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Wow. New GMaps totally annihilates Apple Maps in every which way. Not that this comes as a surprise... Navigation is great, so much better than Siri's dreadful

• malandrew 14y ago
  Does it support biking directions? That's something I always missed in Apple's map app and maps.google.com was horribly laggy to use in iOS safari.
  • chockablock 14y ago
    No. :(
  • pkulak 14y ago
    Yeah, no bike maps. Eh, saves me wondering if I should switch back to iOS. :D
  • dakrisht 14y ago
    Can't seem to find biking directions... Hoping they add this in ASAP...
  • Spiritus 14y ago
    What's the difference between biking and walking directions?
    • nodata 14y ago
      Cycle lanes? Pavements?
    • moskie 14y ago
      Bike directions utilize roads with bike lanes.
    • alxndr 14y ago
      One way streets.
  • goatforce5 14y ago
    I can recommend http://ridethecity.com/ http://ridethecity.com/ (and it's app) for that.
• rwhitman 14y ago
  Its basically the same app that we android users have been using for years now. They've had a long time to polish it
  • brian_cloutier 14y ago
    As an android user, this is not at all the same app we've had for a while now. The UI is very different and takes some getting used to. There's a lot more animation and transitions, they're really taking advantage of having everything in one screen. (As opposed to android where everything is broken up into activities which have very limited transitions) I'd be surprised if they polished anything, considering you can't exactly reuse Java code when writing an Obj-C app. They just have a lot of very talented engineers and actually cared about making it nice.
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• timothya 14y ago
  > Great 3D flyovers, but no satellite-3D flyovers If you're into 3D satellite views, this is available in the Google Earth for iOS app. Google launched the 3D flyover stuff in that app a couple of months before Apple released iOS 6, so it's been around for a while. If you have Google Earth already installed, then you can jump directly to that app in the swipe-left menu of the new Google Maps app (and it will even jump to where you were looking in the Google Maps app, so it's pretty seamless transition).
  • dakrisht 14y ago
    +1
    • wtracy 14y ago
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• mtgx 14y ago
  Satellite fly-overs? You mean like the ones in Google Earth? Because then you can just use Google Earth.
• randomdata 14y ago
  It is really well done. The sensor-based street view navigation is a nice touch. I'm not sure I'd call it a clear winner over Apple's maps app though. I expect I'll be using both in the future.
  • sbuk 14y ago
    I have to agree. While it's nice to have access to Google's long-aquired dataset as a native app, both the previous Google based/Apple designed app and the current look and feel more polished and considered.
• vvhn 14y ago
  >Wow. New GMaps totally annihilates Apple Maps in every which way Once you get past the onerous task of searching for your destination, i found Apple Maps to be much better When it's not shoving down a Google account login down your throat, places where Google maps is better (exactly where you'd expect it be) 1 - In POI and searching. However in the limited searches i did (in the Bay area so i guess the Apple Maps critics immediately discount that) both did the same. Given the widely documented inaccuracies and just downright lack of data in the rest of the world, this is probably orders of magnitude better. 2 - Public transit - This is obviously a no-contest. Apple Maps just doesn't have it. 3 - map data - This is probably the same as POIs. >Navigation is great, so much better than Siri's dreadful voice, easy to navigate from A>B with a tap of your destination. Navigation isn't great on Apple maps because of Siri's "dreadful voice" ? >Great release - welcome back I agree but the whole annahilation bit a quite hyperbolic.
  • acchow 14y ago
    >Once you get past the onerous task of searching for your destination, i found Apple Maps to be much better Isn't the purpose of maps to find your destination? Can you elaborate on what you find much better in Apple Maps? It probably has better typography/layout design, but other than that?
    • starik36 14y ago
      For me, the missing piece in Google Maps is that it does not integrate with my contacts. Most of my searches are based on contacts. Probably coming in v2. Otherwise pretty solid.
      • notimetorelax 14y ago
        Is it possible at all in the current version of iOS? I had an impression that all default apps are Apple's and it cannot be changed.
        • pilif 14y ago
• rimantas 14y ago
  > Wow. New GMaps totally annihilates Apple Maps in every > which way. Especially in nagging about signing-in department. Otherwise… It still does not have public transoport or transit data where I live and also das have its own share of misspelings. "totally annihilates" is totally incorrect.
  • krrrh 14y ago
    I was surprised that when I swiped lift and hit 'public transit' it reported no data for Vancouver, sing Gmaps has supported directions for transit for a long time. It turns out that getting directions via transit works as expected. I'm not even sure what the transit link when you swipe left is supposed to show. So it's a weak ui in that respect, but the app gives me what I was missing.
    • Groxx 14y ago
      When I turn it on, I see the Caltrain, but nothing else. No busses, not even the light rail nearby. BART makes a showing, at least...
    • kevin_p 14y ago
      It draws subway lines on the map (in a similar way to the 'traffic' layer)
    • snogglethorpe 14y ago
      The function of the "transit" button seems a little weird generally (in web maps too). My observation is that it (1) turns off some of the excessive highlighting of highways and other roads (which for some reason is done by default even in very transit-oriented cities), and (2) it turns on highlighting of "rapid transit" lines. Unfortunately the definition of "rapid transit" used for this function is sometimes very poorly thought out. For instance, Tokyo has a massive rail system that covers the entire metropolitan area with a fairly consistent level of service. However Google maps only considers the city-center subways—which form about 25% of the entire system—to be "rapid transit", although from a user's point of view there's very little difference between subways and most other rail lines in Tokyo (they generally use similar scheduling, rolling stock, stations, and even station spacing in many cases). So enabling the transit option in Tokyo highlights subways, but it actually de-emphasizes many other (essentially equivalent) rail lines! The only thing I can think of is that the design of this feature was based on the particular city (e.g. NYC), and then sort of slapped onto other locations without a whole lot of actual thought... :(
• lloeki 14y ago
  > Heard someone mention that it "lacks polish" or feels "laggy" - not sure I agree with that - feels fast on an iPhone 5 and on a 4S side-by-side. Personal experience report on an iPhone 4: the app is laggy as hell with one to two seconds of delay when dragging. You have to actively combat inertia to navigate around, and minimal movement occasionally sent me overshooting by multiple screenfuls. Also, it keeps wanting to turn north around on the slightest twist when zooming, which is even harder to handle due to lag. > Someone else mentioned that it's simply GMaps in a UIWebView - no chance for that. That's not how it looks, but that's exactly how it feels. Well, that's also how it looks on the login screen given the overflowing sign-in form. The drag lag on the map feels like the typical JS-overriden scrolling. I'd really not be surprised if it is a UIWebView and a properly designed web app (not web site backportedly shoved in as an app). On this hardware, Apple Maps has a clear victory on the performance and interaction front.
  • dutchbrit 14y ago
    Running on an iPhone 4 here, no real lag, maybe a few milliseconds, but that's natural. What kind of connection are you on and are we talking satellite view or classic view?
  • Groxx 14y ago
    Want slow? Try an iPod touch :) Though I definitely agree - that drag-lag feels exactly like it's a UIWebView... hm. I wonder if it is. A very well-constructed one, to be sure, but so far I've only seen supporting evidence, nothing that would make me say "definitely not".
  • MrScruff 14y ago
    Tested on an iPhone 4 and an iPad 3. The animated transitions are very slow, to the point where it only displays a few frames on the iPhone. I would agree that it gives the app an unpolished feel, that and the sign in nagging. Otherwise the functionality is great.
• colmvp 14y ago
  Does living in the Bay Area color my view of Apple Maps? Because honestly, I use it nearly everyday to navigate and it's never let me down. It's actually a pleasant surprise and works pretty well with other apps I'm using at the same time, like Spotify in the car.
  • adrianhoward 14y ago
    Yeah - I think it does. I do a fair bit of travelling and use maps a lot since I have the worlds worst sense of direction. There are some places it's fine. Other places it's problematical. Other places it's a complete disaster. The last two categories seem to outweigh the first for me. In the UK especially where basic things like searching for local train stations (we actually use public transport quite a bit here ;-) seem to fail completely in large chunks of the country. Since my experience of Google Maps on the iPhone until the switch over was that - as long as I could get GPS and an internet connection - 100% fine the Apple maps app is a complete fail for me. I can understand that there might be reasons for it being necessary from the business perspective - but for me personally it now means I have had to have three map apps on my home screen to get around rather than just one. I'm hoping I can switch back to Google Maps to have one thing that works. I could rely on it totally.
  • jon-wood 14y ago
    In the UK (although just outside and around London, so data is probably quite good) my experience has been that if your driving the directions work about as well as Google Maps. If you're traveling by public transport its useless, since it just doesn't support it. Finding places is also really hit and miss, sometimes it works fine, and other times I'll get pointed to some place in Texas despite there being an identically named place within a few miles of me.
    • Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      Based on my anecdotal experience in the UK outside of London it's fine. I'm not going to say I can't see what the fuss has been about as I've seen enough examples to know that there are real and significant problems, but I can say where I live (west of Scotland) for my use cases (basic searching and navigation) I've not had anything to complain about.
• bitsoda 14y ago
  Yeah dude, totally annihilates Apple Maps...provided you don't want to do any zany edge case actions like, oh I don't know, rename a bookmark from a random street address to an easily readable name like "Tim's House". But yeah, who would ever want to do that? Totally annihilates it. Yup.
  • josteink 14y ago
    Looking at your comment history, I'm forced to assume that you're some sort of paid Apple shill.
    • rustynails77 14y ago
      GMaps doesn't totally annihilate Apple maps. I think that's his point. I'm not the grand-parent poster, and no Apple fanboy ... but I am inclined to agree with his sentiment.
    • bitsoda 14y ago
      Or maybe it's possible I'm a regular nerd who happens to want Google to address what I think is a useful feature? I've rehashed my sentiments three times in this thread in hopes of it gaining visibility. Nobody outside of one guy seems to have noticed this. Also, the Google Maps app for iOS hadn't been out for more than an hour and already users were touting how it was flat out better without even having used the damn thing out in the real world. How is that being an Apple shill? If anything, I'm saying: reserve your judgement until after you've used it for a week in the meat space, and don't claim it "annihilates" Apple Maps at 1 am in your dinosaur pajamas after it has been out for only an hour.
• hugi 14y ago
  Living in Iceland, the largest difference for me is that the app is actually usable. Apple's data (and satellite photo resolution) for small/remote places such as Iceland is absolutely horrendous.
• purecaffeine 14y ago
  Ha I've never heard Siri's voice described as "dreadful"
  • sidoza 14y ago
    I agree. I just got my iPhone 5, and it had a male voice for Siri. Changed that immediately. The world is beautiful again.
• w0utert 14y ago
  >> New GMaps totally annihilates Apple Maps in every which way. * Rendering is faster on Apple Maps * Apple Maps caches a much larger area offline, while Google Maps is basically useless without a network connection * Apple Maps integration in iOS apps is better than embedding Google Maps, which is very obvious if you compare 3rd party public transit apps that use Apple Maps to Google transit directions. Not saying Apple Maps is nearly as good as Google Maps (because it isn't), but 'totally annihilates Apple Maps in every way' is simply not true.
  • yesbabyyes 14y ago
    > * Apple Maps caches a much larger area offline, while Google Maps is basically useless without a network connection Google Maps for Android has the possibility of caching e.g. a whole city offline, which is great for travelling (since we haven't solved roaming yet). It might be a Labs feature. The iOS client has been lagging so bad, I figured they would have fixed a lot in the new version.
    • king_jester 14y ago
      They took the map caching feature out of Labs in one of the recent updates a few months ago, so you can simply select My Places from the navigation dropdown and then swipe to the offline section to cache some maps. It is still a little wonky though since Google Maps is so dependent on network connectivity for everything, so I tend to open the offline maps while I still have a wi-fi/3g connection just to make sure it loads properly.
    • danielweber 14y ago
      Who makes the "Navigation" app that I've found on every Android phone I've used? It's been quite useful without a data connection for a daily commute. (It probably would not survive a trip to another city.)
      • thechut 14y ago
        Navigation is a Google app designed specifically to interface with maps. It seems with the new iOS maps they have just build Navigation straight into the app.
• emehrkay 14y ago
  I found/find the UI confusing. It doesnt feel like an ios app at all. It doesnt even feel like maps.google.com. With that said, it is good to have it back on the iPhone.
• joering2 14y ago
  You can't be serious about public transportation data. Google maps for city like New York are the most outdated I've seen online! Totally unreliable with subway lines that do not even run anymore!
• toddmorey 14y ago
  Definitely don't agree that the voice is any better. I'm still impressed by the improvements we've made with synthesized speech (anyone remember the PowerPC AVs?), but both Google and Apple have work to do here and I actually prefer Siri to the voice on Google Maps. They both are really funny attempting to pronounce certain street names. There should be a feedback mechanism to help improve that.
• timcederman 14y ago
  Why can't I see distances for walking directions in Google Maps, and instead only times? Why does it say "preview", when it actually means "start navigating"?
  • lforooghian 14y ago
    I, too, was wondering this. I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere else, though.
• portlander52232 14y ago
  I generally agree, but there is one respect in which Apple Maps is scads better than Google Maps. It's not exactly important, but it is really nice: Typography.