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Same experience, and I'd love it if it were fixed, but I've already adjusted my behavior to compensate. What I do is create my own waypoints before I get in the
by branon 4y ago
Same experience, and I'd love it if it were fixed, but I've already adjusted my behavior to compensate. What I do is create my own waypoints before I get in the car. I can compare against Google's mapdata from the comfort of my home, drop a pin on OsmAnd, and then it routes me without fail.
Google abuses Maps users when they are not signed into the app on Android. It will not remember more than a handful of previously-visited or searched addresses. At the bottom of the meager seven-item list, there's a dark pattern which points out how tired the user must be of retyping addresses, and promises to make things better if they would only just sign in.
This makes me extremely, irrationally angry to think about. To me this is a bigger usability crisis than OsmAnd's funny search. I know the phone has enough resources to save nearly infinite addresses, but Google has purposefully broken this functionality.
Programming software which abuses the user by explicitly refusing to cache local-first search results is unethical and should be illegal, and the persons responsible for taking Google Maps in this direction should be dragged into court and prosecuted.
- skybrian 4y agoThis seems like using incognito mode and complaining that it doesn't remember anything about you. The point of not signing in is to preserve your privacy and remembering your search history is the opposite of that.
- branon 4y agoMaybe, if you have already been conditioned to use Chrome while logged into your Google account and you see that as normal. That ship sailed a few years ago I suppose. The point of not signing in is that I'm not signed in, and so either your software still works, or it's worse than useless. Guess which one Google picked. Also doesn't explain why Maps keeps a handful of search results around, right beside the dark pattern they employ to try and get people to log in.
- skybrian 4y agoThat seems too binary. Maps is still quite useful if you’re not logged in. They didn’t have to allow it at all. Why is limited functionality “worse than useless?”
- branon 4y agoI guess I am speaking just about the software that does their search. The rest of Maps is ok and still useful in spite of the search software being purposefully hamstrung. I still use it often for its search which is first-class is most other ways. There are other avenues to this too like driving in a car can be stressful and Maps' refusal to cache search queries can contribute to stress for people on the road (likely at some meaningful level if the sample size is large enough) which strikes me as unethical. Personally I'm super dependent on GPS so having a tool which doesn't try to stab me in the back while I operate heavy machinery is a huge relief. OsmAnd can save searchable waypoints, color-coded, with icons, in folders, supports import/export, all local-first.
- jodrellblank 4y agoHow is "storing my search history on my local encrypted device" the opposite of preserving my privacy? Is storing my phone contact list on a local SSD the opposite of having privacy? Is storing my credit card in my wallet in my pocket the opposite of privacy for the card number? What?
- skybrian 4y agoKeeping a complete search history on your device and making it available to every future version of Google Maps software to do whatever it wants seems kinda bad if you don't trust Google? Then again, you upload any address you use to Google anyway, where it could in theory be recorded server side, so I guess we're trusting that Google won't break some of their promises regardless.