A few months ago, I noticed navigaton saying thing like "take the next right, after Key Bank". Clearly an ad, as there is nothing ambiguous about the turn. Haven't seen it mentioned by anyone else, am I the only one?
The street name you are turning onto might be not as visible because the sign is small, covered by a large truck or not well lit at night. Key Bank is probably harder to miss.
Or there might be no street name at all, which is often the case in places like India, where Google has been testing this for many years. In that case you have no choice but to use landmarks.
¹Or, at least, one that you can purchase now. It might happen in the future, but of course they'd have to be careful when rolling this out. Imagine if they used a business that is not very distinguishable and thus not a real landmark. That would diminish Maps' utility.
So while this is annoying for me it could be great for the other 50% of the population, would be nice if it was optional.
Also, as a passenger it's fairly easy to say "turn in five blocks" and track how many blocks are left, maybe even while holding a conversation. For drivers, that seems more difficult, probably due to cognitive overload, unless it's just a couple of blocks. And I've noticed that some drivers react to that kind of direction by scanning the view and quickly translating the number of blocks to a landmark.
Which is of course region specific. Using it in the UK would be confusing as (often) the roads just aren't laid out like that, and "in X blocks" is almost never used.
Part of the reason is that my frame of reference in a fast moving car is time and not distance. How many feet Is that car in front of you? Unless it is under 10 mph and under 20 feet I have no idea. I do have some idea about how many seconds it is as I have to know that in order to avoid the car if it stops working quickly.
I don’t know why the apps don’t say “in 10 seconds turn right” or maybe “turn right now!” With an emphasis as that’s how I’m used to getting directions from a passenger.
* after the next 2 intersections, turn right
* after the next intersection, turn right
* turn right at the next intersection
* TURN RIGHT NOW
* you missed the turn right, ....
Other huge annoyances:
- Not telling you which lane it is optimal to stay on on multilane roads
- Not telling you which road signs to follow outside urban centers via voice
- Not telling you about speed limit changes
In general, I find the guidance to be barely usable instead of being excellent as it could be
Sadly, I am not one of those people. Street names,combined with "turn in x feet", works much better for me than using landmarks.
I don't know if this is a marketing tie-in or a sincere attempt to use landmarks as a legitimate navigation technique.