Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway201103 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway201103

Apple Maps navigation used to do things like take me to vacant lots in major midwestern cities instead of the correct property which was several blocks away. Sounds like it works reliably well outside of California now?

View on HN

I'd say it's very reliable. I'll still cross reference Waze and Google Maps, if I absolutely need to arrive at somewhere on time, but over the past year or so there's only been a very small number of instances where I thought that Apple's navigation directions were inferior to the competition (and even then, we're talking a few minutes)

It's not reliable if you're cross referencing constantly.

I live outside of the USA, and Apple maps consistently screwed up to the point that I've deleted it.

>It's not reliable if you're cross referencing constantly.

Eh, I cross reference Google Maps with Waze all the time back when I used it, but I wouldn't dare call Google Maps unreliable. It costs nothing to do, so why wouldn't it?

It costs time?

Not the person to whom you were responding, but does it really cost that much time? If I need to be sure of where something is, like for a job interview or a time-critical meeting, I'll check as many sources as I can.

Disclaimer: I'm from New Zealand. Map data is constantly out of date here, no matter which vendor you deal with. Google, Apple, Bing, OSM, whatever. For me, double checking is no problem.

I've been to NZ in the last 10 years(2015), and used Here maps (because I was able to download the entire country map and use them all offline) and had no problem there. I was in the south part of the South Island, from Dunedin in through Roxborough and Alexandra, so not the case of just sticking to Auckland or anything.

> I cross reference Google Maps with Waze all the time back when I used it, but I wouldn't dare call Google Maps unreliable

Unless "back when I used it" refers to pre-2013, I'm not sure I'd describe that as cross-referencing.

Also living outside the USA, and Apple maps is more accurate in some places than Google maps (the Netherlands). For instance a very big business lot was completely grey on Google maps, but completely mapped out on Apple maps. I don't even have Google maps downloaded on my new iPhone.

So, one anecdote for, one against, it evens out for now.

Last straw for me was when it led me down a very bizarre route through parts of a city that were extremely busy and then over a toll bridge when I could have taken a much shorter, more direct route, and avoided the toll all together. I wouldn't delete an app over business info, I would when it does that.

Didn't Waze get bought out by Google years ago?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com