people using their services that do evil things. /s
larrik 4y ago
I've been growing pretty dissatisfied with the state of electronic maps. Basic things that are usually either impossible or difficult while using Google Maps or Apple Maps for directions: - What road am I on? What town am I in? - and other flavors of "where the hell am I, anyway?" - This is especially annoying when on the phone and the person is asking where you are, and the best you can answer is "Google says I'm X minutes away" - What road is this coming up next? - instead it puts the name halfway along the road, which is out of view... - Some of the true nav systems (Garmin, etc) do this better.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  There's no way to see a street name on Apple Maps without zooming in entirely. And sometimes even then, I'll see something like Route 99 instead the name by which everyone refers to the road: "Broadway".
  - nerdbert 4y ago
    Google Maps is even worse about this. Dear Google: If I have my directions preference set to walking, cycling, or public transit, there is no reason to EVER show me the route number of a street that has a name. I don't care about it, and it actively gets in the way of using the map since it displaces the name, you know, the thing that is actually on the signs that I am looking at with my eyes. It would be one thing if it showed both the name and the number, but usually you have to pinch and pan so far from where you are before you luck into seeing the name that you've totally lost your orientation on the map.
  - stephen_g 4y ago
    This annoys me too. I've submitted map feedback (holding and tapping 'Report a problem' on the map) before but who knows if that could make much of a difference. I assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing (although your comment seems to imply perhaps not)? We have them here but nobody I know here in Australia uses them or knows them, apart from major motorways. Maybe the other routes are used by truckers? Normal drivers though I would think only care about the street names. It frustrates me to no end how hard it can be to see the names of streets in Maps, it's one of the most important things!
ChuckMcM 4y ago
I'm pretty convinced that Google just doesn't understand information economics. In case you haven't noticed, Apple maps are getting better and better and I prefer their turn-by-turn directions over that of Google. The interesting thing is that Apple now offers "explore" vs "driving" maps, I hope they also add "walking" or "Cycling" maps. And because they aren't driven by advertising sales, the maps can be more useful without compromising sales revenue. If Apple decided to invest in a crawler/indexer with a search front end to give Siri the data sources for better response, and to allow for "pure" informational search (rather than search-ad/revenue prioritized search), once it got good enough for that it would put Google into a very tight spot. (Well tighter than the one it currently finds itself in).
- criley2 4y ago
  Apple's solution isn't a serious contender because it's hardware locked to high end devices that the majority of people don't use / can't afford (the demographics of this community not withstanding). While it's nice that their users can have an alternate first-party experience, that experience is not a publically available map. For example if you go to maps.apple.com you are told "Open this on your Apple Hardware". (i.e. If 100% of Apple users used Apple Maps, Apple's best case scenario is still #2 in mapping)
  - ChuckMcM 4y ago
    One could argue that "most" people[1] have iPhones (at least in the US). And yes it is only 22% world wide. But putting aside the currently available "seats" for a moment, at the point where is it clearly the better product then two things start happening 1) People start buying Apple hardware because it has a better map experience. 2) Apple can produce the iMap device, likely in cooperation with their maps partner TomTom, that people can use to get the Apple Maps experience without changing their phone provider. [1] https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/us-smartphone-market-share https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/us-smartphone-market-share
    - mangoleaf 4y ago
      I live USA, Stanford engineer, have an Android phone and will likely never have an iPhone. My other gender breeding partner has to have an apple, so I use hers at times and am appalled at how difficult things are. But if she can't facetime friends, then she will lose face. I get free phones, and see pays large fees for hers. Sorry, I pass. I work in finance BTW.
colanderman 4y ago
Google Maps doesn't even show exit numbers unless you are incredibly zoomed in. They are near useless for at-a-glance visual navigation.
- tokenadult 4y ago
  My user experience on several recent trips is that Google Maps showed me the exit number for the exit I would use next very prominently on top of the display (where it shows the direction of the next turn). Maybe that isn't rolled out consistently for all trips.
  - colanderman 4y ago
    Context is when you are not using GPS. (Personally I despise being talked at by a computer for an hour, especially one that's bad at directing a driver.) With paper maps, you can just look at them -- a single page, no pinch zooming or scrolling! -- to see what exit is appropriate for your destination. Not possible with Google Maps -- you either have to zoom in until the exit ramp fills the screen, or make up a fake address near where you're going to get directions which you then have to read through to find the relevant exit. It's a needless frustration when I'm in a hurry and just what to know what exit serves town X.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      I feel you on the talking part. Especially maddening to me is where it talks over an in-progress conversation to tell us things we already know. I now generally turn the audio part off except for alerts. I like that better, not only is it more soothing, but it forces me to engage my brain a little more.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wyclif 4y ago

Former land surveyor here. Big fan of paper maps, even though I still use Gaia, FarOut, etc. My faves are the USGS topographical map sets. There's just something you can't replace about the experience of navigating using topo maps and a compass.

nemonemo 4y ago

Those two types of maps are targeting different groups -- paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users who know the basic navigation and have little need to consult the legend. The electronic maps target much wider audience and can be dumbed down since people can interact with the map. Sure, the electronic maps probably can stuff more info to be shown at a glance, but my impression is that they chose not to.

kortilla 4y ago
Some of these things are too annoying to do at scale so they just skipped it rather than choosing to intentionally dumb it down. Making the call on what is a “scenic route” isn’t something you can just pull directly from highway department data.
- dmurray 4y ago
  You could predict it from Streetview data though! A small bit of computer vision would go a long way here. Actually this seems like a fun project for someone inside or (if the API is not too throttled) outside Google.
  - eternityforest 4y ago
    Or better yet, when someone drives anywhere, predict if there was a faster way they could have gone, and take that as a candidate scenic view.
tuatoru 4y ago
> paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users Since when did using a map become an "advanced" life skill? Is "Idiocracy" becoming a documentary?
- eternityforest 4y ago
  Since it became unnecessary for most people? Phones can break, so it's always good to know the paper skills... but it's definitely not an everyday thing anymore. Besides, even before phones, it was somewhat advanced, they were never easy, as shown by how often people got lost, and still get lost with perfectly functional GPS just by making one bad turn because their memory failed since last time they checked the screen.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    Next you'll be telling me that people don't know how to darn their socks any more.
    - eternityforest 4y ago
      I'd even argue that darning socks might be more relevant to everyday life than map reading, even though map reading is more important in emergencies and people should probably know both. If you can darn socks you can probably fix holes in your pants, and if you have a car charger, getting lost happens a lot less than clothes repair, at least in the city.
      - worthless-trash 4y ago
        I dunno man, I think most people would be lost without the iDarn app.
        eternityforest 4y ago
        iDarn sells data to the NSAGBCP, darnIT is well worth the subscription and has a community tier that only crashes a few times in 10min.

kortilla 4y ago

>Mostly I'm surprised the electronic maps don't have these things after all these years. Maybe Apple will get them eventually. Google is busy stuffing ads into its maps. Yeah, google is always going to be trash for anything that doesn’t align well with advertising. Better to show a Starbucks than a rest area, etc.

dylan604 4y ago
so it's the gas station's fault for not buying Google Ads then, right? Google can't possibly be blamed. The don't do evil. It's just the people using their services that do evil things. /s

larrik 4y ago

I've been growing pretty dissatisfied with the state of electronic maps. Basic things that are usually either impossible or difficult while using Google Maps or Apple Maps for directions: - What road am I on? What town am I in? - and other flavors of "where the hell am I, anyway?" - This is especially annoying when on the phone and the person is asking where you are, and the best you can answer is "Google says I'm X minutes away" - What road is this coming up next? - instead it puts the name halfway along the road, which is out of view... - Some of the true nav systems (Garmin, etc) do this better.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
There's no way to see a street name on Apple Maps without zooming in entirely. And sometimes even then, I'll see something like Route 99 instead the name by which everyone refers to the road: "Broadway".
- nerdbert 4y ago
  Google Maps is even worse about this. Dear Google: If I have my directions preference set to walking, cycling, or public transit, there is no reason to EVER show me the route number of a street that has a name. I don't care about it, and it actively gets in the way of using the map since it displaces the name, you know, the thing that is actually on the signs that I am looking at with my eyes. It would be one thing if it showed both the name and the number, but usually you have to pinch and pan so far from where you are before you luck into seeing the name that you've totally lost your orientation on the map.
- stephen_g 4y ago
  This annoys me too. I've submitted map feedback (holding and tapping 'Report a problem' on the map) before but who knows if that could make much of a difference. I assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing (although your comment seems to imply perhaps not)? We have them here but nobody I know here in Australia uses them or knows them, apart from major motorways. Maybe the other routes are used by truckers? Normal drivers though I would think only care about the street names. It frustrates me to no end how hard it can be to see the names of streets in Maps, it's one of the most important things!

ChuckMcM 4y ago

I'm pretty convinced that Google just doesn't understand information economics. In case you haven't noticed, Apple maps are getting better and better and I prefer their turn-by-turn directions over that of Google. The interesting thing is that Apple now offers "explore" vs "driving" maps, I hope they also add "walking" or "Cycling" maps. And because they aren't driven by advertising sales, the maps can be more useful without compromising sales revenue. If Apple decided to invest in a crawler/indexer with a search front end to give Siri the data sources for better response, and to allow for "pure" informational search (rather than search-ad/revenue prioritized search), once it got good enough for that it would put Google into a very tight spot. (Well tighter than the one it currently finds itself in).

criley2 4y ago
Apple's solution isn't a serious contender because it's hardware locked to high end devices that the majority of people don't use / can't afford (the demographics of this community not withstanding). While it's nice that their users can have an alternate first-party experience, that experience is not a publically available map. For example if you go to maps.apple.com you are told "Open this on your Apple Hardware". (i.e. If 100% of Apple users used Apple Maps, Apple's best case scenario is still #2 in mapping)
- ChuckMcM 4y ago
  One could argue that "most" people[1] have iPhones (at least in the US). And yes it is only 22% world wide. But putting aside the currently available "seats" for a moment, at the point where is it clearly the better product then two things start happening 1) People start buying Apple hardware because it has a better map experience. 2) Apple can produce the iMap device, likely in cooperation with their maps partner TomTom, that people can use to get the Apple Maps experience without changing their phone provider. [1] https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/us-smartphone-market-share https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/us-smartphone-market-share
  - mangoleaf 4y ago
    I live USA, Stanford engineer, have an Android phone and will likely never have an iPhone. My other gender breeding partner has to have an apple, so I use hers at times and am appalled at how difficult things are. But if she can't facetime friends, then she will lose face. I get free phones, and see pays large fees for hers. Sorry, I pass. I work in finance BTW.

colanderman 4y ago

Google Maps doesn't even show exit numbers unless you are incredibly zoomed in. They are near useless for at-a-glance visual navigation.

tokenadult 4y ago
My user experience on several recent trips is that Google Maps showed me the exit number for the exit I would use next very prominently on top of the display (where it shows the direction of the next turn). Maybe that isn't rolled out consistently for all trips.
- colanderman 4y ago
  Context is when you are not using GPS. (Personally I despise being talked at by a computer for an hour, especially one that's bad at directing a driver.) With paper maps, you can just look at them -- a single page, no pinch zooming or scrolling! -- to see what exit is appropriate for your destination. Not possible with Google Maps -- you either have to zoom in until the exit ramp fills the screen, or make up a fake address near where you're going to get directions which you then have to read through to find the relevant exit. It's a needless frustration when I'm in a hurry and just what to know what exit serves town X.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    I feel you on the talking part. Especially maddening to me is where it talks over an in-progress conversation to tell us things we already know. I now generally turn the audio part off except for alerts. I like that better, not only is it more soothing, but it forces me to engage my brain a little more.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]