Archived version: https://archive.ph/hguLn
Excerpt (and context):
Apple Maps’ offering might surprise people who remember its disastrous launch in 2012, which the Guardian described as the company’s “first significant failure in years”. Users were more than furious – they were lost, sometimes dangerously so. In Australia, police had to rescue tourists from the huge Murray-Sunset national park, after Maps placed the city of Mildura in the wrong place by more than 40 miles. Some of the motorists located by police had been stranded for 24 hours without food or water. In Ireland, ministers had to complain directly to Apple after a cafe and gardens called “Airfield” was designated by the service as an actual airport.
But mostly the map was just glitchy and unhelpful, its directions always a little off kilter. Users revolted and Apple made a rare retreat, allowing Google Maps to be used as the default on many iPhone apps and apologizing for the product.
I’m in the middle of a fairly populated US suburb, and Apple maps still sends anyone trying to find my house 3 blocks away, so I’m going to say that it’s not “finally good.”
As soon as I get those people to use Google Maps, they’re on their way without issues. I can see why Apple Maps might make the mistake that they do, but the fact is that Google Maps doesn’t and hasn’t ever in the last 15 years. I recently had a bunch of contractors around for quotes on some renovations and the iOS users ended up lost every time while the Android users never had a problem.
Betteridge’s law (of headlines) is an adage that states “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
Exception that proves the rule? Cause yeah, Apple Maps is actually a Google Maps competitor now, which is great.
If you live in some developed part of the world, sure. But it’s garbage in my country. Still shows my house location to be in a middle of a national park which is like 100 km away.
Don’t give it more credit than it deserves, it sucks in most developed countries too
It really isn’t so long as they’re using Yelp for reviews.
For just driving directions, sure. Google Maps is far more feature rich and I frequently end up regressing to Google whenever I need more info.
Yeah I use apple whenever I want the map on my Lock Screen but if I actually need to find something out comes google
Really? Google reviews is manipulated horribly. The underlying project, the maps, Apple isn’t far behind and in some cases I’ve noticed it’s actually much better.
It’s still more functional than Apple Maps for reviews/discovery. I don’t want to use Google, believe me. Apple Maps is only good for directions/traffic awareness. It’s still lacking when it comes to discovering things / traveling compared to Google maps. I am trying to get off all Google services ASAP but this is one area they’re clearly ahead.
Appple maps sucks outside of the US. I can’t even get cycling directions anywhere in canada. It barely provides even the most basic driving directions. Probably the most useless app on my phone. I don’t even know why they include it outside of the US.
Works very well in the UK too, not just US
is Apple Maps finally good?
No. Definitely not “good.” It used to be terrible and maybe isn’t so bad anymore, though.
For instance, around here there are a lot of private driveways; farming roads, dirt paths on private property, things like that. Apple would route me through those, I would mark them as not a road, they would be reviewed, and a month later they would reappear on the map. Why would I trust a map that jeeps trying to route me down a private washed out dirt path?
I was going to a meeting and typed in the address they provided. Apple popped up a location, but it was about an hour away in the wrong direction. It turns out that Apple didn’t know the correct address, so they helpfully corrected it to a different number, street, and city.
I needed to get to sports practice at a community center, so I put in the address. Apple took me to a literal empty field ten minutes away from the actual location.
If that’s the best they can do, why would I ever trust them? Maybe it’s better, but it was so bad for so long that I don’t even want to try it again.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But with one earbud in and Siri activated, you can have a friendly voice guide you through a foreign city, drifting you towards cycle lanes and safer routes and navigating often complex one-way systems.
In my hometown of London, where a lot of cycling routes are pathways in woods or through reservoirs, it has a habit of sending you down these dark and sometimes dangerous paths at night when the streets are much quicker and mostly empty.
In the post-apocalyptic, post-internet world in HBO’s The Last Of Us, there’s a scene in which the main character Joel, having spent weeks traversing an icy wasteland, happens upon a small cottage inhabited by an old couple.
As Cue himself recognises, “there are really only two mapmakers left in the world, in ourselves and Google” – and that monopoly of information, says Clancy Wilmott, a professor specialising in digital cartographies at Berkley, has consequences.
For their part, the Apple Maps engineers I spoke with acknowledged that they were more reliant on AI, aerial photography and existing data in rural settings and were focusing on expanding to more cities.
I’d say: ‘Once you’re on Ascension and you see the brick column, that driveway right after is mine.’ We’ve been working hard on that as well,” Cue says, adding that the future might be Siri telling you to “make a left at the yellow house”.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
How is Open Street Maps btw?
It’s great, install the Organic Maps or OsmAnd app on your phone. Level of detail of the map is much better than Google in my area.
I only use Google Maps for looking up reviews anymore.
I love osmand, I even subscribed for the pro version, but I still miss live traffic :(
Apple Maps for driving
Organic Maps for hiking
Google Maps for reviews
OSMAnd is great. Been using the free version for a long time. Only reason I keep Waze on my phone is to get live traffic, if I know I’ll run in to rush hour / traffic.
Wish an OSM app would get great live traffic.
Wellll, considering I’ve recently needed to use Lyft and uber a good bit, and the drivers were mostly using apple stuff, and I had to open up my android device to use Waze so they could get guided for half the damn trip while apple’s maps just sat there spinning, I’m not very impressed.
My wife prefers iOS, so we’ve tried using it a handful of times when my device had other issues (broken screen, etc) and the damn thing got us lost three of those times. It did eventually get us back into areas I knew well enough to just get places myself, but it was a laggy, shitty experience.
I fucking hate Google for so many reasons, but their maps work. Waze works fine as well (though who knows for how long lol). Osmand is okay, but isn’t as reliable. Nothing else on android is any better than osmand, just different.
Apple maps just isn’t on par with any of those three yet. Maybe it will be eventually though!
Google bought Waze a while back
Hence the (who knows for how long) part. I fully expect Google to fuck it up, sell it off, or just outright get rid of it some day
Fair point
In the Netherlands, I want to say that Apple Maps is actually better than Google… but only if you’re driving.
For some insane reason they don’t have biking maps here (or at least in all the places I’ve tried) which is such an enormous blunder.
I was in the Netherlands a couple weeks ago and I really liked using Apple for public transit. I had to open the NS app a few times for some more detailed route info but overall it was a nice experience.
I also had issues with Google’s walking directions having a hard time figuring out where I was and what direction I was going but Apple was fine.
Tbf, I was only there for a week so I might not have had a full experience.
It’s a superior visualisation of public transit routes but otherwise not great.
Try OpenStreetMap for cycling maps, it’s the best for cycling by a mile.
If you want to use it on your phone: OsmAnd app (or Organic Maps)
The only way Apple Maps is good is if you put in a million requests to fix all of the issues with mislabeled business, incorrect routing, nonexistent places, etc. Only then would I consider Apple Maps to be on par with Google Maps. Since I have an iPhone and like the interface I tend to use Apple Maps more often, but the terrible search (which routinely doesn’t list easy to find locations), awful routing (it loves to take the express lane which has different exits without providing a toggle not to use these lanes), and out of date mapping data (I’ve gone to multiple nonexistent locations) makes me go back to Google Maps every time. I will admit I do love their 3D maps and street view which I find to be higher quality than Google Maps. Besides this and the interface, Apple Maps is inferior to Google Maps.
I’ve anecdotally had a fine time using Apple Maps since I switched a few years ago. Just wanted to mention there is a setting to avoid tolls; Settings->Maps->Driving will bring up a toggle. It’ll still give you the option, but it won’t default if it’s the shortest route.
I’m fine with toll roads, however, I would like to avoid express lanes (usually two lanes of a toll road with extra tolls so it’s less congested) and there doesn’t seem to be a toggle for that. I will admit that for some cities Apple Maps is on par or better than Google maps and for others it’s the opposite. For my city Apple Maps just doesn’t get the job done.
It’s so much better than before, but mainly if you’re in the US.
It’s my preferred map for driving; it looks nicer, the voice navigation sounds better and it suits what I need.
Google maps works better overseas but they also crowdsource their maps.
I use Apple Maps for directions and Google maps when I want to “explore” or look for restaurants. Discovery on Apple Maps is still awful and requires you to have Yelp installed. On the flipside though they beat Google to having intersection lights and stop signs on the map while driving. The overall experience and animations are also far smoother on Apple Maps which is what makes me use it for driving. Google maps, like many Google products has a low framerate for its animations.
Also Yelp sucks. People rate things on Yelp when they’re angry. Ratings are almost always lower on Yelp than Google Maps.
I suspect this is because Google Maps reminds you to rate places you’ve been later, whereas Yelp is what people go to when they want to bitch about a place.
