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Adding “running” to the list of things that Google engineers apparently don’t do. Where it joins “walking”. Google Maps will suggest almost arbitrarily bonkers
by rsynnott 3mo ago
Adding “running” to the list of things that Google engineers apparently don’t do.
Where it joins “walking”. Google Maps will suggest almost arbitrarily bonkers public transport directions to avoid walking. Personal favourite: the sensible way to get from my house to work, unless the weather is terrible, is six minutes on a train and a 15 min walk. Google Maps would, generally, prefer that I spend 15 mins on the train going mostly the wrong direction and 15 minutes on a tram, then a five minute walk. It will also contemplate a ten minute walk, ten minutes walking being within the threshold Google deems physically possible, plus an arbitrary amount of time on a rather slow bus. Apple Maps and Transit are better at this.
- juujian 3mo agoI remember Google maps working well for walking around in Europe. Ever since I've moved to America, not so much. Go figure...
- rsynnott 3mo agoThis is in Ireland. I’ve also noticed it doing very silly things in Germany and the UK. It’s fine for pure walking directions, but it gets unhappy about the idea of someone using public transport walking.
- scarby2 3mo agothere really needs to be a configurable rules/decisions engine. I.e. i would prefer to walk everywhere, i will take public transit if it saves me more than 15 minutes total or 5 minutes per leg, evaluate this at every interchange node. There are some routings in london for example where the best course of action is actually to take a train, get off walk 5 minutes then take a different train, google will always tell you to stay on the train to a point where you can change trains in the same station.
- rsynnott 3mo agoI'd also be able to tell it "never suggest that I get bus routes A, B or C; they do not in practice turn up on time". > There are some routings in london for example where the best course of action is actually to take a train, get off walk 5 minutes then take a different train, google will always tell you to stay on the train to a point where you can change trains in the same station. Had a good one in Amsterdam recently; rather than walk 9 minutes to the nearby central station and get a train there, it wanted me to walk 6 minutes to the central station's metro station entrance (which was a bit closer), get a metro, then join the train at another station entirely. Would have taken about twice as long.
- sam_lowry_ 3mo agoI remember the time when roundabouts were round in Google Maps.
- cineticdaffodil 3mo ago[dead]
- WheatMillington 3mo agoGoogle isn't making arbitrary decisions here - it's reflecting social norms. Americans aren't big on walking. I've seen pictures of beautiful leafy suburbs that don't even have sidewalks.
- rafram 3mo agoThis is overstated. At least as of 2017, Americans walked about 93% as much as people in France, for example, and a little more than people in Portugal or Greece. https://www.statista.com/statistics/747380/daily-step-averages-select-countries-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/747380/daily-step-averag...
- TitaRusell 3mo agoJogging was invented in the US. I think it is more of a class problem than a nationality problem.
- Krasnol 3mo agoI guess it says more about people in France, Portugal and Greece. The difference is: they COULD walk if they wanted. You can't if there is no walkway.
- rsynnott 3mo agoGoogle has giant offices in NYC. Like, you'd think this would have come up.
- xyzelement 3mo agoI don't have sidewalks in front of my house but our neighbors all take walks - and walk to main street. A quiet street that sees a few cars an hour doesn't need a sidewalk to be walkable. The other scenario of no sidewalk are like rural roads that are very long with nothing in between. So there sorta "no place to walk to".
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- NoDodgeQuestion 3mo agoAt risk of summoning an army of vibe coders, I wish map apps were more configurable and let you set "I'm happy to walk 20 min" or "someone can drive me a few miles and drop me off"
- eli 3mo agoIt's not exactly what you asked for, but the public transit and multimodal focused apps are generally much better at this stuff. I like CityMapper and Transit. Neither is good for turn-by-turn directions, but both are good for "what are all the different ways to get there"
- jazzyjackson 3mo agoNot to mention “public transit but with a waypoint” which is too advanced for all mobile apps
- smcin 3mo agoWhat do you mean "but with a waypoint”? What happens if you route on public transit without a waypoint? Do you mean indirect spaghetti routings that seem ok to Google?
- jazzyjackson 3mo agoNo I like to find out how long it will take to go to one place and then another. With driving selected you can add arbitrary waypoints. For public transit you can have one destination only. I suppose it makes sense because they like to tell you via schedule how long it will take, and the map would need to know how long you will stay each location. But when I’m looking I’m just checking if a route exists, not which time I will take the train.
- smcin 2mo agoOk so a basic version of adding a second stop, on a route using public transit.
- 3mo ago
- dhosek 3mo agoApple Maps also does this. It would also be nice to have a configurable transportation choice for the time to leave notice. Because some things I’ll walk to, some I’ll take transit and some I’ll drive and Apple seems to want be to just pick one and only use that. My other map complaint is that there’s no indication of how much tolls are when comparing toll vs non-toll routes. Because if it’s $5 to save ten minutes, no thanks but for a buck, maybe I’ll do it.
- annzabelle 3mo agoThis is especially bad in Northern Virginia, where there is a $4 toll road that saves 20 minutes pretty reliably, and also variable priced express lanes that will save time, but can cost up to $50. I want tolls on so it directs me on the Dulles toll road, but I also want tolls off for the $50 express lanes. I wish I could set a dollar threshold.
- wat10000 3mo agoAnd some of the roads have a toll only at certain times of day, but they're treated as tolled 24/7. Some are free if you have 3+ people in the car, but there's no way to say "I have N people in the car, adjust consideration of tolls accordingly."
- gavinsyancey 3mo agoI believe Waze has the second of those.
- mbirth 3mo ago> It would also be nice to have a configurable transportation choice for the time to leave notice. If you set a location, you can tap on “Travel Time” and select whether you want to go by car, public transport, bicycle, or walk.
- dhosek 3mo agoUnless that’s changed in a recent version, it was a global setting. As I mentioned before, sometimes I will walk, sometimes drive, sometimes take transit.
- marssaxman 3mo agoThat completely tracks coming from people who work in a place laid out like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JHQPdvSStnr6jfm77 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JHQPdvSStnr6jfm77
- rsynnott 3mo agoThey have big offices in San Francisco, and also in New York, Dublin, Zurich, London, and various other cities where this stuff matters, though, these days (their Dublin office is right beside the train station that it insists I shouldn't go to, because walking!). You'd think it would've gotten fixed at some point.
- marssaxman 3mo agoI used to work in the Seattle office, but I wouldn't have had the first idea how to get anything like this changed.
- inigyou 3mo agoDo they develop any products in any of those offices?
- marssaxman 3mo agoAll five of the ones named, yes - in fact Zürich is the biggest engineering center outside the US. The majority of Google sites do engineering work.
- eCa 3mo agoSpeaking of trains, that's another thing they don't do. The auto-snapping of current location consistently snaps to whatever road or goat track it can find nearby, while equally consistently refusing to snap to the railroad they have mapped. Sure, there's not much need for navigation in that situation, but if you're trying to be smart regarding where I am, maybe take into account if I'm travelling at 200 kph before plonking me on a twisty gravel road.
- rsynnott 3mo agoOddly, it seems to be okay at that in Dublin at least.
- smelendez 3mo agoYeah, I frequently wish you could get directions from your current point on a train/bus line.
- mitthrowaway2 3mo agoAlso speaking of trains, I can't zoom out and look at intercity train lines. I can only see highways. If I'm in Japan without a car, planning a sightseeing trip and wondering where I can easily visit by train, I can't do that with Google maps. The highways obscure everything and can't be turned off.
- iggldiggl 3mo agoWell, in my opinion Google Maps is terrible as an actual map anyway, it's more like some vaguely map-shaped thing that serves as a convenient geographical background for displaying POIs and directions on, but no so much use for actually orienting yourself or getting a feel for the geography of a place. And +1 to the lack of railway lines when zoomed out, indeed another annoyance along the above lines.
- giancarlostoro 3mo agoMy Apple Watch asks me if I am doing an outdoor walk everytime I am at Disney World. It sometimes takes 15 minutes to notice. Imho if its going to ask me this it should know every time I get to Disney that I am going to walk all day long and account for it.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- mattlondon 3mo agoFwiw I have a pixel and run a lot. It's never happened to me.
- jerlam 3mo agoA lot of tech is overfit to the product manager role in tech companies. One of the side effects of living in a bubble. My Apple Watch is set up by default to assume any 15-minute walk is a "workout" and interrupt me to ask if I wanted to record it. No, I'm just going to the store, what is this "workout" nonsense. My Oura Ring was worse, it would assume any walk duration is noteworthy and my timeline would be a jumbled mess of "workouts". But these would be reasonable assumptions for a mostly sedentary office worker living in the suburbs. I remember when a Google feature was announced long ago, some of the headlining features was plane ticket support and currency conversion. The average American gets on a plane once a year, to a place where they accept American dollars, and wouldn't ever care about these features. But these are important if you're in your 30s and travel is an important part of your life for either business or vacations.
- LorenPechtel 3mo agoGoogle's mapper has an option for whether to minimize walking. Turned on, it will do things like this, prioritizing the route with the least walking. it would be quite willing to do this sort of thing. Turned off, it will prioritize based on arrival time. There is a maximum walking distance, I don't know the limit but it's certainly more than 10 minutes. I have never managed to trigger it other than by asking for a route to a location miles beyond any transit options. And it did provide me a route across the Grand Canyon. (Most people are not doing a rim-to-rim in a single day.) (But then it was totally bonkers--offered me a bike route with a time that was preposterous. Looking at it--tiny portion by bike, then walk your bike--the standard rim-to-rim route. But it assumed bicycle speed. No--try that, you're going over.)
- rsynnott 3mo agoI have that turned off (I assume it would be even worse with that turned on)
- ortusdux 3mo agoI'm still astounded by how poorly Gmaps handles Seattle ferries. The time and routing calculations always assume the best case scenario. I've had it insist I take the ferry because it estimated a 5 minute time savings, when in reality there is a minimum 3hr wait for a boat. This I can work around, but the truly awful behavior is that if you pull off for gas and then get back on the highway, it will automatically recalculate to the 'shorter' ferry route. The only solution I have found is to add additional stops along your preferred route.
- jazzyjackson 3mo agoCan’t you disable ferries same as toll roads?
- ortusdux 3mo agoThe main alternate route is a toll bridge unfortunately.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3mo agoThat does not answer the question.
- ortusdux 3mo agoThe only option is "avoid ferries and tolls".
- arjie 3mo agoIt’s not on the quick select pills so it’s not obvious but yes you can https://youtube.com/shorts/SA72d9VfsPg?is=F6zKWQNOkokN31F3 https://youtube.com/shorts/SA72d9VfsPg?is=F6zKWQNOkokN31F3 As for your other question, it looks like the guy was responding to an implied “I can’t turn off tolls as a hack bypass ferries because the bridge also requires a toll”. I’d speculate that it wasn’t obvious there’s a ferry-specific filter because the other filters show up as pills.
- scoofy 3mo agoI think this likely has more to do with the NP Hard problem of generating directions more than it has to do with bad design.
- rsynnott 3mo agoWhile I am on the subject, Google Maps seems to be somewhat aware of big awkward train stations which take ages to navigate, and applies a time penalty. That's good (though also a bit inconsistent). However, it seems to assume that metro stations are of zero size; you go in the door, and immediately get on any line. This is very not true in some places.
- Reason077 3mo ago> ”Adding “running” to the list of things that Google engineers apparently don’t do.” Not with a phone, no. Why would you take your phone with you when you run? It’s bulky and annoying. If you really need to be reachable or to be able to pay for something in emergencies, that’s what smart watches are for.
- ahtihn 3mo ago> Why would you take your phone with you when you run? So you can listen to music? And most people don't have a smart watch. It's fairly common to see people running with a phone strapped to their arm.
- deathanatos 3mo ago… between me & my partner, we own multiple pieces of exercise wear that has a dedicated pocket for a phone, because … you need somewhere to put your phone.
- brewdad 3mo agoI almost always run with my phone. One of the few times I didn’t, I was on about a 12 mile out and back run. At mile 6 my IT band seized up in a way it never had and never has since. I could barely walk, much less run and I was six miles from home. Eventually, I managed to hobble about a mile over the course of an hour and find a business with a phone I could use to call for a ride. Having a phone that day would have been really nice.
- ButlerianJihad 3mo agoI, for one, endeavor to retain situational awareness even while on foot. The author of this article apparently demands to run around with an unlocked phone. I have the same "Theft Protection" enabled and the only thing it purports to do is lock the screen. So I may never trigger it, because if I'm walking, or running, or bicycling, the screen is locked!! If I cram earbuds into my ears and drown out the world, then I am functionally deaf; I cannot hear tires squealing, or honking horns, or victims screaming. I shan't go on about how my bone-conduction technology muddles up both music and the real world sounds. If I'm checking my phone while I'm in motion on a sidewalk, I'm functionally wearing blinders, and not the good kinds like they put on carriage-horses. Especially at night when my glowing screen is brighter than the Full Moon! If my face is in my screen, then my mind is also not in meatspace, but my imagination is in Lothlórien, or Cair Paravel, or 40 Eridani in the 23rd century. My mind and five senses need to be in the present and need to be in meatspace, or my feet don't belong in traffic.
- jey 3mo agoThis might just be realistic about the median American's tolerance for walking. Most Americans live in suburbs that are not walkable. At least, I know my own tolerance for walking is very abnormal for an American, and it's due to having lived in walking-oriented cities like Berkeley.
- plaguuuuuu 3mo agoI'm outside the US and I regularly get directions with 15-20 min walking. You might be on to something.
- pessimizer 3mo ago> This might just be realistic about the median American's tolerance for walking. This might be unrealistic about the number and relevance of Median-Americans. Turns out more than a few Americans that are outside of the median own telephones.
- TacticalCoder 3mo ago> This might just be realistic about the median American's tolerance for walking. It's also realistic about crimes in certain cities.
- bakedbeanz 3mo agoCare to expand on this implication?
- bakedbeanz 3mo agoYeah, I figured as much.
- scelerat 3mo agoThe risks, such as they are, of walking in a city are blown way out of proportion to reality in order to sell ads or elect political candidates.
- smcin 3mo ago
- Melatonic 3mo agoIts also possible that its optimised for least walking for other reasons. If you were disabled in any way (like a wheel chair) or even an old lady maybe this is the better route. Or if was during a huge snowstorm or heatwave?
- rsynnott 3mo agoIt has a "less walking" option, which I don't have turned on. I assume that is for those usecases.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoAre we using the same app? Google Maps on my phone has a selector which MUST specify if you want public transport, car, walking directions etc. If I select public transport yes, it will suggest public transport ways to get there. I can't see how this is a bug in any way If I select walking it will show me how to walk there no matter if it takes 15 min or 15 days. I can choose which i want depending on if i'm tired or weather is bad...
- PcChip 3mo agoIt sounds like they want the shortest time, even if that means mixing public transit with walking together
- comex 3mo agoThe parent isn’t looking for pure walking, they’re looking for transit directions that include a higher amount of walking in order to save time overall.
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoBut I don't. If I specifically look up transport directions it often means weather is bad or I'm tired. so no thanks please keep as is
- fcarraldo 3mo agoTransit directions includes walking on both ends. Because the train doesn't start and end precisely as your destination (this is called a "taxi cab").
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- ShinyLeftPad 3mo agoOk that makes sense. My tips would be: check if it mistakenly thinks you can't directly walk to the station or something. In my town there's a particular place i often go to where Google I guess just doesn't know or care that there IS a crossing. if I just pick a point across the street it suggests much better routes And personally if it's more than 5 min of walking i would just look up the way to the station and then from the station separately with whatever modes i prefer And lobby your government for sorting out public transportation to your block? It seems crazy inconvenient
- wbl 3mo agoDon't forget driving in the bay area. Google maps will happily recommend entering 580/880/80 at Emeryville and going on 580 east instead of the much better entrance at 36 street that's 5 minutes out of the way.
- toast0 3mo agoI'm convinced the people working on google maps have also mostly never driven.
- mc3301 3mo agoAt least not every case world-wide. I do, however, appreciate how good it is for a completely free (I know, I'm the product) tool, though.
- m463 3mo ago"Sexual Activity Tracked By Fitbit Shows Up In Google Search Results" https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked-by-fitbit-shows-up-in-google-search-results/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked-by...
- delichon 3mo agoFour hours and 15 minutes of "vigorous" sexual activity!? Impetuous! Homeric! -- Michaeleen Flynn, The Quiet Man, 1952
- kombookcha 3mo agoGood for them! Are we sure this was actually leaked and not deliberately 'leaked' as a form of bragging?
- autoexec 3mo ago> So why are Fitbit users’ profiles able to be searchable in Google? It’s not really Fitbit’s fault. When you create a profile, the default privacy setting allows profiles to be found in search results (Google, Bing, etc). That sounds like it's Fitbit’s fault to me, although I guess some blame has to go to people who bug themselves with a device that tells a third party about every moment they're having sex in the first place. Fitbit having that data isn't much better than Google or anyone else who isn't intimately involved.
- jerlam 3mo agoWell this was 15 years ago, all companies were trying to jump on the social media bandwagon (Google Plus launched in 2011), and both companies and users had to re-learn what privacy meant.
- __m 3mo agotaking a bike is easier on your bones, though i don't do that either
- grishka 3mo agoGoogle Maps has had glitched-out building outlines overlapping rivers in my city for years. I don't trust it at all. Citymapper is nice for public transit directions in cities. But then, another Google product, Pixel Watch, has the bonkers default that if you just take a walk, like I normally do on most days, it considers that a "workout" of a dedicated type "walk" that needs to be tracked. It would vibrate rather annoyingly too. So basically every time I go outside to grab a lunch, that's a "workout"? But at least you can turn that off.
- e40 3mo agoFollowing a route through a tunnel (less than a mile long), Google Maps on iOS zooms forward on the route many stops and many miles (5+ miles) in the tunnel. I had assumes Apple Maps was worse, but to my surprise it's quite good and doesn't have this bug.
- Spooky23 3mo agoMaps used to be a map with place information. Now it’s Yelp with a map. For most of my journeys, Apple Maps is more reliable.
- brewdad 3mo agoI’ve been spending a lot of time in Mexico City. I had to abandon Google Maps there. The transit system has an excellent metro, a solid BRT setup, some electric tram buses that are fine and then the purple buses that run irregular routes, don’t always accept the transit card that the rest of the system uses, and are by far the most unsafe option, such that even locals won’t ride them unless they have no choice. Google will always route me on the purple buses. Even when the metro is faster. Their directions in Mexico City make zero sense.
- wolvoleo 3mo agoIt's a very American take yes. I also like to walk more on either side. Simply switching to walking is usually not the solution because I usually need some public transit to cover the majority is the distance.
- II2II 3mo agoMy favourite, while being stranded on a trail with a broken bike: teleport across a lake, drive fifteen minutes, then hop on a bus. Apparently you are SOL if you don't have a car. There are definitely better apps out there, unfortunately my area requires Maps for transit data.
- jamesrr39 3mo agoWhy only one app, and not several and choose the right one for the occasion? Mapy.com and OsmAnd are much better for trail use than Google Maps. Mapy has public transit info (depending on where you live, of course).
- ninalanyon 3mo agoOsmand~ is better than Google Maps for walking and public transit where I am at the moment (Tyne and Wear, UK). Based on Open Street Map.
- cuvert 3mo agoMy main two puzzles with Google Maps are: - on my timeline I have a few driving and motorcycling, and I have neither of those, I only bike to work. But my puzzle here is: how do they know that someone is riding a motorcycle or a car? - when I ask it for walking routes, the estimated time is always way longer than my walking time. I get to the destination in half of time. So what do they do with all the tracking?
- jandrese 3mo agoThe directions tend to be conservative in their assumptions. Like you won't walk/bike through a business parking lot to save 10 minutes of walking around the block.