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Their screen capture of the Seattle Center area is particularly amusing given that their competitor Apple Maps still hasn't figured out: 1. That Broad St no lo

Their screen capture of the Seattle Center area is particularly amusing given that their competitor Apple Maps still hasn't figured out: 1. That Broad St no longer exists for a significant portion of its length. 2. That Mercer St has been two-way for months now. This is the major east-west road in that area, and they can't even get that right. Yes, I've reported it regularly for months now.

serve_yay 12y ago
I can't believe people use it, it's embarrassingly bad. It's impossible to trust.
- skygazer 12y ago
  In the car, I generally alternate between Google Maps, Apple Maps, TomTom and Navigon. After years of doing this, I've rarely noticed a difference in route accuracy -- in my experience they're equally likely to give a slightly faulty route, and there are better than 50/50 odds that a flaw will be shared across apps. TomTom seems to be the winner with realtime traffic data accuracy, besting Google, and Google beats Apple, although not by much. Google has lead in POI info, but that lead has diminished to the point of irrelevancy in the last year. Apple and Navigon have the best visuals. Google has the most naturally conversational voice guidance. And while those are nice, I still tend to prefer TomTom's accurate traffic data.
evmar 12y ago
In the pre-Ground Truth days, Google Maps in SF used to think you could take a right from northeastboound Market street onto the 101 onramp, which is both obviously the best route for a wide variety of routes and also not actually allowed. The combination meant that many route plans didn't work. In looking into getting it fixed I heard that the contract for getting the map data prevented Google from making any modifications to the map data. Apple Maps might be in a similar situation -- aware of the problem but with their hands tied. Map data has a lot of legal restrictions for reasons I don't really get.
- pyre 12y ago
  The map companies probably want to make the customers dependent on continuing to get map data from them, rather than just using their map data as a 'base data set' to building their own, competing map data...
beering 12y ago
I think Apple gets the short end of the stick in these deals. The company that provides that mapping data usually has ridiculous restrictions on what you can/can't do to the data (even possibly disallowing your own patches), and Apple takes all the heat from users.
- mankyd 12y ago
  I mean, don't you think that Apple deserves to take at least a little of the blame for this? If they can't negotiate a better deal with their data sources, find a better data source, or find a way to feed corrections back to their data source, that's on them.
- notatoad 12y ago
  Apple has their name on the product, it's their responsibility to ensure it is up to par. It doesn't really matter who the fault lies with, if the data coming in isn't good enough then apple should be looking for different data sources.
- jonknee 12y ago
  Why wouldn't Apple take all the heat from users? Steve Jobs removed a very good map from everyone's iPhone and replaced it with a buggy Apple branded map. I don't care if it's the fault of some vendor, at the root of it Apple is to blame for shipping it.
astrange 12y ago
I tried it out but couldn't reproduce either issue. Ignoring appearance of the road geometry, which two addresses exactly will give you a bad route?
- koenigdavidmj 12y ago
  It doesn't ever seem to route on Broad St, though I think you're underestimating the severity of the 'appearance of the road geometry' for anyone who uses the Maps app to show a map rather than just following its directions. If you want a bad case, ask for directions to the town of Langley, which is placed on the wrong island altogether.

serve_yay 12y ago

I can't believe people use it, it's embarrassingly bad. It's impossible to trust.

skygazer 12y ago
In the car, I generally alternate between Google Maps, Apple Maps, TomTom and Navigon. After years of doing this, I've rarely noticed a difference in route accuracy -- in my experience they're equally likely to give a slightly faulty route, and there are better than 50/50 odds that a flaw will be shared across apps. TomTom seems to be the winner with realtime traffic data accuracy, besting Google, and Google beats Apple, although not by much. Google has lead in POI info, but that lead has diminished to the point of irrelevancy in the last year. Apple and Navigon have the best visuals. Google has the most naturally conversational voice guidance. And while those are nice, I still tend to prefer TomTom's accurate traffic data.

evmar 12y ago

In the pre-Ground Truth days, Google Maps in SF used to think you could take a right from northeastboound Market street onto the 101 onramp, which is both obviously the best route for a wide variety of routes and also not actually allowed. The combination meant that many route plans didn't work. In looking into getting it fixed I heard that the contract for getting the map data prevented Google from making any modifications to the map data. Apple Maps might be in a similar situation -- aware of the problem but with their hands tied. Map data has a lot of legal restrictions for reasons I don't really get.

pyre 12y ago
The map companies probably want to make the customers dependent on continuing to get map data from them, rather than just using their map data as a 'base data set' to building their own, competing map data...

beering 12y ago

I think Apple gets the short end of the stick in these deals. The company that provides that mapping data usually has ridiculous restrictions on what you can/can't do to the data (even possibly disallowing your own patches), and Apple takes all the heat from users.

mankyd 12y ago
I mean, don't you think that Apple deserves to take at least a little of the blame for this? If they can't negotiate a better deal with their data sources, find a better data source, or find a way to feed corrections back to their data source, that's on them.
notatoad 12y ago
Apple has their name on the product, it's their responsibility to ensure it is up to par. It doesn't really matter who the fault lies with, if the data coming in isn't good enough then apple should be looking for different data sources.
jonknee 12y ago
Why wouldn't Apple take all the heat from users? Steve Jobs removed a very good map from everyone's iPhone and replaced it with a buggy Apple branded map. I don't care if it's the fault of some vendor, at the root of it Apple is to blame for shipping it.

astrange 12y ago

I tried it out but couldn't reproduce either issue. Ignoring appearance of the road geometry, which two addresses exactly will give you a bad route?

koenigdavidmj 12y ago
It doesn't ever seem to route on Broad St, though I think you're underestimating the severity of the 'appearance of the road geometry' for anyone who uses the Maps app to show a map rather than just following its directions. If you want a bad case, ask for directions to the town of Langley, which is placed on the wrong island altogether.