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Comment by stordoff | Hacker News Reader

> In Maps, ads will now appear [...] during navigation.

Unless I'm missing something, distractions whilst navigating (and thus possibly driving) seems like it could be dangerous.

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I really, really, really wish there was serious competition to Google Maps. That's the one Google product I've had to repeatedly come back to because there's nothing even close in terms of functionality available for Android. I was hoping Here WeGo would be an alternative, but it's kind of a joke. I'd install Apple Maps if I could. I'd trade in my Pixel for an iPhone if it didn't mean losing real Firefox, NewPipe, and root-level ad blocking.

The world of mobile computing is so confining!

What about having "real" Firefox is the important part?

Is it supporting Mozilla, or supporting browser engine diversity, or is because real Firefox has more checkmarks on caniuse.com?

Extensions like ublock origin.

This is a huge thing for me.

The ability to have the same setup on desktop, tablet and phone is just unbeatable.

(Yes, I know you can do this with Safari on Apple-things and chrome on the rest too)

I could agree with all 3 of those points, but I'm mostly thinking of the latter. The iOS browser engine isn't bad, but it has security quirks with things like iframe navigation and it still somewhat lags behind with PWA features. As a web developer who likes to tinker, I just don't find it ideal to be saddled with the browser engine that comes with iOS.

All iOS web browsers are forced to use the Safari web engine, unlike on Android where the Firefox Preview (Fenix) and Firefox Focus are using a mobile-optimized version of Gecko called GeckoView.

Also, iOS Firefox doesn't allow the installation of add-ons.

> I really, really, really wish there was serious competition to Google Maps.

Can we have a crowsourcing sort of app where every user of GoogleMaps would contribute data to be scraped off to circumvent rate limiting ?

What features on Google Maps that you like are not on other map platforms?

Waze started doing this and it’s annoying, but I’m already looking at waze so it’s typically when I’m stopped or during some other period where I think it’s safe to look at my phone while driving.

I feel sorry for the advertisers as it’s dumb stuff like showing me an ad for “there’s a kfc nearby would you like to eat here” when I’m driving to a business meeting at 10am.

It's ridiculous on a smaller phone, on my SE these ads for fast food and gas takes up most of the screen. Also ironic considering waze is a pretty locked down app regarding preventing the driver from being distracted and fiddling with it on the fly. If I'm hungry I'll punch something in, and if I need gas I'll stop at any of the half dozen stations on the side of the road, not because of a waze ad. In fact I'll probably start subconsciously avoiding these places that are ruining my navigation experience.

While you are probably right that its dumb, this would have totally made me go to KFC on weekends when I half heartedly drive around to a destination.

But how likely are you to use Waze when you are half heartedly driving around to a destination? I mostly use Waze when I care about finding the fastest route somewhere (because I feel it has some of the most up to date traffic info), which is when I would least want a detour to some other business along the way.

And sometimes for driving long distances to get notifications of things along the way (like speed traps). In those cases I guess I could use ads for where to stop and eat but since Waze only shows ads when stopped (as far as I can tell) the likelihood of it showing me something relevant at the right time I’d want to grab a bite to eat while cruising down the highway seems unlikely.

The only value I see in it is reminding me that oh yeah there is a KFC around here maybe I should try it next time. And maybe they have some way to show attribution there (after all they have location info so maybe they can see how many people go to that business within a certain number of days of seeing an ad, or after a certain number of exposures to the ad).

Waze is a Google app.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a threadwinner.

Why has nobody else mentioned this? This is how google's gonna either get slapped with lawsuits, find that folks switch and make openstreetmap.org suddenly usable, or even both.

Whoa.

Aaaaand none of that matters. Not many people enjoy sitting there, mapping stuff, so openstreetmap is not going to get any better without corporations contributing to it like they do with Linux kernel.

Lawsuits doesn't matter much as well - with Google's power they can either:

- Afford a settlement, bunch of them - Make the litigation to take long-long-long time - Lobby for some law to protect them.

Nobody ain't gonna switch to anymore. Folks that are ok with Apple maps are already using it and besides Apple maps there is no huge competitor. Here we Go maps are good for navigation but they don't know anything about business around you so good luck finding anything that you don't know precise address for.

Even folks on iPhones who use Apple Maps have Google Maps installed. For me it:

- I just drive around to a place I know about: Apple Maps - I need to find a place by name: Google Maps - I go to bush: Here we Go maps a maybe Google Maps because I can download them as well.

People need to realise that Google is unstoppable machine right now with _enormous_ resources and they can do almost whatever.

Recently EU slapped a "huge" fine on Google. So what? What happened? Has anything changed?

The real solution is for corporations who depend on navigation services is to pay people to contribute to openstreetmap like it happens with Linux kernel right now. Freedom for people, tool for business, all win.

OSM has better data in certain aspects. The big problem with OSM is not about the data, but that it isn't designed to be used as a map. When someone visits osm.org, it is very barebones and the search feature doesn't work very well to find places unless you know the syntax. The team working on OSM themselves say that OSM is not a map, but instead a database.

Anyway, Google would never have gotten the data that it has without the contributions of the people. And the dedicated mappers in my city have all turned to OSM now. Hence leading to better mapping in terms of road data, bicycle paths and other features that businesses do not care about mapping.

"The big problem with OpenStreetMap is... ...that it isn't designed to be used as a map"

I can see given the name that that could be confusing to some people.

I agree with the search, but being a map is where OSM shines.

When I visit google maps a see a bunch of colorful boxes and notable locations, I have no idea why it chooses the notable locations it does but it appears to be either paid or some sort of SEO shenanigans, a local curry place is list but one of the biggest train stations in the country isn't (Southern Cross in Melbourne), recently they've also tried to cover the map with the "explore" panel.

When I look at the same area with OSM it shows the train station and shows me the street names with the street names all those colored boxes (buildings) are information, without them they're just noise.

And when you zoom into Google Maps, the colours for "built-up area" and "open space that isn't a park" get more and more similar until they're almost indistinguishable, so from certain point on all you're seeing is a bunch of streets against a featureless grey background, which I find rather irritating.

> dedicated mappers in my city have all turned to OSM now

That's very encouraging to hear! It motivates me to push more for using OSM in client projects, as it's the best alternative to Google Maps, especially if the latter starts showing ads.

But there are very good mobile apps that use OSM data. In my experience, OSM data can be excellent in some areas, and dismal in others. So, literally, YMMV. Fortunately, OSM data is excellent where I live, so I use that.

if Google Maps becomes too difficult or terrible to use, and there's a better competitor, users will naturally switch to the alternative. Unless you guys can start something better, you'll just have to use Google Maps? I don't think Apple Maps or any other service has a good enough data or feature set right now or forseeable future, outside of the California or US geographic area.

Either Google Maps raise it's developer API pricing to support all their investment into the service, and I'm sure it's not cheap to support, especially with their streetview efforts, or else ads go into the consumer side. For a long time we enjoyed the free ride from Google Search's desktop revenue.

Sygic, Tomtom, iGo, Garmin (HW) are very solid maps with good coverage in Europe and nearby countries. They have big POI databases, more or less good search, usually good UI (and optimized for driving). They primarily lack traffic (e.g. Sygic has maybe 1% of what Google has for traffic info), social info (reviews, pictures etc.) and maybe some general polishing. But if people will decide to switch then these particular features can be added and covered. But no way people will turn from ad infested spyware to pay for apps. 20$ vs 0$ - the answer is clear.

I'm betting this is going to appear the same way as it does on Waze, which shows fast food logos along your route, as well as popup ads whenever you're stopped. Annoying, but not intrusive enough to be considered a driving distraction, IMO.

IMO they are pretty distracting. When I'm stopped is when I glance at the screen to see my next move, and these popups persist for me when I start moving unless I close them. Pretty ironic considering waze is the most fussy navigation app regarding not letting the driver get distracted, unless it's profitable I guess!

It's a label on the map, like a road name. It may be unwelcome, but it's not dangerous.

Depending on the place name and how obnoxious the popup is, it may be yet another thing for someone to be reading at a bad time, which could cause a collision.

With road signs and billboards, the road is still in your peripheral vision, but with many car/cupholder mounts you have to look down enough to where you can't really react to a car coming at you from the left or right.

Well, good thing Apple maps is getting better. And there's also HERE Maps which is getting better.

Here has gone downhill since Nokia/Microsoft sold it.

Before that, it was the best map solution with a huge margin.

Probably when you stop, for example while at a stop light. This is how Waze is doing it too.

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