Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States | Hacker News Reader

Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

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582 pointschmaynard462 comments

I'd been using Waze for a couple of years, and initially it was far superior to Apple Maps. But a few months back, I got really frustrated with it because it led me down some closed roads & ended up doubling my commute time home from work that day. I'd also been noting how off it was on its estimates on when I'd get to my destination. And I was also perturbed by it not knowing the back street entrance to my work site, though I've "paved it" on multiple occasions, it it remains uncorrected.

So I switched over to Apple Maps and started tracking how often it is off in its estimates (& also trip duration) -- I have like a commute that can be anywhere from 40 minutes to 90 minutes or more, depending on traffic -- and I was pleasantly surprised that it got me to destination within +/-5 minutes of when it said it would and that the journey was taking less time that with Waze. It also knew about the back entrance of my work site and was able to route better with some of the smaller side streets in the neighborhood too.

I've always preferred the Apple Maps UI -- it shows all the lanes at top, stoplights are more prominently shown, though the speedometer on Waze was nice, plus Waze alerted you to police presence too. It gives you a buffer when wishing to change route (Waze frequently would change the route and instruct me to take an exit that was 300 feet away when I was in the furthest lane from the exit side) to check off and is totally ad-free, and incorporated into iOS (yeah, Apple monopoly and all, true).

I seem to remember someone posting their results of testing Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze for ETA accuracy, and what you describe was also what they found: Apple Maps was the most accurate, Google Maps was optimistic, but accurate, Waze basically reported the best case scenario. Edit: found the original [0]

I've long thought that Waze creates the illusion of saving massive amounts of time, when its benefits are marginal (although real). I know I personally prefer an active commute to one waiting in traffic, even if travel times are identical. Waze seems to maximize for the latter.

[0] - https://arturgrabow.ski/2018/02/19/navigation-apps/amp/

I wonder if those who are more likely to measure something like this are more likely to drive closer to the speed limit? I tend to drive fast and find Google gets me there a couple minutes before ETA, Apple gets me there way before ETA, and Waze just overloads me with more information than I want.

Google Maps also got the person there 5% faster than Apple Maps, in that study.

This really does call for a larger study, though. It would be nice to see how the error bars and potential differences come out across different trip times, and different drivers.

You'd probably end with significantly different results based on country. Somehow the underlying logic of mapping AI seems to be more-or-less of a fit for national road systems — for instance in Europe, with lots of discrepancies between borders, it's really hit or miss: in France and Germany I end up on stupid country roads to save 2 minutes on a 2h drive, but that seldom happens in the Netherlands (granted they have a great road infrastructure). Switzerland is a mess too.

My intuition (listening to AI and DL podcasts) is that they just train too-general US-based (or evaluated or reinforced more specifically) models. Anyhow it's a disappointing situation that e.g. Google maps makes way more mistakes today than it did 5 years ago (but it also does more overall, I guess it's a trade-off, e.g. now it's great for public transportation in large enough cities).

I remember using some car’s built-in GPS once and it wanted me to take every freeway exit and get right back on after. Because it decided that saves time/distance.

Maps really need a “not worth it” features for tiny optimizations. I’d often prefer a slightly slower route that’s less work to drive.

Oh please YES, the "not worth it", followed by an option to "please take me back to previous path before (because) latest fork = mistake". The very idea of judging the overall travel is a good start (at the end, when they prompt you) but individual datapoints should be reportable as well. I'm pretty sure this would massively help build a dataset with "annotated" cases (good / bad) for RNNs.

> I’d often prefer a slightly slower route that’s less work to drive.

Me too, and I suspect most people — like, when is it ever a good option to avoid a free highway to save 1 minute when the driving is twice or more fatiguing? Are we bodyless machines or animals with a concept for "tired" and "attention"? This is where I feel recent evolutions in DL have been, perhaps, more for the benefit of developers and researchers (efficiency), and maybe not for real human benefits on the user side.

I don't claim the problem is easy, but I know second-hand that what users want and what AI projects solve for may be two very different X.

> please take me back to previous path before (because) latest fork = mistake

Seriously. I regularly travel from Ohio to Michigan and back, and often times if I take an exit for gas, Google Maps will assume I want to take an obscure country backroad for the final 2 hours rather than get back on the highway.

I absolutely do not want to worry about deer, a lack of gas stations, food, and light.

This is especially true in the UK where most rural roads are nominally 60 MPH even if they’re barely wide enough for two cars.

> I remember using some car’s built-in GPS once and it wanted me to take every freeway exit and get right back on after. Because it decided that saves time/distance.

It feels like cheating to the other drivers who didn’t take the “short cut” and leads to delays all around due to the extra merging going on. (exhibit A: I-85N vs. I-285 in Atlanta, aka Spaghetti Junction)

I live in Atlanta. I’m curious what do you mean?

My Mom doesn’t even use a cellphone, much less map directions. But she always is amazed at the directions given because she’ll pull out a map and do something with 3 turns what’ll have 20 turns on the map direction.

She’s certainly not wrong that from a UX perspective, simple can be really nice, especially if you’re driving on crowded roads and want to focus on driving.

Another possible option to make navigation more human-friendly would be "keep route simple" - so minimize the number of turns, complex intersections, road works (even without delays), backstreets etc, even at the cost of a few minutes extra travel time or extra distance.

It’s horrible even in the U.S.: the model seems to assume left turns are cheap so I always get these routes which involve 15 minutes sitting at an unprotected turn across heavy traffic. I, and apparently a number of other people I‘ve heard mention it, have largely stopped using it because the times are wildly off - and that’s along the East coast in some very popular areas, not exactly an obscure edge case.

It's just incredible that major map providers don't understand how problematic left turns are.

There's a reason you seldom see UPS and FedEx trucks trying to turn left in crowded urban settings. It's because they cost time and money. Why don't Google and Apple understand that, and give us an option to avoid or discourage left turns?

Or even just avoid turns in general. When I moved to Atlanta in 2014 and was using Google Maps for everything, before I knew my way around, it would often send me on complicated routes that clearly were meant to save a minute or two by doing a "staircase" sort of routing with more turns. Even right turns end up taking time and causing stress because I was always in the wrong lane. (I think they've gotten better with the lane indicators.)

I've been bitten by that multiple times, and had to learn to check a few turns ahead to make sure I'm not about to be asked to make an unprotected left turn across rush-hour traffic in an attempt to save 2 minutes at a light.

I would be interested in trying out a "no left turns" (or at least no unprotected left turns) route preference.

> the model seems to assume left turns are cheap

Happens to me all the time.

It also seems to assume crossing a bridge at rush hour is cheap. My only guess, and this truly is a guess, it is sees people in the bridge lane stopped and the thru lane moving and takes the average.

I have often wondered how the mapping programs handle multiple lanes moving at different speeds. Sometimes my highway exit backs up for a mile, while there are four lanes next to it moving full speed. All of the maps programs show this as blue (no traffic) even though I am moving at ten miles per hour. I’m guessing that they don’t have the ability to distinguish speed by lane.

After using Waze for over a couple of years, I really started getting the impression that I was just a data pawn in a bunch of A/B tests -- like send this one down that route, send that one down the other way & see what happens.

Absolutely sure Google Maps A/B tests routes too.

Even when sitting next to each other in the same car, Google Maps suggests radically different routes to the same destination on my wife’s phone than it does on mine, often with a 15+ min difference in arrival time. It must be testing different routing algorithms as otherwise they should be the same.

Could also be an optimal routing thing too. If google maps sends everyone down the same path it might become too congested. Especially if the route is a detour around construction or and accident or something.

I wouldn't have thought that was necessary, surely. There will be enough Android phones travelling any point in the road network to generate enough data, without Google attempting to generate more data.

I think routing is one of those computationally expensive problems (possibly np-complete) to solve. As a result, there's a bunch of clever non-deterministic approaches that get you "pretty good" answers, but depending on the implementation can produce variable results.

A-to-B routing is simple and not very expensive. You can implement it without very much graph theory knowledge. It's when visiting a number of destinations in an arbitrary order that things get difficult.

A-to-B routing is simple in theory. In practice implementing A* on a graph of all the roads in the world is non-trivial. You'd need to figure out some way to split the data up into chunks or to make neighbourhood lookups fast enough to be workable. I'd imagine you'd end up with something of at least the complexity of hierarchical A, but depending on the size of your chunks you'd need to still special-case the start and end chunks. And that's just the first complexity I can come up with.

I imagine the distance is going to be wildly* nontrivial as well. You'd need to factor in traffic density, weather conditions, road works, predicted traffic density, actual distance as well as traffic speed, not to mention fuzzy human things like scenery. Just going for "shortest euclidian distance" will end up with routing through every alley and side-street if it's even the tiniest amount shorter.

I wouldn't be surprised if you end up with a distance metric that looks essentially random unless you're deeply inspecting the graph at the time of routing to see why a certain route is shorter than another.

Of course that doesn't exclude A/B testing, but with google maps they clearly have a routing graph that's updating all the time. It's no surprise that asking for the same route twice can give you different answers. Not to mention they probably include a random factor on purpose so they don't route all the cars through the same street. Of course you'd want the random factor big enough to spread the load, but not so big that random people get shafted by a significantly longer commute.

Seems like an interesting problem to tackle actually, I should look at building an open street map based route planner sometime.

Waze takes more risks, that's for sure. It's still the best one if you know the area you're driving and are willing to ignore the maps.

I still use Google Maps when I'm unfamiliar with the drive for the reasons you mention (ie, it needlessly took me down a busy grid-locked road once).

But otherwise nothing beats Waze for the additional features like construction and police reporting plus it does a good job of finding fast routes far more often than not.

The flipside to me is that Waze will send lots of people down the "time saving" path, which is usually a small road, and kinda defeats the purpose.

I think Waze only really saved time when it wasn't popular. Once everyone takes the same shortcut, you're back where you started.

I got that impression, too. On multiple occasions I ignored a suggested turn because I was pretty certain it would be slower, and as soon as Waze adjusted the route based on my turn, the ETA went down. So it should have sent me the right way to begin with, but wanted to experiment with me to test an alternate route.

After enough of those, I reluctantly stopped using Waze.

Yep, I have the same experience. Sometimes it keeps telling me to do a U turn and turn around on their original route. I need to hit stop and reroute sometimes. Definitely not smart...

I use Waze mostly for the police presence. And there was a lot today (end of month...).

A nice feature would be if it sees more police presence than usual you just get a general warning "there's more police presence on your route than usual".

perhaps it's load balancing for other cars. If one entity controls a significant enough portion of the total traffic in the system they might sometimes make a decision that negatively impacts one packet if it helps a sufficient number of other packets.

I never really got into Waze; once I get to know my way around a city I'm inclined to just get around the oldschool way, sticking to arterial roads and all that.

I also used to work for a company where I occasionally visited an office where Waze was really popular with the folks who worked there. And found that that, when we were meeting up somewhere halfway across town after work, I would typically get there before the Waze users about as often as they got there before me. So, not really much of a time saver. Judging from my experiences on the occasions that someone gave me a ride somewhere, I was probably having a more pleasant, albeit lower-tech, driving experience, too.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd imagine Waze has a law of large numbers problem: The sample size they have for estimating the travel time along any given stretch of side road is smaller, and there's also a lot more ways to route oneself on the side roads, and those two factors compound to mean a relatively high chance that at least one of the routes Waze considers has been assigned a grossly over-optimistic travel time estimate.

I highly doubt the benefits of Waze are real, at least in Miami. While the random routes that Waze recommends might be more entertaining, it rarely is faster and sometimes WAY slower.

Probably a regional thing. I live in Atlanta and overall the routes are good, and Google maps isn't good accounting for traffic.

I grew up in Ft. Lauderdale and when I go back I use Google maps. Waze would take you down roads I'd never use. Also I went to the keys and US1 had an accident. Google maps gave me a parallel road to save me 30 minutes. I thought it was wrong. I turned reluctantly and sure enough, it was a good route... Waze was like derp derp...which was probably to my advantage as everyone else sat in traffic.

Waze also likes to overflow neighborhoods with traffic because it thinks there is a shorter path, which just isn’t a very nice thing to do.

I much prefer driving over sitting in traffic. One thing I noticed with Waze is that it would route me way out in the middle of nowhere to my location vs sitting in traffic. It was kind of interesting to see some of these back roads, I'll admit. I did learn some good alternate routes that I would sometimes just use on my own because I knew the freeway was going to be a parking lot.

I mostly use apple maps now with car play which is fine. After we moved my commute went from ~20-45 minutes to ~12 minutes so Waze really isn't a necessity anymore. :/

This lines up with my experience. About a year and some change ago, it was undeniable to me that Apple Maps had become markedly superior at directions than Google Maps or Waze. GM/W would routinely just be very off and give me the alert to make a turn as I was passing it at speed. Apple has made one howler in the past year or so, directing me to a closed road — recovering from that took about 45 minutes because it was in rush hour at a bad spot — but I looked afterward and I’m pretty sure Google Maps would have given me the same route. Apple Maps’ directions for which lane to be in for an upcoming stoplight or exit are also far more accurate and helpful for me.

I use Apple Maps, but I still think Google Maps is superior at directions only because Google offers more alternate routes and Apple sticks to the usual routes almost all the time. I also think Google is better at updating accidents on highways and ETA calculation.

But Apple Maps has one massive advantage which is the reason I ditched Google Maps and that is the UX. I love how simple it is to read the maps. Important information is shown prominently during navigation and the UI feels super clean. Google Maps, on the other hands, feels really cluttered and slow. It takes a good few seconds just to see the map after you open the app because they are loading all the unnecessary BS like new restaurants, nearby events etc.

I love the idea of switching from Waze, which is increasingly frustrating and wrong.

The problem is that having the speed traps and radar sites on there is just too crucial to give up. I've never found a replacement that does that.

Maybe it's a good opportunity for you to start following speed limits and stop risking everyone's life :)

Driving over the posted limit is not dangerous on most roads.

For any value of "over"? Strapping on a rocket engine and going 900 mph meets the logical definition of "over the limit".

Driving within a reasonable margin above the limit is safe on most roads, under good surface and visibility conditions.

Driving over the posted speed limit can appear safe when it definitely is not.

My morning commute involves a blind left turn out of a residential street. Cars parked on the curb obstruct my view of oncoming traffic in the right lane. This isn't a problem when that traffic observes the 35 mph speed limit. I've had far too many close calls with self-centered jerks driving 55 mph in that lane. Sporty sedans are impossible to see over a row of parked cars.

If you can't see well enough to turn safely, you can't turn. Making a left into a lane of traffic, you do not have right of way. We have a similar visibility problem with parked cars near our driveway and our municipality allows for a certain amount of yellow paint on curbs adjacent to driveways, specifically for visibility. People generally respect it, or at least park further than before the paint. I'd encourage investigating if this is an option where you live.

> Driving over the posted speed limit can appear safe when it definitely is not.

Therefore, the fact that it's left up to the drivers to guess when it is safe and when it isn't means many folks are going to guess wrong and speed when it's unsafe. Would be much better if the signage just actually accurately reflected the safe limits.

When you’re not distracted or tired, have great visibility, and there are no hazards or unexpected behavior by other road users. This is true far less frequently than people believe.

That strongly depends on where you live. If you live anywhere where things other than cars going roughly the speed limit are on or around the road that speeding is definitely dangerous. In Germany that's basically all roads except for the Autobahn and some country roads.

Tempting.

This would be a great idea if speed limits were set by any plausibly reasonable process, but in truth they are set arbitrarily and capriciously.

This would be a great idea if speed limits were set by any plausibly reasonable process, but in truth they are set arbitrarily and capriciously.

Demonstrably untrue. There is an entire very technical industry for this sort of thing. People who take an interest in their communities and go to planning and city council meetings know this. Those who are not involved their communities just complain and blame it on The Man out to get them.

It's extremely variable. You have traffic engineers, sure, but you also have politicians pushing top-down reactive policies to appeal to the limited minority of voters who happen to have the time to go to city council meetings. To say it is "demonstrably untrue" as some universal truth is objectively false.

Yes, lowering the speed limit on a 30 degree declining hill from 100kph to 60kph and having a speed camera at the bottom is "very technical" and not a clear money maker.

You need to break pretty hard to not get fined.

> There is an entire very technical industry for this sort of thing.

The industry being technical does nothing to prevent it's general rules from being dictated by politics. If an engineer does a study that shows no significant increase in injury by increasing the speed limit 10 MPH, I find it highly unlikely the city or state is going to approve it based on those findings.

The speed traps and radar are now showing up in Google Maps in Australia for me it’s great and very accurate. I have no idea who puts the markers there.

Google owns Waze...

(I wonder if the Waze ToS admits to having any crowdsourced data entered by users flow through to GoogleMaps?)

The crowdsourced data seemed combined when I had both waze and Google maps running once.

As for legality, the "content" you submit (which looks to include road condition/event submissions) is sub-licensable and transferable, https://www.waze.com/legal/tos "rights in content".

You as a Google maps user can report various things, its a speech bubble under layers button with a + sign in it, in Android.

Pretty sure it comes from the Waze users; Google owns both.

Google Maps has speed limits, police and other warnings. Been there for at least a few months now. Not sure how accurate they are as I doubt they have as much engagement/reporting as Waze.

Doesn't this info come from Waze?

I'm not sure about the initial data, but I get popups while driving using Google Maps when I pass things asking questions like "is it still there"?

You as a Google maps user can report various things, its a speech bubble under layers button with a + sign in it, in Android. I do now, for any cop cars, debris on road, accidents etc.

I agree with this. I use both Waze and Google maps. I opened Apple maps after a long time a few days back and i was suprised not only with the effcient directions but also the maps and the fact that i can clearly see the name of the road.

I personally use Waze over Google maps for navigation during commute times as it has the advantage of routing with HOV lanes. Does Apple maps support this? (I'm on Android)

Does waze work with detached-HOV/paid lanes? Google maps just gives up when taking the I-75 express lane to/from Atlanta since it's so far from the main interstate.

Waze works fine with them. But it's an option you have to turn off and on, you can't just click a button and route a different way. Sometimes it gets confused as well if you don't take a HOV lane that it wants you to.

Same here. The other night I needed to drive from East Bay to SFO in the rain, and Apple Maps said it was going to take me 43 minutes with an ETA of 7:27PM. I ended up pulling into the parking garage at 7:28PM. Despite the rain and the red bridge traffic, the estimate was almost perfect. In my experience, it's almost always within a few minutes of correct.

Waze also shows me distracting landmarks like McDonalds that stand out on my map, annoyingly. It doesn’t offer me a way to customize what I see or add in restaurants I’m interested in.

Customize it here: https://www.waze.com/business2

In the midst of the world (rightly) turning on big tech's abuses, efforts like these make me optimistic about our industry on a whole and help me recover some of the enthusiasm that led me into tech in the first place.

I love how this effort relies on & amplifies what were before relatively obscure specialties

The mapping wars elevate cartographers, mapping specialists, GIS data nerds, mobile computing / compression phds, GPS parsing engineers, ex-dod intertial navigation specialists, etc.

And rallied them around a massive, insanely big problem of mapping and organizing the entire physical world in real time and relying on consumer grade hardware to drive incredible fidelity.

It's humbling and really cool to see people that have dedicated their lives to these disciplines that were somewhat relegated to specialized use cases enter the "rockstar" stadium to deliver something that legitimately changes the way that billions of humans interact with the world

As much as I agree with your general sentiment, Apple Maps, like many of Apple's mobile apps, gets a boost from Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's utterly ridiculous that we can remove default apps from iOS, including Maps and Safari, but we can't set new default apps to replace them.

If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default browsers, maps, and email clients on their devices.

Isn't that kind of self-defeating, though? Like the ACA without the individual mandate? The only way this works is if people use the apps on the iPhone. There's nothing stopping you from using Google Maps on an iPhone but, in order for the tech to improve while remaining strong with privacy, is for Apple to utilize their existing technology. Also, I disagree that it's anti-competitive. Users are always allowed and able to switch to another device/ecosystem.

It's extremely similar to the microsoft IE issue, users should be able to set a default web browser.

The difference is that Microsoft dominated the market. Apple has a relatively small slice of the smartphone pie.

If Google restricted the user in the same way, that would arguably be closer to the Microsoft situation because their marketshare is 2x Apple's.

I think that depends on how you define "market". Globally, sure, but in the US that's not the case

https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/smartphone-sales-...

The market is all the places the devices are sold. So global makes sense. If you define the market as San Francisco then Apple might have a monopoly. But that feels a little like market gerrymandering.

Even if you were going to restrict to just the US, Apple still sells fewer than 50% of the phones.

Fewer than 50% is different from "Google sells twice as many"

> The market is all the places the devices are sold.

Certainly US regulators / courts don't purport to have jurisdiction over foreign markets, agreed? The aforementioned EU case against Microsoft was about the EU market alone.

How about we bake in competitive openness regadless of company size? Why is it right to build corrals as long as yours is not the biggest?

Because the user has an easy choice. Monopolies are not a problem in themselves, it’s when that monopoly is leveraged to crush competitors out of the overall market.

I seriously don’t understand why this sentiment(not yours) is so prevalent on HN. If we want competition in the tech sector, it seems to me that government enforcement of modulization would only hinder such competition. Why should a large corp’s web dev team care about mobile safari if they can just write on their page, “it seems you are using safari on mobile, we recommend downloading mobile chrome(AppStore hyperlink) and setting it to default, as of $PREVIOUSYEAR we will no longer support it.”? To me as things currently stand(that is Apple is not a monopoly), Apple’s walled garden approach absolutely embodies the spirit of a free market. Consumers have the choice of products and the defaultness of iPhones is fairly widely understood at the market level, best I can tell. Anecdotally of course, but almost all the l people I’ve talked to who buy an iPhone state that they buy it because they “don’t want to think about their phone” that seems fair to me.

Exactly! And, to my point that's being voted down, it really only works the way it's intended if they have the ability to control each step of the ecosystem. If they allow people to replace experiences at different points then it's not possible to ensure the consistency that Apple's really known for.

I think this is fine, but only if we also bake in all of the things that Apple has achieved using their dominance.

- Strong encryption - Privacy Protections - Not using user data

"Users are always allowed and able to switch to another device/ecosystem."

Google would like you to have a discussion with the EU on their behalf.

Google's market share globally dwarfs Apple's. That comparison isn't the same at all. If Google pushes their own products on consumers using the power it has established in that market, it's a monopoly and the EU is 100% in the right in enforcing restrictions to that. It's exactly the situation Microsoft found itself in during the 90s.

and then, even if we could set the default browser, having a webkit-Chrome is stupid also...

and webkit firefox

One specific thing that bothers me is that Microsoft got in trouble for bundling IE with Windows, but apple doesn't get in trouble when they block all browser apps that don't use Safari under the hood. How is this different? I want Google and Mozilla (and anyone else) to be able to make iOS browser apps from scratch if they want. It wouldn't be an issue if you could sideload apps easily, but the app store is really the only legit way to get apps on your non-jailbroken iPhone.

Apple doesn’t have sufficient market share to be considered a monopoly. That’s generally how they’ve skirted around the issue, and by positioning themselves as a premium brand, they can raise prices on their hardware to the point that market share remains sufficiently small to not be subject to monopoly laws.

At the time of the MS/IE lawsuit (2001), Microsoft Windows had well over 95% of desktop operating system market share.

Fair point.

Apple doesn't have the market share MSFT did back then.

The big differentiator here is that Microsoft had a dominant monopoly on PCs. Apple is a huge huge player in the smartphone space, but they're still in no danger of having a majority of the market.

Because the DOJ suit against MS was misguided and unnecessary. It had little effect on eroding Microsoft's supposed stranglehold on the browser market. When browser monoculture began to really hurt consumers and innovation the market found solutions through improved collaboration (W3C getting its act together, and developers embracing web standards), business model innovation (mozilla foundation embracing open source vs. Netscape charging $40 for a commercial license), and better technology and industry/community collaboration (khtml and webkit). Even some eventual deadends like Flash played a role at the time in routing around the untenable, but very temporary, situation of IE v.4-6 dominance.

Edit: I want to add that during the suit MS reps had a glib but prescient defense: "we think web browsers should be free". They meant as in beer, but they were right in the larger sense, and few would disagree with them today.

Netscape was arguing that their by-then totally crappy commercial browser deserved protection from the state, when their demise had a lot more to do with insane bloat and their embrace of groupware.

The issue with the browser (and sideloading) is security. Browsers by their nature are essentially apps that run arbitrary code from an unknown location. How do you ensure security of the devices if you don’t control the browser?

Safari is great on iOS. I’ve never felt the need to run something different. Same with sideloading apps. I’ve never seen the need for that. Maybe I’m an Apple fanboy but I think they’re doing the right thing in both cases.

Microsoft got in trouble for licensing deals: strong-arming OEMs to force them to bundle Windows. Apple doesn't license iOS.

What's worse for consumers in the end though?

One profession missing in the parent comment are the researchers innovating on differential privacy. Apple has taken great pains to figure out ways to improve their maps without storing massive amounts of private user data, to the extent that they split routes in half, fuzz addresses, and analyze the start and end of trips independently.

There's an argument that Google had such a huge head start on maps, that without Apple having the capacity to set defaults (on a platform that is not even a plurality of users), Apple Maps wouldn't have gotten enough users to justify improvements to where it is now. Apple also didn't get serious about having its own maps until Google attempted to exercise their at-the-time near-monopoly power to jack up licensing costs. Now the mere existence of Apple maps puts pressure on Google to improve the privacy features of its own map products as we've seen recently.

Apple funds map development through device sales, and Google does it through targeted advertising, map services for third parties, and profiling users. Do we value competition only of mapping products, or should we also value a diversity of business models for mapping products? It's no small decision to bring in the Kommissar.

Google didn’t try and raise the price, they demanded user data in exchange for access.

Good correction! Though I recall that negotiations broke down across both factors.

Anyway it was clear that Google got leverage out of the deal, for instance they wouldn’t allow navigation while it was available on Android, no vector maps while they were available on Android etc.

That was never going to work for Apple.

While I sympathize with your viewpoint, you're imposing your personal values on consumers who demonstrate their willingness to exchange personal data for free services every day. You and many HN users may balk at this, but most people are ok with trading privacy for real-time traffic predictions. Apple shouldn't receive an unfair market advantage because they embody the values you hold dear.

Sidenote: I disagree that Apple Maps' success puts pressure on Google to up their privacy game. On the contrary, Google Maps comparative advantage is their data trove, as there are many more users of Google Maps than Apple Maps, so they seem more likely to lean on that to succeed.

I wouldn't look to the market to improve privacy, since as I said above, the market clearly doesn't care about privacy much at all. Without a seismic shift in public attitudes towards privacy, it's up to the government or the companies themselves to adapt.

By this same logic, consumers are willing to exchange their inability to set a default Maps app in exchange for the iPhone bundle, at the price Apple provides (discounted because of the services revenue they can extract.)

iPhones are not the market leader and do not have to follow molopoly based rules. They can allow apple maps only and all is legal.

Press release from google, 2019-10-02:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.google/technology/safety-s...

* Added incognito mode to maps

* Expands auto deletion of old data to include locations, and location searches

Now... this might not be due solely to competitive pressures from Apple, but it was a topic of conversations I had with pro-privacy Android users I know who have been warming up to iOS. Feature introductions like this definitely take the edge off.

calling ignorance a willingness seems a bit much to me.

> you're imposing your personal values on consumers who demonstrate their willingness to exchange personal data for free services every day.

Are they demonstrating their willingness, or do they simply not understand that there is a choice to be made? Considering the trivial difference in mapping performance in most places, I doubt most people would be willing to give up their privacy in exchange for saving a few seconds on their drive to the mall.

> Without a seismic shift in public attitudes towards privacy,

If people were truly aware of how much data is collected on them, how many people would opt in for the marginal benefits you get in return?

There have been so many opportunities for a grassroots pro-privacy movement to develop, and yet there isn't one. Devastating hacks (Target, Yahoo), election interference (CambridgeAnalytica), and yet nothing.

Acting as if people are unaware of data collection is disingenuous. If you told the average facebook user how much facebook and its third-party partners knew about them, I doubt many of them would stop using the platform.

You seem pretty disconnected from what normal people see and experience. Ask some random/ non-tech people about those hacks, data-breaches, and what their privacy expectations are when doing basic things like web searches. I guarantee you most people don't know who Cambridge Analytica is and couldn't tell you which major banks/ retailers have been breached.

It's not just ignorance, but a sense of helplessness. People don't feel in control and don't have any clue how they might reduce what data leaks out in their daily lives. The thing is, they are absolutely right.

I know and understand a lot of this stuff and I don't feel like I'm in control of my data. Even if you take precautions, Google and Facebook track your progress across the web. If you don't use Google Maps, Google still tracks your location using your IP address for network calls (often when you aren't deliberately connecting to Google services) and both Google and Facebook have been slurping up people's purchase history through credit card companies.

How is someone who doesn't have a clue about this stuff supposed to exert any control or choice when the people attacking their privacy out-gun them so thoroughly?

> Apple shouldn't receive an unfair market advantage because they embody the values you hold dear.

Then buy Android if that's a tradeoff you're willing to make.

Are you saying users should give up freedom privacy( even though apple is willing to give up in china ). User choice is still better then corporate handouts.

Apple won't even let you remove the Chess app from macOS without disabling system integrity protection.

> letting users set default browsers, maps, and email clients on their devices.

This is so disingenuous. It's called Android. People hate it. Although the walled garden may offend you personally, the market at large has spoken.

Of all the options to hate Android, having the option to change default clients is probably pretty low...

It's probably enough to make anyone switch to Android, but it can still be a welcome addition to iOS

Are you implying people hate Android and that iOS is way bigger in terms of market share?

You can remove them? Android doesn't allow me to remove them wasting my space.

Not setting a default is bad too. Wish I could get there.

....what are you talking about? This is just an update on yet another closed platform.

If apple cared about elevating the discipline and righting the abuses of big tech with their mapping app they'd partner with OpenStreetMap and make the data public rather than continuing to silo all the data about you and everyone around you.

Instead we're continuing the closed source data gathering land rush and trying to beat google at its own game.

Why do you equate “elevating the discipline” with “give away the data?”.

Are you suggesting Google didnt elevate the discipline of search because their backend is closed?

How do you elevate a discipline by hiding literally everything behind NDAs?

By raising the quality bar of what is expected?

Apple Maps _is_ OpenStreetMap in many countries. In Denmark it's used for turn-by-turn navigation even.

(Source: Talk by Apple employee at the OSM'a 'State of the Map' conference 2018 https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Co... )

Then why not do it everywhere and upstream the changes?

Why should Apple give away their improvements?

I’m genuinely curious why you think they should do this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Database_License

Because they would be legally obligated to when using OSM as a base for anything.

Also, because it would benefit society.

If Apple was legally obligated to contribute back, they would do so.

They have a good history of community contribution (eg. Darwin, WebKit) so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, instead of some random anonymous internet commenter angst.

....no they don't. They actively avoid the GPL versions of various things they use so they don't have to give back even though it hurts their users.

I’ve never heard that argument as to why Apple avoids the GPL.

I also don’t see how it is consistent with their behavior. For example, Apple wouldn’t need to change anything to bash to make its latest version run on MacOS. Yet, they don’t ship it.

On the other hand, the argument that they don’t avoid the GPL in general, but specifically GPLv3 because of legal concerns is consistent with their behavior. They shipped the latest GPLv2 licensed bash for years, but avoid any GPLv3 licensed version.

Apple made the MIT-licensed zsh the default shell in macOS over the GPL-licensed bash precisely to avoid the GPL.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208050

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090193

Apple has historically been hostile to the GPL. Remember when Apple removed the GPLv2-licensed VLC from the App Store in 2011?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/01/vlc-for-ios-vanishes...

VLC didn't return to the App Store until the iOS version was dual-licensed under the MPL 30 months later.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/vlc-media-player-ret...

I don't think what you're posting is inconsistent with the observation the person you're replying to made -- Apple is hostile more specifically to GPL 3, which a lot of companies seem to be (rightly or wrongly). IIRC, a lot of GPL-licensed stuff that came with OS X, like bash, just stopped being updated by Apple when it moved from GPL 2 to 3; moving to zsh lets them keep their default shell up to date while also keeping whichever execs/lawyers have decreed "Thou Shalt Not GPL 3" happy.

Also, IIRC, Apple doesn't have a policy of prohibiting GPL-licensed software from being in the App Store, but rather, the FSF's own interpretation of the GPL is that its terms are incompatible with the App Store's terms.

That's absurd. From Licensing WebKit (https://webkit.org/licensing-webkit/):

> WebKit is open source software with portions licensed under the LGPL and BSD licenses available here.

Even though those licenses don't require it, Apple still actively develops and publishes enormous FOSS projects. Here's a page that lists more of them: https://developer.apple.com/opensource/

Apple gives back way more than they're legally required to. They don't like the GPLv3 specifically, but's worlds apart from saying they avoid the GPL or that they don't want to give back.

It’s not that simple. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Common_licence_interpret...:

”I created a layer on top of an OSM map. What do I have to put under your license?

You have to determine whether what you have created is a Collective Work or a Derivative work, under the terms of the OSM licence.

If what you create is based on OSM data (for example if you create a new layer by looking at the OSM data and refering to locations on it) then it is likely you have created a derivative work.

If you generate a merged work with OSM data and other data (such as a printed map or pdf map) where the non-OSM data can no longer be considered to be separate and independent from the OSM data, is is likely you have created a derivative work.

If you overlay OSM data with your own data created from other sources (for example you going out there with a GPS receiver) and the layers are kept separate and independent, and the OSM layer is unchanged, then you may have created a collective work.

If you have created a derivative work, the work as a whole must be subject to the OSM licence. If you have created a collective work, then only the OSM component of the work must be subject to the OSM licence.”

IANAL, but I think anybody can overlay OSM data with traffic info, satellite photography, layers with names of shops, etc., without creating a derivative work.

Why don’t you work for free? That would also benefit society. Be the change you want to see in the world.

There's a myth that the market offers rewards proportional to value provided.

In reality, the market offers rewards proportional to value that can be withheld, as leverage for price negotiation.

It would be a big deal to create an economic system that reliably measures and rewards benefit to society. I haven't the faintest idea how.

My understanding is that Bing, Apple, and Here have all already been working with Open Street Map for years now.

Yeah so wrong of them to invest millions into their map data and not immediately give it away to their competitors!

What abuse? how is it right? It's the news industry that is leading and fuling attacks on tech companies for selfish financial reasons, and "big tech" is their term, it's a testament to their efficacy that people in tech drank that kool aid.

> It's humbling and really cool to see [cartographers, mapping specialists, GIS data nerds, mobile computing / compression phds, GPS parsing engineers, ex-dod intertial navigation specialists, etc.] enter the "rockstar" stadium to deliver something that legitimately changes the way that billions of humans interact with the world

The thing is, they did this before. But the interaction just wasn't direct. All of those people were doing important work for government and business organizations wherever getting around and knowing where you and other things are mattered, and improving the quality of services.

Now we get first-hand experience with their work, which is fantastic. Map apps are probably the thing that most enticed me onto a smart phone and the thing I'd have a hardest time giving up.

I just hope that every time we remember the before and after for these amazing conveniences, we remember that all these disciplines and professionals were important beforehand, and that there are others that are woven quietly into public and private life. Because there's a lot of voices right now that seem interested in burning down institutions and not enough curiosity in what those institutions have done for us.

> relatively obscure specialties

This is such a Silicon Valley perspective.

Congrats to the teams who did this! It’s been a long time coming.. and a lot of people said along the way that Apple should just give up it was too far behind. Perseverance (and a lot of resources) can go a long way!

It reminds me of some advice given to me by a heavily successful industrialist friend — never dismiss your competition, for the world is not static.

"Is it Apple Maps bad?" --Gavin Belson, Silicon Valley

They had no place to go but up. That first version was absolutely embarrassing. I'm honestly surprised they were allowed to make it this far. To this day, I still do not use Apple Maps. As much as they try to get me to use it with all of the iOS embedding they've done, I still won't use it.

Why not? Because it started out bad.... 7 years ago?

Anecdotally Apple Maps is still really bad. I have tried using it to drive and walk around major cities in the last two years and it just completely misrepresents where some roads are, it doesn't catch up with construction, etc. etc.

This announcement today was about the release of entirely new rebuilt maps data for the entire US, from the ground up.

Yes it's almost as if this thread is attached to an article about how Apple Maps is not the same as it once was

Wasn't the rollout happening by region all through 2019? Doesn't necessarily mean EVERYONE is getting new data TODAY.

Look at the previous coverage on this blog - https://www.justinobeirne.com/

The PR piece says:

"Apple completed the rollout of this new Maps experience in the United States and will begin rolling it out across Europe in the coming months."

Yes, which means that the person you are responding may have had new data already from the old rollout. Not sure what are you trying to say from this comment.

I interpreted "Doesn't necessarily mean EVERYONE is getting new data TODAY" to mean that they don't have new data at all. My original comment was a reference to the "the last two years" of the GP, suggesting that their experience will be different now than 2 years ago. Perhaps in the last year it was already different and still not good enough, or perhaps it wasn't different yet and now it will be so the two year old data isn't sufficient to judge anymore. Only fjp can say.

I meant this to imply that my experience likely did not include the new data or experience or whatever they updated. I’m always cheering for a really good G Maps alternative and will give Apple Maps another shot

Anecdotally I have been using it for the last 7 years and it's been perfectly fine around multiple US states and dozens of cities. The only glitch I had was driving out of the Dallas airport, but Google Maps had the exact same glitch.

Don't worry, everyone has problems driving out of DFW airport with or without a maps app. From it's left exits to the merging lanes from cloverleaf ramps/exits, it is amazing there are not more accidents than there are.

I've tried it several times after various upgrades, but just never has won me over. There's multiple competing products. This particular one has always been behind in usability. There's just always been something that wasn't up to snuff, and I stop using it. I have better things to do than suffer with less usable software.

In the old days of Macromedia Freehand and Adobe Illustrator, each version would add features and updates that would make it slightly better than the other. I would use it until the other came out with their new version. It was a constant ping pong/leapfrog of competing products trying to win until Adobe ultimately won outright. In my testing, not once has Apple Maps leapfrogged to be the leading app.

This update may make me switch from Google Maps. The UI in Google Maps has always been confusing and cluttered. There's a search bar, then quick search buttons underneath, then the layers button, "Explore nearby", explore, commute, "For you", and then finally the hamburger menu.

Apple Maps is a lot cleaner but the only thing missing was the quality of the actual maps. Hopefully that has changed now.

There's also the ability to collaborate with people who don't have an iOS device. If someone creates a Collection in Apple Maps I just don't get to participate. If someone creates a shared list in Google Maps I can see it on my phone, a web browser, someone with an iPhone...

And Google gets to see it too. And all their advertisers.

Google doesn't give your map collections to advertisers.

It's true that Google gets to see them, but Apple is no better in that regard: they store your collections on their servers too (where else would they store them?).

Apple is better in that regard.

End-to-end encryption

Maps keeps your personal data in sync across all your devices using end-to-end encryption. Your Significant Locations and collections are encrypted end-to-end so Apple cannot read them. And when you share your ETA with other Maps users, Apple can’t see your location.

Other useful sections on that page worth reading: "Location Fuzzing", "Random Identifiers", and "(on-device) Personalization"

From: https://www.apple.com/privacy/features/

_SHARED_ collections between multiple Apple users are not E2E encrypted.

Don't spread misinformation on privacy, it'll mislead people into sharing too much data.

That’s interesting. Can you point to a reference for that?

I would have assumed that shared collections with a group of iCloud accounts would be e2e encrypted like iMessage groups are e2e encrypted. Glad to revisit that assumption.

My favorite feature of Google Maps is how it gets 10x slower when you turn location history off. And then it obnoxiously prompts you to turn it back on for an "improved user experience." I've duplicated this exact experience across several generations of smartphone including a relatively recent Galaxy S7. Turning location history back on makes the slowness go away.

Google's treatment of Android users vs. its treatment of iOS users for the same app is insightful: in the former case, the treatment imo borders on the abusive with mandatory and permanent changes required to data collection to be able to do trivial things such as activate a Google Assistant using the Home app.

I don't have this experience on Pixel 3. I also have location history off and have never gotten the prompt. Does that come up in a specific usecase?

Disc: Googler but nowhere close to Maps.

Yeah, whenever my fiance or I try to search for a location, it takes maps several seconds to let us start typing. It only does this when we turn location history off. Honestly one of the things that drove me to stop using my G4 was this issue, because I had thought it was a performance issue with the phone. Then my fiance showed me how slow her S7 was with location history turned off versus on.

Regarding the prompt, it's always on in the search screen but starting a search makes it go away.

I just cold-started the Maps app, and search and keyboard opened instantly. May be try deleting the app data and cache? If not, not sure what's the issue honestly.

I just replaced the phone with an iPhone.

Google maps used to be fantastic, but in the last year or so it's become so fucking toxic - constantly spamming suggestions and asking questions, even during navigation (in other words, distracting me from driving!).

Apple maps may not be quite as good (the lack of cycling in my neck of the woods is annoying) but at least it's not trying to crash my car.

It is really annoying how it auto-switches to routes that it thinks will be faster.

"We've found you a faster route. Switching in 10 seconds if you don't press 'no thanks'..."

Come on, Google, there's a semi truck braking in front of me and I'm trying to make sure it's safe to change lanes, can this wait?

But the "is [reported hazard] still here?" bubbles don't bother me as much, since they go away after a few seconds. I think all of the cues are intended for passengers who are navigating for someone else, but the developers should keep in mind that some people use their phones as a standalone GPS navigator.

The teams are mostly 1099 contract workers through a third party with no benefits and no hope of advancement or future employment as full-time employee of Apple since their contract specifically expires in one year. They make around $20/hour usually right out of college in a town (Austin) with one of the fastest growing cost of living due to the influx of all the tech companies who got tired of the California scene and decided to move to Texas for the sweet tax cuts and business-friendly environment.

I'm sure the contract company siphons most of the contract value from Apple and the dedicated workers doing all the GIS work, the turn-by-turn descriptions, business identifications, etc. updating all the things that made the original Apple Maps such a delicious joke are left with an income that barely meets expenses in a town where those expenses are steadily rising. This job for them is just a resume filler though they aren't even allowed, due to NDA, to specify exactly what they do (what software or skills they use) or who they do it for when they update their resumes so that before the end of their one year contracts they can find a real career-type job.

It is a great update to a product that did originally suck though. It isn't Apple employees who are doing the actual work. They're the supervisors.

Apple gave them an option that was better than all others available to them. Otherwise they would be doing that other option instead. So thanks, Apple!

It is very likely that you are correct. Thanks, Apple!

i am a well-paid contractor who disagrees

Then you obviously are not one of the $20/hr contractors referenced in my comment. I am willing to accept that there are other contractors involved who are earning more for their efforts. Congratulations to you and I hope you find tremendous success no matter where you choose to apply your talents.

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion?

Evidence of what? The rate of pay? The nature of employment of those doing the grunt work? The cost of living in the Austin area? The reason(s) why tech companies that had their start out of state open facilities in Texas? The general feeling that the first iteration of Apple Maps was substandard to the point where most agree that it sucked?

Your phrasing is ambiguous about what those teams actually do.

If it's just a data entry or "look at this picture and type down the name of the restaurant" job, then I'd say $20 is pretty good. If it's actual software engineering then yeah it's pretty terrible pay.

It looks ambiguous to me too. Sorry. I should've read it more closely before posting as some of those sentences really get leggy.

Honestly, the redesign aside, it's really impressive how quickly they are catching up with most Google Maps features. Given, I haven't tried these myself and can't attest to their quality, but in the article they list: Real-Time Transit info, Sharing ETA, Indoor Maps, etc. They also got street view, and more.

Of course, it's much easier to copy features than innovate, the latter takes years of UX research, while the former can simply just take all the lessons learned and implement the final iteration. That being said, it sounds like Apple has invested big time on their Maps team, doing so much is so little time is truly impressive.

As recently as a month ago apple maps sent my coworker miles from his destination to a very bad part of town. It is still pretty bad.

> to a very bad part of town

As if the quality of the town they got sent to is somehow relevant?

I think it underscores the ramifications of the bad software.

So… your friend entered the wrong address?

Not necessarily. Apple Maps sometimes has problems with street addresses that start with compass directions.

You enter 1234 East Main Street and it sends you to 1234 West Main Street.

I've had this happen to me multiple times in both Minneapolis and Albuquerque. Strangely, it only seems to happen while in foot, not while driving.

My coworker claimed they entered the name of a chain store and it sent them to a dead strip mall.

If they only could provide offline maps like google maps. That feature is fantastic in the desert areas in the west where you have no connectivity. Even the search function works great when offline.

Also search still works better in google maps. Apple Maps doesn’t find the Office Depot near me but one 100 miles away for example.

We use this when traveling abroad, it's extremely helpful to know exactly how to get from A to B before you buy a local sim card.

Yes it seems kind of comical that a simple offline cache wouldn't be included as an easy to tick off thing to include in this huge undertaking.

It’s sad that technology has actually regressed despite exponential increments in processing power and storage capacity.

It used to be that you could buy a mapping software and install it on your PDA/Pocket PC and it would run fine despite a CPU speed in the megahertz.

Nowadays offline maps is some niche advanced feature despite even low-end devices have enough processing power to come preinstalled with an offline map.

OpenStreetMaps has some good apps with offline support but their search function is usually pretty bad. If they could crack search OpenStreetMaps would be a winner.

Check the OSM Scout Server & related apps:

https://github.com/rinigus/osmscout-server

It's a local service running on your device that handled offline data updates (all data packs are generated from SOM data) and then provides various services (routing/tiles/geocoding/advanced PoI search) based on this offline data to navigation apps running on the device.

I really nice concept IMHO, but I'm a bit biased as I'm the author of one of the navigation apps (modRana) that make use of OSM Scout Server if available on the device. :)

Check out MapFactor Navigator. Has a good single-line global offline search feature, usually two search terms (such as street/POI name and city or postal code) suffice. Also very good turn by turn voice navigation, an intuitive touch UI and other things one likes to see in a GPS app. Completely free on Android with OSM offline maps (which they distribute in a heavily compressed but rather complete format). Not affiliated but wouldn't drive out of town without it. You can also buy and use commercial TomTom maps within the same app if preferred. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapfactor.... There is also an iOS version.

I have had this app for a long time. First on android, then on iOS. From what I see it has a google online search and then search through state, city and street. I can’t just you “Broadway , New York” or “Indian buffet” while offline. Otherwise the app is great.

Well the current Android version (don't know about iOS) _does_ have one-line offline search functionality. Perhaps you just need one or two more search terms.

Have you used offline maps in Google Maps? And compared it to the old mapping software you're talking about? It's kind of amazing, and frankly I often don't notice the difference between online and offline.

The maps sync on a regular basis, it's got detailed information about businesses including hours open, and it will route you different ways based on anticipated traffic at that time of day. It's also surprisingly not niche, as the app automatically sets up zones for places you visit frequently; odds are the majority of people use it without even realizing it.

I used that PDA software back in the day, and frankly it was pretty lacking. Route finding never took that much CPU. We moved to the cloud because the benefits of serving the data vastly outweighs the drawbacks for most people.

But google has demonstrated that an offline cache can work great.

What's amazing about it? It just has a local copy of the data. Big deal.

Not true. Search works pretty well offline too. Much better than any other offline mapping app.

My point was that offline isn’t the default, which means most people don’t even know about it or wouldn’t have it enabled for the times they actually need it.

That makes sense. It's well hidden and a little awkward to use.

So it's a local copy of the data and the search algorithm. Again, big deal.

There is an app called "Here maps" (free) which lets you download map data for individual states and countries for offline usage.

This is what I use. My argument is that this basic feature should be part of default navigation apps.

The annoying thing is that google maps is still much better :(

Apple Maps has come a long way since its disastrous initial release. For about a year now, I have rarely used Google Maps. I typically find Apple Map's routing to be just as effective, even for avoiding traffic, accidents, etc.

Yup I switched about a year ago because I liked the CarPlay interface the best out of [Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, Subaru Built In Maps]. And the privacy over Google Maps is a huge bonus.

I tried it. But then for some reason Apple Maps asked me to U-Turn on the Garden State Parkway. That's not an option.

Back to waze i went.

I hear Apple is pretty responsive about correcting reported errors. There's error reporting inside the app that includes a spot to attach a photo. Of course, this can be problematic when driving and I much prefer Waze's error reporting.

How do you do this for directions?

You have to do it after, or simply stop the navigation, but once you do, if you select the “Report an Issue” option from the Info menu you can pick from your recent trips.

Once you do so, you can select the wrong turn/other problem from the list of steps and describe the problem.

My favourite feature on iPhone is it telling me where my car is parked. Sometimes I go to a meetup at a local university, which is also a rats nest of roads and alleyways, and this has saved my hide multiple times

Google Maps has this now as well.

> its disastrous initial release.

I'm no fan of Apple but I'd hardly call it's release disastrous.

They finally updated buildings in New Orleans that had been demolished in the 90s well before Katrina but are still giving a dangerous routing from the west bank of the river to downtown that you will get ticketed for if police will see you do it. The alternate ramp has been complete since 1992.

The biggest improvements are only within the US, though. In most places in Europe, Google Maps is still way better.

It's appalling in Amsterdam and with no cycling directions it's useless.

If Apple could bring bicycle directions into the app, I would probably never use Google Maps again.

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

Shits hard yo

It is, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

It's a super tough problem. Even Google Maps messages you that it's a feature in progress (paraphrasing of course), and they've had years of a head start on this.

Would you mind elaborating on why this is such a difficult problem?

I think you ninja'd me, I just made a comment contemplating some of the different challenges of bike navigation.

You know that got me thinking, biking rules vary far more than for cars.

Depending on your location, pedestrian traffic, streets, street traffic, etc. It might be best for you to be on the sidewalk. Or maybe you should instead be on the road since the road is only 25mph and there's pedestrians on the sidewalk. Maybe there's a bike lane, maybe there isn't. Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road.

Are you allowed to cut through parking lots? Is it a dirt road? Can everyone's bikes handle dirt roads? What if it just rained, cars can still cross a wet dirt road, but I'd rather take a different route if possible on a bike.

That's not including the terrain challenges (which google seems to incorporate). I'd far rather take a route that takes an extra 5 minutes and is basically level vs a route that saves time but requires you to go down and uphill. Heck even wind conditions change can change the "optimal route" in some cases.

I think you could release a simplified version of biking directions that isn't perfect, but better than nothing:

- For a limited number of cities, determine which streets the city lists as having separated bike lanes, painted bike lanes, or city-designated "bike friendly" streets. Mark them on the map appropriately in a different map overlay (or on the transit overlay)

- Bicycle directions prioritize those streets.

It's not perfect, but this would be enough for me to use the app.

Painted bike lanes are really unreliable, but otherwise that sounds like a great idea.

Most of the painted bike lanes I see in suburban Washington are painted in some of the least safe bike routes. There's a ton of bike lanes that are just painted along major thoroughfares with actual top speeds of 40 or 45 miles per hour.

They should really do it by speed limit and presence of features that obstruct car traffic. Streets that are a pain in the ass to drive on are the best streets to bike on.

Even some of the Bike Routes in Seattle are on roads that I wouldn't feel safe biking on because traffic typically clocks at 10 or 15 MPH higher than the speed limit around the curves on the route.

Well, I'm quite happy with Openstreetmap's directions for biking (I mostly use OSMand, but there are other apps/routers).

They have elevation, private/public roads, road surface, bike lanes, etc, and routers can take it into account. Of course, that doesn't really take into account varying laws, but that might be reflected in the maps themselves (private/public places, bikes allowed/disallowed, etc).

See also https://www.opencyclemap.org

Openstreermap drives me crazy.

They use the designations “town” and “city” as a way of ranking places in terms of importance.

Here in the UK that designation is almost arbitrary.

There are several large towns with greater population and navigational importance than surrounding smaller cities.

All the commercial map providers, including Apple Maps, grok that. Only opensteetmap seems still rigidly to the town < city thing. Would be much better if they could use population instead.

OSM does record population, and many sites that use OSM data parse that information. I think you're overstating the importance of the demo stylesheet on openstreetmap.org, which really isn't significant: OSM is all about recording factual map data and making it freely available.

Not sure if stylwsheet has a different meaning in the context of OSM but it is what is shown when you zoom out that I’m objecting to.

If the OSM project is just about data then it’s doing a great job.

If it’s about a usable navigation experience too then it’s failing because in the UK it doesn’t take local politics into account when deciding what to display.

It’s 95% about data.

FWIW OSM was founded and is still heavily influenced by the UK. As a UK user I like it that ceremonial cities are tagged and displayed as such. YMMV.

I have no problem with ceremonial cities being marked as such.

What I have a big problem with is that major towns, by both population and local importance, are left off the map until you zoom to a low level.

I find this annoying enough that I actively avoid OSM based sites because it. It makes using OSM difficult to see major towns in relation other major cities.

Meanwhile there’ll be a tiny ceremonial city with a huge label over it.

In the UK, the City designation is political and not based on size. So I agree, a worthless proxy for size.

> Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road.

I think that's usually the case.

This page [1] says:

> The law in most areas of the country require bicycles to follow the same rules of the road as other motor vehicles. In essence, riding your bike down the sidewalk is the same as if you hopped the curb and started rolling it in your car.

[1] https://www.campfirecycling.com/blog/2008/07/09/top-5-rules-...

Not always though, for example here in Michigan [0]. At least around here some of the streets are NOT the kind you want to ride your bike on, and there's only a few pedestrians on the sidewalk (so it's not a big deal even if you stopped and walked your bike around them).

> Bicycles may be ridden upon a sidewalk, but cyclists must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians and are required to give an audible signal before overtaking and passing a pedestrian.

And to make it even more complicated:

> Further, official traffic control devices or local ordinances may restrict bicycles on sidewalks in some areas.

[0] https://michiganbikelaw.com/michigan-rules-of-the-road/

Doesn't seem that different. Basically, you're expected to be on the road and obey road rules, but you're allowed on the side walk if the local ordinance doesn't ban it and you give right-of-way and a wide berth to pedestrians.

i.e. riding on the sidewalk is more of an exception, and is typically allowed for kids.

This is pretty common, I believe. I looked up my local (Cambridge MA) laws and they say the same thing (and have a list of the sidewalks you can't bike on), and New York state looks the same.

In the dot.ny.gov FAQs, they explicitly say that sidewalk riding is legal unless posted, but is specifically intended more for young children.

> Depending on your location, pedestrian traffic, streets, street traffic, etc. It might be best for you to be on the sidewalk. … Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road.

Depending on location indeed. The majority of US states still make it blanket illegal to bicycle on a sidewalk, codified into early highway laws. (It's also probable the last time those laws were effectively enforced was somewhere in the middle of the 20th Century.) There are states where it is illegal, but individual counties or cities (or strange in-betweens like townships) override their state laws and allow it. I don't know of any examples of the opposite where a state allows it, but individual towns forbid it, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I made a comment to a sibling with an example from Michigan. I won't copy paste the whole comment but Michigan allows biking on sidewalks but you have to yield to pedestrians. But individual towns may add their own restrictions.

https://michiganbikelaw.com/michigan-rules-of-the-road/

There are of course plenty of bike routing sites online, generally based on OpenStreetMap source data.

I run cycle.travel (https://cycle.travel/map) which offers super-fast bike directions in Europe, North America and Australia/NZ. It has a number of unique features under the hood that I think lift the quality of its routes above other similar sites (but then I would say that). Always happy to entertain offers if Apple want to buy me...

I suspect it may be california-centrism. Bikes are a vital mode in Europe and many other parts of the road. In california car is king, bikes are either recreational or for hardcore commutes.

You can see similar assumptions in how Siri is designed. (“Users only speak one language at a time”) or the effectiveness of multilanguage support in autocorrect. Most people outside north america use their own language + english fairly frequently. At least those in apple’s customer demographic.

Or maybe they’re busy rolling this massive update out (they’ve barely completed the US and have yet to finish Europe).

Yet to start with Europe.

Sure, there’s plenty of California-centrism, but from where I’m sitting, a multilingual Siri sounds like a massive technical challenge. I also remember how long it took Google to roll out bike directions, and just how awful it was at first, when it was rolling out.

Bicycle directions are more challenging than directions for cars, public transit, and walking. I’m just speaking from my own personal experience, here. In every city I’ve lived in, I’ve had to test out different bicycle commuting routes until I found one which I liked. Walking and driving I will just take the fastest route and be done with it. Everyone has different preferences for bicycling for how much elevation climb they can handle, how much traffic they tolerate, etc.

Counterpoint: google has bike directions and exists in California.

Google has much more of a non-CA and non-US engineering presence than Apple.

Google Maps' icon is also a location pin, while Apple Maps' is a highway. Google also has 21% of its local staff bike to work [1]. Apple's campus is so far that you can't realistically live in SF proper, you mostly have to drive. These kind of different motivations and cultures bleed through to their products.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/this-heat-map-shows-a-fundam...

Bicycles are very popular in many places in California; UC Santa Barbara has an amazing bike culture.

Because unlike Google, Apple is a California and especially Cupertino centric company so most of their employees have probably never used mapping outside the confines of their car. Transit and walking directions are decent on Apple Maps but still leaps and bounds behind Google Maps. Just shows how forcing all your employees to live and work in the same place is incredibly limiting

That is not accurate at all. Biking is huge and many employees use public transit all across the Bay Area.

HERE WeGo (erstwhile Nokia Maps) does bicycle directions. Unbelievably brilliant in Europe with pretty much all cycle paths included.

Apple should just buy Wahoo.

Shout out to all of Justin O’Beirne' amazing analysis on all things maps. https://www.justinobeirne.com/ -he's even got an updated post related to this press release.

direct link: https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps-continental-uni...

It makes me sad that Apple followed Google with the idea of coloring maps green based on satellite photos of trees rather than actual parks. Why anyone in Silicon Valley thinks I give a shit where trees are is beyond me. I used to be able to pull up maps and instantly see any parks around me. Now they're practically invisible.

What? You aren't interested in forests unless they are in a park?

Why would I be? Where I live virtually everywhere is a forest, so the entire map is painted green. When I open a map I'm generally looking to go somewhere, so knowing that my neighbor Bob has a lot of trees in his yard isn't very helpful.

I just switched to an iPhone after being a long time Android user, and I've found Apple Maps directions not to be as good as Google Maps'. I live in central LA, and it regularly routes me through long and congested intersections.

Does anyone else feel this as well? Is it just my small sample size? I would like to continue using Apple Maps over Google Maps because of the integration with Apple Watch, but it's getting harder and harder each day to justify.

Traffic data is just not as good with Apple Maps. In some places they aggregate reports from traffic reporting agencies, but user-reporting is dependent on people using it and opting in to sharing data, but this is a challenge with a privacy-focused approach.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is piggybacking off of other apps' GPS location requests to aggregate traffic data in order to compete with how Google Maps uses its own algorithms for traffic.

As some one who exclusively uses Apple Maps on the west side of LA, I have found the routing to be similar or the same. The killer function for me is the HUD when I have it mounted on my dash. Light-years better. Also...the lane accuracy is unparalleled.

> The killer function for me is the HUD when I have it mounted on my dash.

What do you mean? That the phone's screen provides turn by turn instructions, while the car's screen provides more a trip/map perspective?

edit: i just realized that I can use the phone's screen for turn by turn, and have the car's screen display music, or whatever else!!!

> edit

That was just improved in iOS 13, shame it took so long.

Waze is by far the best routing. It's better than Tesla routing, which I thought used Google Maps, and it's better than Apple Maps. There's no point in experimenting with anything else because Waze is just so much better, it's effectively a waste of time to try anything else.

That's funny because I feel like I've read a few articles out there that did comparative testing of Google Maps vs. Apple Maps and, while Google's routing estimated a shorter ETA, the Apple Maps routing ended up being faster and more accurate to the estimate nearly every time. I don't really want to think I'm going to get somewhere fast. I actually want to get there faster and, more importantly, when the app tells me I'm going to get there.

From experience Waze will take you all over creation just to shave a minute. Sometimes it's just not worth it. But at least they present options.

Over the last few years I've found Apple Maps get better and better in the Bay Area. I now default to Apple Maps as its routing, particularly for peninsula to city driving, is always faster/more efficient than Google Maps.

As a non Bay Area resident I can't say that compels me to think the app is any better. Seems like a lot of apps I use these days only work in the Bay Area.

What I hate most about Apple Maps is that reports about incorrect data never seem to go anywhere. Apple Maps thinks that the road that leads to my house is a one-way street. It's not. But because of this error Apple Maps always wants to send me on a 5 minutes detour if I try to use it to navigate home.

I've reported the problem twice but never got an answer or a correction. In fact all problems I've ever reported in the Maps app were completely ignored.

This is why I don't use Apple Maps.

This is absolutely true, but it's not unique to Apple Maps. I've had an issue with the major road near my house in Google Maps for over three years, where it thinks a certain stretch is either absent or impassible. It shows it on the visual map, but it will go to astounding lengths to route you around that one-block stretch of (perfectly fine) road. I have reported it MANY times, and nothing has ever changed.

I report things on GMaps all the time and it usually updates the maps within minutes (I get an email)

I'm also a local guide though so that might have something to do with it

Same here, though it's usually a few hours, not minutes. I'm not in the US, tough, it may be that there are different review teams for different areas.

I have something like that too. There's a one block section that didn't have a road through it due to a water tower, but now (as in 10 years ago) does. Apple Maps routes me around it constantly. Despite error submissions _and_ the trip data that they must have, showing multitudes of vehicles apparently driving through a field to continue on the road... no change.

That's the nice thing with OpenStreetMap & mapping services using data from it.

You can just register to OSM and fix the data and that's it. The OSM interface will update almost instantly while services based on OSM data will get the fix once they do their next data update.

What’s to protect against false/bad/malicious data?

OSM edits have been an "optimistic lock" -- changes are deemed good until they are proven not good.. all changes in OSM have an author ID associated, so that they can search and "rollback" bad changes.. it has been that way since the beginning..

post-New York renamed and a few other embarrassments, there are new steps added for verification, by some workflows, but it is in transition AFAIK

Google and Apple should be able to infer the presence/status of roads based on telemetry from all the phones out there in the world. If a bunch of people regularly pass through a path at a car like speed, it’s likely a road.

That's odd, as every correction I've submitted has been applied.

On average, Google is significantly faster at processing them, though.

Contrast that with Google Maps. I've submitted multiple corrections over the years and 90% have been live in just a few hours.

Agreed - I'm curious how they are able to globally deploy so quickly where others (apple / tom tom) take FOREVER to update.

Do they just have someone ground truth with satellite and street view? They do have that data for most of the corrections I make (which are frankly rare).

Waze has volunteer local editors - I've hit "report map issue" and gotten messages from them with questions about what I was reporting. I wonder if Google leverages them internally.

Are temporary closures automated? I feel like in Waze I gave them enough information when reporting about things like construction or flooding that they could be integrated almost immediately--similar to road hazards or stopped vehicles.

Google maps doesn't even need you to report anything. I used to make a forbidden left turn every day on my way to work with Google maps running. After a while, it just updated the directions to include my bad driving: no report necessary.

How can you be sure that it was automatic? Maybe someone just reported that turn?

There was a large sign at that intersection that said no left turn, which I disregarded because it was 6am and there were no cars there at all. Of course it's still possible that someone reported it, but that seems fairly unlikely.

Are you sure that no one reported that change?

Are you sure this isn't selective bias? Google and Apple both probably prioritize corrections like this based on the number of people reporting them. If you've reported this twice and no one else has, they have little incentive to prioritize this request over reports from more busy roadways.

What I hate most about Apple Maps is that reports about incorrect data never seem to go anywhere.

I wonder if this is geographic-specific.

I regularly report errors in Nevada, California, Arizona, and most recently Colorado, and they've always been corrected within a few weeks. I get an alert on my devices when it happens.

Sometimes they revert and I report them again, but I don't recall ever having a map error report ignored.

The turnaround time is actually one of the biggest reasons Apple under took this initiative.

Previously, issues were reported to Apple, who then had to vend them back to their data sources (TomTom amongst others). It was up to the data sources to implement the changes.

Now, issues reported to Apple can be immediately acted upon, or compared to other data, or reviewed by employees, or even can be marked for validation during another "drive-by".

> "There’s also the matter of corrections, updates and changes entering a long loop of submission to validation to update when you’re dealing with external partners. The Maps team would have to be able to correct roads, pathways and other updating features in days or less, not months. Not to mention the potential competitive advantages it could gain from building and updating traffic data from hundreds of millions of iPhones, rather than relying on partner data." from [0]

[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-f...

So Apple actually own the Data in the new Map? Or by that I mean Apple it itself it also part of the Data Source?

Yes. Basically the map in the United States is all Apple's data now, except for certain things like POI photos and reviewers (Yelp).

Yes, they originated all of the "Look-Around" data (equivalent to Street View), all of the 3D data, and much, if not all, of the road data. I believe they purchase satellite data. They built up their own fleet of vans. Today marks the last section of the country to switch over to the new system.

I have been wondering if it makes sense for Apple to also own the Satellite data with their own Satellite. Given how cheap it is to launch Satellite with Space X now. There was a rumours Apple hiring Satellite expert not a long while ago.

"Satellite" view of online maps is a misnomer. The photos are taken by aeroplane, which is why unpopulated areas like the oceans have very little data. That's not to say that satellite imagery is not used, just not for close-up stuff.

So TomTom lost Apple as a customer?

> What I hate most about Apple Maps is that reports about incorrect data never seem to go anywhere.

Wow, I've had the opposite experience. I've only used it a handful of times, but when I've reported incorrect phone numbers and such, it's always been fixed in just a few days, and I receive a notification through the app that they've done it. I found the experience to be impressively fast and painless. Sorry to hear it's not that way for everyone!

Where are you located, and what version of the OS were you running when you reported these things? For reference, I live near Palo Alto, and it's possible they are more responsive to requests here. I have only reported issues recently, with iOS 12/13.

Other comments mentioned Apple had issues correcting streets/routes because they had to be corrected downstream (they licensed from places like TomTom). Part of the goal of this update is to bring it all in-house improving the turnaround time.

I wonder if your corrections, like phone numbers, we're on Apple's end and much easier to correct?

nit: upstream

Data flows downstream, from the maintainer or canonical source-of-truth to wherever it is used. It's changes in the opposite direction, upstream, that are expensive and slow.

> Where are you located, and what version of the OS were you running when you reported these things?

I live in Germany and I think I was running iOS 12 when I reported the issues.

Maybe Apple only looks at reports in the USA...

> In fact all problems I've ever reported in the Maps app were completely ignored.

I call this "minimalist customer service".

I submitted a map correction to Google maps a few years back. They had our satellite office listed a quarter mile from where it actually was. I gave them the correct place with screenshots, verification I worked for the company, and arrows pointing to the exact location along with their own street view of the actual building. It took well over a month for them to respond and they still got it wrong. Now it shows us at the building two doors down from us, but at least that's better than a quarter mile.

What we need is a map that's organized like Wikipedia—anyone can immediately contribute to it.

Like Open Street Maps?

For Apple Maps this is also country-dependent, since different countries/regions use different map data sources. The turnaround time for regions covered by Apple's own data would be fastest to change, I assume, followed by OpenStreetMap, with third-party vendor (e.g. TomTom) being the slowest. But I don't know how much OSM and TomTom are still used in Apple Maps.

About a year ago I noticed that for some reason Google Maps occasionally reported my house being 3 blocks from where it is. None of the other houses on my street had this issue. I filed a correction with Google expecting a long delay for it to be resolved. I received notification in 45 minutes to an hour that the issue had been resolved.

I have the same problem, except for me, when entering my address the resulting address the app chooses is over 30 minutes away (my neighborhood is about 18 months old).

I never use Apple maps, but I have found pretty much everyone else does. My address not being in there has become a huge hassle.

I also submitted a correction in the app to no avail. So I tweeted at AppleSupport and they assigned me a dedicated support person to handle my "case". It's been weeks now. The support person keeps calling me to tell me "no word yet from the engineering team".

Thankfully I'm moving soon, but this headache applies to all the new houses in this neighborhood.

Shameless plug, but we just shipped our huge Gaia Topo update too.

Gaia Topo focuses on the backcountry, and specifically downloading for offline use: https://blog.gaiagps.com/easy-to-read-tiny-to-download-the-a...

Happy user, reporting in. Nice work!

Absolutely love Gaia! Almost 10 years of my outdoor life are in that app!

With the current pricing and amount of users, is it a sustainable business?

Thanks, we'll be going strong for another 10 years :)

I think the business is very healthy. Headcount continues to grow, but not in a crazy way, and the great majority of the expenses are R&D. We're certainly default alive.

I've thought for a while that your Gaia Topo layer could be improved, especially because until now I don't think you had any hillshade at all for a topo map!

I spent some time checking out your map this morning, and it looks really nice at low zooms, but I'm still a little disappointed at high zooms. At zoom 13 the hillshading ends!

For example, at zoom 14, I still much prefer a map with a hillshade (my own work): https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?loc=14.0/-121.1500/48.1582&laye... https://nst.guide/#14/48.1582/-121.15

That's fair... we chose to drop the shading at that zoom, but we could be wrong. I think some people prefer a cleaner read when zoomed in so far (especially for field use), and shading also makes the tiles larger/slower to download.

Gaia GPS does have a separate raster hill-shading layer from ESRI you could layer on top, and we've been considering making our own (we already have an elevation data pipeline and create contour lines, so hill-shading isn't a huge step). Maybe that would have a special UX where you could choose to include it or not in your downloads.

I dig your map style!

That's true regarding file size. It is nice to have the option to overlay another hillshading layer.

I use Terrain RGB tiles that I [make myself](https://github.com/nst-guide/terrain#terrain-rgb), and having elevation data on the client opens up cool future possibilities like client-side viewshed analysis.

And thanks! The [style](https://github.com/nst-guide/osm-liberty-topo) and the rest of this project is open source. The style is a fork of osm-liberty, using the OpenMapTiles schema.

I just downloaded the app. Can I not use it at all without an account? If so, why?

You should be able to use without an account.

There is a Skip button in the top right corner of the opening screen, or the Register screen. Ping me at andrew@gaiagps.com if you can't find it.

Ah, yeah, my bad for not noticing the dark grey text on a black background.

Ah, I apologize... I think you were seeing a bug in our dark mode implementation, which was just released. We fixed it in the next update.

Interesting, I do a lot of backcountry with no cell and have mostly relied on old style maps turned to PDFs and downloaded or various OSM apps, this looks up my alley. One question though I often have for membership programs: how does it apply to families? I very much value all 4 of us in my household having the ability to share key apps and data, particularly for something that has safety applications. I see you have a Teams program but that looks commercially oriented. Apple has "Family Sharing" but for paid apps. How does that scenario work with Gaia Topo? If I grabbed a 5 year premium sub, would the kids be able to run off that too (at least while they're living at home) or does each individual need a separate membership?

Not trying to single you out or anything, I think a lot of the current app sales models and sub models are fairly individual focused at the present stage of things. More explicitly addressing couples/families (including what happens as they grow up/split) might be worth considering though, I think a lot of people will spend significantly more if it benefits links with household members.

You can share a Membership as long as you don't mind sharing the username/password combo. You'll all end up recording your data to the same account, if you record tracks, photos, etc.

Your family might not need a Membership at all though - that's only if you need to download maps for offline use, or if you want to use different map sources... Gaia Topo and all the features besides mass-downloading are free.

>that's only if you need to download maps for offline use

Well yeah that's pretty critical (particularly as a differentiator vs Apple Maps). I'm in northern New England, huge portions of north NY and VT/NH/ME have no cell coverage at all. Let alone Canada. Online maps are nearly useless not just for hiking and general backcountry work but even regular driving to job sites. My own town has no cell at all downtown, not just "no LTE", no cell coverage period. If you've ever looked at coverage maps the phone companies put out showing huge areas all nicely lit, know that they are flagrant lies that are finally even getting government attention. If you're interested, first search result article that came up is one from last year on VT going ahead and actually spending 6 weeks driving around the whole state testing themselves:

https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont...

A touch different then what the cell companies claimed :).

Thank you very much for the reply though! It's good to know that, with the caveat of no individual profiles, an account could be shared around a bit without getting auto banned; I know some services do track that. FWIW, might be worth considering as a some-day feature to have a cut-down version of your Teams offering or a bundle as an official Family Plan, for a bit more money than standard with "up to 6" (or 5 or whatever) profiles. At any rate though, good to have more options to consider in mapping.

I just found Gaia (and became a Premium member) not too long ago as I was preparing for a kayaing trip. I love Gaia! Thanks for the great work.

Edit: Although can you tell me whether there's a way, on iOS, to have the map not switch to dark mode when my device is in dark mode?

I enjoy how they keep saying private as a f you to Google Maps. I’ll give Maps a try again, the privacy is a good enticement for me.

Google maps near me is riddled with advertisements now. Promoted pins or whatever they call it. Of course, it’s for stores that I won’t ever have a need to visit.

There's also a whole tab of the navigate view that's just an advert for Uber, which I don't really appreciate.

On my device I see a tab for ride hailing services, which is showing me choices for Uber and Lyft. I like it a lot, since I'm often choosing between walking, public transit, and Uber/Lyft. It makes it really easy to compare options.

(Disclosure: I work for Google)

Sounds like an opportunity for unsolicited feedback!

I second parent commentator.

As another piece of anecdata, I actually _do_ appreciate this tab. In the states it brings up Uber and Lyft for me, and traveling through JP I would also get Didi. Was nice to see what the price difference would be compared to public transit options.

The final straw that got me to ditch android was Google sending me push notifications asking me to review places I've been to, via maps.

If you want reviews, pay secret shoppers. And if you want me to use your app, don't make it painfully obvious you're spying on exactly where I go and when to do what.

I think it was more a way to crowdsource reviews and recommendation engine. It's certainly worth questioning the use of "unpaid labor" to improve a service, but I don't know if I'd call it "spying".

Use of the service essentially boils down to "I tell it where I am/where I want to go. It tells me how best to get there/how to find the thing I want to find."

I'm not sure how you would do that if you didn't share your location and destination/search terms with it.

But yeah, I disabled that thing too. Not because I considered a request for reviews a terrible overreach, but because it wasn't just in the Maps app, but rather a notification. I disable notifications on most non-messaging apps because they're annoying and naggy.

The issue for me is that it would ask me to review places I didn't ask for directions to. It would notice I had gone through a drive through and ask me to review the restaurant. It would ask me to review a furniture store I walked past on my way to work.

I don't want an app passively collecting data on me while I'm not using it.

I felt it was significantly more creepy when I received "How is <tourist attraction>?" messages at home. I can see the building from my window, but I didn't like being told.

I've had the location history disabled since it was possible to disable it, but I've since disabled all the notifications.

My favorite feature of Google maps is asking how i rate the directions before I get there. You know, right at the last mile while you're still trying to get where you're going.

My favourite is sending me through a $6 toll to save 2 minutes.

Sorry we're not all on valley pay rates here Google ;)

If you share more personal data then they can make it more personalized. /s

Its BS too.

Source: I'm an ex Maps employee.

What's BS? More details please?

I had google assistant turned off but every now and then when using maps my phone would say out loud something like "Sorry I don't know how to help with <thing_we_just_said>".

I couldn't find an easy way to turn it off in the app. All directions online lead to options that were already off. So like other users I had to restrict microphone access to google services entirely.

I have no idea if it's still listening.

Ahhhh so sick of companies featuring San Fran. The whole point is that it has better coverage Nation-wide. Pick literally anywhere else in the country!

They did. The example map is from Abilene, TX.

I count 6 images in the link. 3 are SF, one is SJC, one is New York, and one is (presumably) Abilene.

Doesn't that make comparisons harder? Granted companies may game SF results, but looking at on companies downtown Houston map and anothers Sioux Falls isn't so helpful.

This morning I noticed stop signs and traffic lights indicated on the map in CarPlay. Hadn’t seen that until today (to be fair I’m not in a major city by any stretch).

Same here. I'm in a major city and they just showed up this morning.

At this point, I absolutely hate when people use Apple Maps to find our community college. Apple just plain refuses to acknowledge the town we are located in exists. It also ignores all businesses on the reservation and points to the local Coca-Cola bottling location as the closest grocery store. I've filed bugs going back years and no changes.

Privacy and UI cannot overcome really poor data.

Is this still true after the update?

Yep

Why would you expect a UI update to change the underlying server data?

It's not just a UI update, they went through and captured all the data themselves as well so they won't have to supplement with TomTom anymore.

It's not just a UI update, it's brand new maps with completely revamped datasets.

"More precise addresses" sounds deeper than a UI update.

Because the website says that the map data has been updated as well.

Why do you think it was just a UI update? The headline from the article:

> New Apple Maps Designed with Better Road Coverage and Pedestrian Data, More Precise Addresses, and Detailed Land Cover

As well as many of the features highlighted by the article seems to allude to new data.

- Look Around

- Real-time transit information

- Flight status

- Indoor Maps

- Flyover (3D city scapes)

At the very least it sounds like they have added a whole bunch of data sources. They also claim that they have better road and pedestrian coverage...but offer no specifics. So whether these changes produce net "better" data foundation is unclear, but it sounds to me like more than just a visual update.

Why would you expect only a UI update to be relevant?

Have you tried emailing tcook at apple’s domain to get executive escalation team support? Not that that should be necessary of course, just exhausting all options for remediation.

No, I haven't. I'm saving my one shot at that if the we cannot get Swift Curriculum offered. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/08/leading-us-community-...

I fail to see the connection, but every single Apple Maps correction I've submitted has been applied.

I reported it on the Apple Maps site and filed a bug as a developer. I don't want to send stuff to the Apple executives when I might really need to get noticed for something that will really help the student's future.

Thanks, that makes more sense. Still, I would be surprised if any continuity between the two requests became a factor.

Even if it did, it would show you as someone looking out for students at a community college, something which would likely elevate the importance of the request. A bunch of potentially snarky students mocking Apple Maps/Apple Inc. on social media seems like a force multiplier that would work in your favor.

I still email Steve...

Let us know if you ever get a response

There are so many issues like this. People complain about TomTom maps never being updated in navigation systems because it's licensed, Apple Maps being crappy (or in this case, wrong), even Google Maps is often slow in updating (e.g. the tunnel in Maastricht took some time after it opened, which was known and announced years ahead) and very incomplete in terms of footpaths and trails.

The USA is probably the worst example, but globally, in the majority of places (geographically), OpenStreetMap does better at all of this: it's more complete and more up to date.

Pick a random point on earth on land, compare TomTom, Bing, Google, and OSM. Repeat 50 times. I did this and OSM was a very clear winner (it's still on my todo list to make a blog post with visuals, which is quite a bit more work than just doing it for myself).

Wow, OpenStreetMaps is worse which makes a bit of sense. Is there a good (step-by-step) tutorial on submitting data to OSM. I get the feeling if I can get the land grants people to submit their data it might make things a bit better.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guide

It's pretty easy, you just make an account, pick an editor and start making outlines and tagging stuff

For a well-defined project like this, I recommend getting in touch with people in the OSM US Slack workspace [0] for advice on possible data sources, mapping techniques, prior/duplicate efforts, etc.

[0]: https://osmus-slack.herokuapp.com/

Everyone is welcome to edit OSM!

Be careful about bulk uploading a pile of data you get. The licence has to be OK, and merging it into the existing OSM data can be pretty complicated. Imports are not suitable for beginners.

Wow, what city is this?

> I've filed bugs

Was that using Radar? Did you try using the "Report an Issue" UI within the Maps app itself?

Wow, what city is this?

Not a city. He notes this is on a reservation.

Was that using Radar? Did you try using the "Report an Issue" UI within the Maps app itself?

I've given up filing map bug reports for reservations. There's simply too many. It would be a full-time job for ten people to list all of the missing/wrong places in both Apple and Google maps. There are vast areas of the United States where paper maps are still far better. Indian reservations are among those.

Part of it is the fault of history. Many places on reservations don't have street addresses, or sometimes even streets. But that doesn't mean they aren't places of commerce, community, or otherwise vital to the lives of thousands of people.

Other times, though, there are towns and businesses on main or even state highways that don't exist on Google or Apple Maps at all.

I think a big part of the problem is that Google and Apple rely too heavily on social media and review sites for their geographic information. Those don't help when you're mapping an area with limited internet connectivity and zero cell service.

I'd quit my job to work for Apple mapping the chapter houses, trading posts, and other places on America's reservations. One person could only make a small dent, but every drop helps.

Not a city. He notes this is on a reservation.

I guess city is a bit grand, but there are towns with actual zip codes on reservations.

The whole 911 thing started forcing road names and addresses. The bigger problem is that what we have for an address (as told to us by one of the utility companies) is different than whatever source Apple is using. Strangely, Google figured out quite a bit more of it.

And that’s why the “Hoover up all the data” approach will win. Google can snoop on everyone’s emails and locations and transaction receipts and find the location and names of businesses automatically, and even their opening hours.

Google has these sorts of problems too. It fails at correctly parsing examples straight out of the Canada Post Addressing Guidelines. [1]

Put in "10-123 Main St, Montreal QC H3Z 2Y7" into Google Maps and it will take you to "10 Main St, Montreal QC H3Z 5X3" Or, rather, it would if that was a real address. The correct building would be to "123 Main St, Montreal QC H3Z 2Y7".

[1]: https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGaddress-e.asp?ec...

Yeah, I copy pasted a postal address into Waze a few months ago. Little did I know! Waze sent me to the wrong spot and ignored the Canadian convention. Thought this was an odd mistake but now that you say it, i'll avoid it entirely.

This reminds me of the individual who was doing an in-depth comparison of the history of Google Maps, Apple Maps, and how far ahead Google Maps was. They dove into comparisons for walking paths, "activity hot spots", green spaces, 3D mapping of buildings, etc. Does anyone remember the post and maybe has a link?

This is what you were thinking of:

https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat

Yes, this was the one! Would be interesting to see an update here as it looks like this was from 2017

He did another write up when the data updates started: https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps

Justin O’Beirne. https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-comparison

Not sure Maps needs a redesign. It certainly needs better search. I just opened up maps, searched the name of my company, and it gave me the London Office. I'm sitting in our office in Kansas City.

Did you read the article? It's mostly about the new features and data they've added, and less about a reskin.

I wish they’d fix the issue where if I click on reviews it prompts me to install the yelp app. I don’t want that nonsense.

This is the biggest reason I can't completely switch... lack of bicycle directions is the other.

Yelp is cancer and I hate that Apple supports them in this way.

The only thing I detest about Apple Maps is that during navigation they got rid of the North up view. I feel that anything but north up is complete gibberish. I literally can’t recognize my own neighborhood if the map is originated beyond 10 or so degrees off north.

I don’t believe anyone ever holds up an actual paper map and ever rotates it to any orientation other than north up. So why are digital maps so obsessed with non-north up.

Because when you're navigating, you generally want to orient to whats in front of you.

I definitely agree with you if you are just "studying" a map... But nobody wants to perform a mental re-orientation while driving.

I’m looking forward to using the similarly updated maps of Europe, somewhere between our first contact with aliens and the heat death of the universe.

From the PR: "Apple completed the rollout of this new Maps experience in the United States and will begin rolling it out across Europe in the coming months."

I really hope this new Maps updates with new addresses better. The place I am living in now is about 18 months old. Google added the address in about 8 months ago, Apple still has not. People who use Apple maps and put in my address end up with an address clear on the other side of town. Pretty much everyone just trusts map apps, so this has been pretty annoying. I now have to give out my address and warn people to not use Apple Maps. Many still do despite my warning :-/

I submitted a correction inside the app a couple times over the course of several months to no avail. So I tweeted at AppleSupport. They assigned a support representative to my case and he's been calling me about once a week for weeks now. It's almost comical at this point.

So here's hoping this new map app avoids this kind of headache.

In this case I would send the actual GPS coordinates of my home.

Something I still miss in Apple Maps is any way to plot out and measure distances. I like to take walks to keep my step count up on my fitness tracker and I use Google Maps to plan a route using their distance measuring feature. Would love to do that on my iPad but alas, no such luck.

i have been using Apple Maps exclusively for the past year (in Los Angeles and Denver/Boulder areas) with no issue/problems. Google Maps is cluttered with an ugly phantasmagoria of adverts and after a while of not needing to use it, i just deleted it from all my devices. The only feature i find myself wanting that Google Maps has that Apple Maps lacks is an "offline maps" feature.

I want to use Apple Maps more, but they still dont offer cycling directions. I used to use Apple Maps exclusively until I needed cycling directions because of the better lock screen integration and otherwise acceptable results, but I am still waiting...

Google Maps appears to do a better job of mixed mode (for instance, I have to drive about 15 minutes to get to the Park and Ride to hop on the Houston Metro; Apple Maps says no route available, whereas Google calculates that first leg)

As small as it sounds, the collections feature is a big deal for me. Particularly in my line of work marketing food and drinks.

Unfortunately sharing your collection with someone is a point in time. If you update your list, the link doesn't update to reflect that, nor does it update their collection if they've imported yours.

What I would LOVE to see is Apple Maps developing it's own little social circle of recommendations with your contacts and or other Apple Maps users, instead of shitty Yelp integration. Sharing collections, keeps a pointer to your collection as manage it. I suspect this is where it's going to go(hopefully).

I agree.

The only reason I'm still using Google Maps on my iPhone is because of Apple Map's Yelp integration.

I boycott Yelp because of how they've treated businesses.

The Yelp integration is so terrible because Yelp forces you to download the app to see any information.

My flow is: Find place via Apple Maps, click the reviews, get sent to Yelp's mobile website that says "We don't do mobile websites, download the app", then I say screw it and open up Google Maps.

Reading so many positive things about Apple Maps here for sure looks like astroturfing since I've had some really frustrating experiences with Apple Maps in the past.

My experiences line up with yours. It was terrible then, it's not any better now.

I jumped on this post, thinking "awesome! they've definitely added bike routing! Now i can finally switch from Google Maps.". Unfortunately – still no dice.

This is the one feature Apple Maps lacks which I miss most. Generally not a problem where I live, but occasionally I'd like a little help finding my way on the bike.

Is there an Apple Maps for the web browser?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=maps&t=h_&ia=maps&iaxm=maps

DDG has been using Apple Maps via browser for the last year or two IIRC.

You can use them from browser if you use duckduckgo as your search engine. There is still not an option to navigate there (if you are, for example, planning your trips in advance). Very basic, unfortunately.

it seems that OSM is a data pivot point -- Apple and Google are directly competing with OSM (super-walled-garden-data) while Facebook, Microsoft and who-knows-who-defense are augmenting OSM as fast as possible

I'm OK with this. I think the three-way competition is improving all of the products better than a two-way (Apple v. Google) competition would.

> Apple and Google are directly competing with OSM

Apple Maps _is_ OpenStreetMap in many countries. In Denmark it's used for turn-by-turn navigation even.

(Source: Talk by Apple employee at the OSM'a 'State of the Map' conference 2018 https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Co... )

this is interesting of course - but, the topic post here is "Brand New Maps, North America Only" ?

They're taking their sweet time with the implementation of their "Look Around" feature.

I passed an Apple Maps camera car in rural Idaho on a state highway in the summer of 2018. If they were already in that much of an "out of the way" place back then, it's surprising to see that they're just getting around to adding major cities now.

Apple maps has steadily improved over the years. About a year ago, I started to use it for cycling Instead of google maps because it has good Apple Watch integration (google maps had this but dropped it at some point). I noticed transit directions were good enough around the same time.

But 2 things kept me from using it for most use cases: - lack of direction arrow, which I could only sometimes figure out how to enable. - lack of organization for saved places.

Those are fixed now and I use google maps only when needed for street view. Apple’s version of this is much better and once it’s rolled out more widely I can delete google maps.

No one has mentioned this yet - Apple Maps provides a very accurate representation of traffic:

RED - Actually red (unlike Google Maps)... its bumper to bumper or less than 5 mph (8 kph)

ORANGE - Slow moving, perhaps less than (25 mph or 40 kph)

Google just shows everything RED. Yellow doesn't necessarily mean slow down in Google Maps. Its a mess.

Also, Apple maps is tremendously accurate in estimating how long it is going to take.

Major feature missing in Apple maps: Time it takes at a user specified hour. I use this to hunt for apartments, and test out how long it is going to take to and from work everyday. Google has this built in for a while "Leave at ____ time).

I would love for Apple maps to be good. But it’s not. In the UK it is terrible. Unusable. I’ve tried. I’ve tried hard. But it is useless. It doesn’t know where things are. And that is a map’s core competency.

My experience too. It's too annoying to use. And I know that's I highly personal opinion that I can rationalize, but I am not ready to subject to some analysis. It's taste.

And the last couple iOS updates have been really disappointing, functionality has not improved and useless flourishes have been added. I feel its passed the Microsoft Excel 2003 tipping point. (IMO MS Excel 2003 was peak MS Excel. It was brilliant, robust, intuitive and made it possible to do amazing work, in so far as a spreadsheet can. For the past 15 years all of the work on Excel has made it less functional, less robust and far less intuitive, but I guess a software product has gotta have new releases).

The only thing I use Google Maps for at this point is checking peak times (for the gym) and, rarely, if I have to give someone else public transit route information

Transit app absolutely smokes Google Maps for transit directions in every city I've tried it in, if you're looking to reduce your Google footprint further. Depending on the city it also integrates with micomobility and car sharing and offers intermodal directions based on preferences.

https://transitapp.com/region/sf-bay-area#all-regions

I live in Canada and an Apple Street Maps car passed me sometime in spring/summer of 2019. I suspect Canada will get a similar update in 2020 or early 2021.

I know it’s unrelated but I can’t understand why Apple removed directions in my country (I’m sorry not only mine but many countries)

I didn’t have real navigation but just directions (and the blue line in the map) and that was enough to not use google maps But after the release of iOS 13 it’s not possible anymore « directions not available from this location » And because of that i have to install google maps on my iPad ...

Which country are you in? I’m in New Zealand and it’s working fine for me here.

Tunisia but as you can see the list of supported countries is short for directions (compared to standard ) https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/#maps-directi...

Really have to give kudos to Google for basically inventing this design language, because this Maps update really looks like a "catch-up" to much of the design language Google Maps has been using for a long time now. Honestly, looking at these images, Apple Maps looks like a desaturated/less colorful Google Maps (and that's not necessarily a good thing either).

Mapping is hard, really hard. Now I'm finding it first hand. So kudos to the team for persisting with it and delivering a better result.

Still seems like there needs to be more context in rural USA areas where at not too low of zoom levels it is only showing state highways which makes it difficult to determine how to get to certain areas. When you zoom in enough for the other "major" roads to show up you lose all context because you are zoomed in too far now.

The street view on Apple Maps (or whatever they call it) is shockingly good in NYC. All of their imagery is super duper recent and in very crisp detail too. They also managed to make it have a genuine 3D effect (by shifting the view slightly without "moving positions", you can see slightly more detail around corners and such).

There is no perfect map application in the world because of realistic data changes rapidly, especially the Indoor Map and Real-time transit. It's still a problem today. More 3D and redesign maybe improve user experience in the Apple Maps(they always good at it), but the accuracy and reliability are more important points.

It doesn't look like they added a way to set a route with several stops before starting navigation. Any word there?

Apple Maps is still totally useless in Mexico. Even the most die hard Apple fans still rely on Google Maps or Waze.

There's no way for them to beat a decade+ of effort (and billions of dollars) that Google has put into their maps unless they are prepared to really invest. And they are stingy AF when it comes to multibillion-dollar investments that aren't hardware. This is the reason why they suck at AI as well.

Open source alternative : https://benmaps.fr

Their international maps still don't look that great unfortunately. And there is still no ability to download offline maps like Google Maps, which is essential for avoiding international roaming fees. C'mon Apple, you make a billion dollars a day. Put a little more juice into this team.

I was blown away this morning when I fired up maps. I use maps for traffic data for my commute. The UI improvements are great and I love that there's geometry now for just about everything. Looking forward to discovering new features as I use it more.

I'm excited about the Share ETA feature. Every night after work, I get in the car, open Google maps, get the ETA and text my wife my expected arrival time. If this works out well it will be one less thing I have to remember to do.

You can also use Shortcuts to automate that process quite well, been using it already. There's a few examples here: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/

I decided to give Apple Maps a shot for my drive home today. At first I thought it discovered a clever new shortcut for my drive, but I quickly realized it was going to have me drive on a bike path. And I live in a major US city. Sigh.

I tried to access Apple Maps using Firefox on my Linux computer at https://maps.apple.com, but no luck at first glance... do I need to install an app?

the only thing stopping me from uninstalling google maps is setting the map view to north-up during turn by turn navigation. I can't handle the map turning while I am for some reason.

Another flower in the garden. It would be nice if Apple branched outside their own devices. I'll never use this simply because its not available on the phone I love, my OnePlus.

Were stoplights and stop signs at intersections supposed to be part of the redesign?

I still don’t see those except in certain areas of the country (some parts of NYC/NJ, for example)

I see them while navigating. I tried navigating to some rural US locations and I see them all the way through the route.

Hmm, as of now I see them when navigating too, even when in CarPlay. Thanks!

Given their integration with DDG, I wonder if Apple would consider purchasing DDG to have the best privacy mindset on the web.

Then... maybe purchasing Mozilla for networking suite?

DDG and Mozilla would loose a lot of users (and therefore value) if bought by apple. There is only a partial overlap in 'cultures', and they're both products where culture is very important.

I wonder when it's coming to Canada. Google maps (and openstreet maps) are much better than apple maps in terms of buildings, at least on the east coast.

I've used Apple Maps pretty much exclusively for the last couple of years. It's worked fine for me.

However, I am in a very populated area (Long Island, NY), so YMMV.

Decent cosmetic upgrade. I just opened it to check out my home though and the road names are shifted halfway across the screen. Some are duplicated: both a name on the street, and then the name again out in the middle of nowhere. Guess there are a few glitches but those should be quick to clear up.

Along with cycling directions like others are asking for, I would love for them to add multi-destination navigation. It was really nice being able to make a detour to an ad-hoc location while navigating in GMaps, or plan a route with multiple stops ahead of time.

You can do so with Apple Maps. I do it regularly, but unfortunately you can only add it as an intermediate destination when en route to a destination. You can't pre-plan a multi-point trip which I feel like is a big oversight. I've wanted to estimate multi-day road trips and it doesn't seem possible with Apple Maps.

Wow, I didn't know this was possible. To anyone else who doesn't know this, while you're navigating, tapping or dragging up on the toolbar on the bottom of the screen causes it to expand and show a few options you can tap to add to your route. Unfortunately it's just a few preselected destination types, instead of a new search.

Hm, it seems different and more limited than the CarPlay UI. Yeah they really need to expand this feature. I thought you could have arbitrary search, but maybe that's on via CarPlay when stationary. Certainly there were more categories of things on CarPlay.

Am I the only person that finds the "after" image in that article too visually busy and the labels harder to read?

This is only for apple users/devices correct? The title makes it seem I can use it from my web browser or android device?

DuckDuckGo seems to use Apple Maps for its mapping: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo.com&atb=v194-1&ia=web&i...

... but I honestly can't tell if this has the new stuff or not.

In this thread: everyone talking about the quality of the previous Apple Maps rather than the update...

So only 194 countries left. Go Apple! Also, we really love being considered second priority to the US!

Someone has to be first, why not their biggest customer? How would you sort the priority list?

I'd maybe prioritize the UK over Alabama or Florida.

Apple Maps got me lost 3 times in a row, put me at least 1 mile out of the way. Never used it again.

Apple Maps got me lost 3 times in a row, put me at least 1 mile out of the way

Unless you were on foot... that doesn't sound that bad.

Never used it again.

So you have no idea if it's improved since then.

Wait does Apple maps not having cycling directions??? Only just realised that.

I can't believe on this page "Users" exists. What happened to Apple's brand language? "Now you can" would make more sense to the reader.

This is a press release in their "Newsroom" section. They don't say "you" because they are describing what users can do, not what reporters covering this can do

is it at all usable in Dark mode? that's what I really want to know...

People don't use Waze anymore? I find Waze to be more accurate in terms of time on longer drives.

I've honestly never heard of Waze.

EDIT: Holy downvotes, I didn't mean it as anything negative, I actually had to Google it. You can't hear about everything :3

This is a good piece of feedback for anyone at Waze, especially if you were willing to share more about your market details like where you live or any social networks you use, they could evaluate their advertising strategies.

It was an honest response to a valid question. I was quite surprised to see it, but after reflecting, things change in the software world so quickly (and new people are born all the time) that it's inevitable that today's staples will be forgotten tomorrow. Also, congrats, you're one of today's lucky 10,000! [0]

Downvotes weren't warranted IMO, but be careful complaining about downvotes on HN, it's against their usage guidelines [1]:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

[0]: https://xkcd.com/1053/

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The only time I'll ever ask about downvotes is a genuine curiosity as to why people disagree with a point, so I can learn more. :)

While the Waze app is still separate from Google Maps, I am sure Google is using a ton of the previously Waze specific (mostly user sourced) data in Google Maps since they acquired it in 2013.

https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/11/its-official-google-buys-w...

I occasionally see speed trap alerts in Google Maps, which I figure are sourced from waze user reports.

Waze would always route me through a spiderweb of neighborhood streets to save me a couple minutes of commute time back when I used to use it, but the main reason I switched is that I prefer the design of Apple Maps, and it works "good enough". Google Maps and Waze don't really feel like they fit into the iOS design guidelines, and the overhead of loading all that sponsored content within them just makes them feel sluggish while Apple Maps is always buttery smooth and keeps most of its interface out of your way when you're not using it.

UI-wise, I like the Apple Maps lane indicator and next turn display much, much better than the Google Maps equivalent.

Didn't they get bought by google?

I've used Apple Maps on multiple 2-5 hour drives recently, and the time estimates were pretty nearly bang-on in almost all the cases.

(The one exception was the time there were multiple significant tailbacks on the highway, with the amount of delay they were causing clearly shifting and changing minute-to-minute just from what we could see ourselves.)

I suppose it is a sign of a mature app that Apple Maps is now in it's "Google Maps" phase where the only "improvements" are frequent, unprompted redesigns that cut functionality to the bone and change old interaction patterns for little discernible reason.

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