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Comment by komuher | Hacker News Reader

Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe especially for medium sized cities (in big cities apple works fine but still a lot worse then google).

For me it seems like fair exchange to give some data, for free and very good service that have no real competition :)

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OpenStreetMap >>>>>>>>> Google maps pretty much everywhere in EU (and RoW). I had better data in Harz, Bohemian Switzerland, Girona, Laos, Indian jungles etc which was way better than what Google provides.

I would rather give my data to the qualitatively better option OSM than a controversial foreign firm that has questionable stance on user privacy.

Really? In my experience (Europe, mostly France/Italy), OpenStreetMap has a lot more details than Google on “long-term features”: roads, (hiking) paths, public toilets and fountains, etc; while Google is a lot better for POIs and restaurants/bars/museums/etc. On a given street, OSM will have the exact position of every tree but not so much about restaurants, while with GM you get their opening hours, ratings, menus, etc. Also, GM has public transports in a lot of cities.

In brand new neighbourhoods, I've also found OSM much better than Google Maps. E.g., lots of new developments in Cambridge were extremely well annotated whereas Google Maps didn't even have streetnames. This is super helpful when you are shopping for a new property.

It's a rare opportunity when I get to map actual new roads. Usually it's filling in details like a trash bin here, a hedge there... roads are a much more important core feature. If you ever spot an unmapped neighborhood, just let me know! ;)

I spot them pretty often in the suburbs and exurbs of American cities. Those areas tend not to have as many active mappers as urban areas, so new subdivisions sometimes go a while before anyone maps them. Even then the first-cut mapping is usually someone not actually there just tracing from the Bing imagery.

When I moved into a new neighbourhood, the street name was on neither map. I've updated both. OSM update was fast. Google took several months to update, even though I had provided official documents as requested. The frustrating thing was that most delivery companies had issues during this time. Also, some online shops didn't consider my address valid.

Yes, I've been in the same situation multiple times! UK postcodes are really fine grained. It's great for tracking buildings, but it's a nightmare when companies do not update their databases.

For those who've not been to the UK before, in urban areas a postcode and a house number are enough to identify a property.

Cambridge is a special case - as I understand, it's the UK's hub for hobbyist mappers, ~all of which use OpenStreetMap as a base.

But google maps will get the opening hours bad more often than not due to COVID changes. And frankly, I am fed up with google - I used to help correcting said hours in the earlier contributor model, but will no longer do so since there is no reason to feed data into that monstrosity that doesn’t give back anything in return to society.

Dunno about google maps in Germany (cause of German laws) but in Italy, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Austria (all places that i visited in europe and use google maps) i found google maps to be excellent but i didnt use OSM for like last 3 years so cant speak about that :) * And still OSM was a lot better then Apple maps few years ago.

In .cz there's mapy.cz, BTW.

Mapy.cz works globally. It's excellent. Don't have to share anything.

Unfortunately the best feature isn’t global: https://en.mapy.cz/ceskoza100?x=16.7243354&y=49.3595814&z=8

Nicely done. Are there other overlays like this?

Yes, for example https://mapy.cz/cesko or https://mapy.cz/textova

Much appreciated!

Ha in the "textova" map there's a LOT of inside jokes and wordplay, here's what some of the actual placenames are, and some of the meanings in case you don't know the language:

- Stovězov (no idea) = Prague. Update: Ahhh could be "city of a hundred spires"

- Bryncl = Brno (in local hantec dialect)

- Malá videň ("Little Vienna") = Šumperk

- Jo, budě vice! (sort of "Yeh, there'll be more!") - České Budějovice which you might know better as Budweis as in "Budweiser". I feel like there's more to this one I'm mising

- Piveň (mixture of "Pivo"=beer and "Plzeň") = Plzeň, you might know as Pilsen as in Pilsner

- Baťovo Hlavní Město ("Baťa's capital city") = Zlín, original home of the Baťa shoe company

- Koněpůlky (I think horse's ass-cheeks but I've no idea why?) - Pardubice

- Camping - Tábor, which is the Czech word for a camp

You can probably figure out what "voda", "les", "dalnice", "silnice", and "hranice" mean from where they appear all over the map :-)

Map data yes, traffic data no. And the latter is quite important for driving.

If we're talking about European cities, traffic data is pretty much secondary due to the ubiquity of public transport.

Google Maps has unmatched traffic data accuracy, especially here in India where it has literally hundreds of millions of Android devices moving on roads.

OSM doesn't seem to have public transportation data which makes it useless unless you exclusively use a car.

That'a not true. It may be missing in your area, but it is a core feature of OSM.

May I ask what RoW stands for? Google isn’t being helpful since it’s just the word “row”.

I think they mean "Rest of (the) World"

Republic of Wales

They’re not really comparable. OSM on its own is basically a database, and an ecosystem with some apps of varying quality built on top.

Google Maps is a standalone end-to-end application with best-in-class POI search, POI metadata, reviews, routing based on live traffic, ETA based on live traffic, etc.

> OSM on its own is basically a database, and an ecosystem with some apps of varying quality built on top.

MapOut is very good, paid but worth it. I tried many others before.

I'd like to use OSM for everything, and while their road mapping is second to none, their POI mapping is lacking and there are no good navigation apps that use OSM data. The best one I've used is Magic Earth but there are some strange design quirks, such as no auto-zoom on the map when navigating by car.

There also comes the issue that OSM in general is not optimized for navigation. Interstate ramps and exits, for instance, are named improperly or not named at all.

Yeah, the data on Apple Maps is just not good enough here. The opening hours are frequently just wrong and can’t be trusted.

Part of the reason for that is they use Yelp as a data source which is pretty much non-existent here. If I look at a popular local restaurant on Apple Maps (one which has thousands of reviews on both Google and TripAdvisor) then the opening hours are just wrong and seemingly pulled from Yelp where the restaurant is unclaimed and has just 9 reviews, all in English rather than the native language.

That's what many don't realize. Apple shows really fantastic and detailed 3D handcrafted maps each year at WWDC, then when you dig deeper, you find out that it's only for like 3 American cities and it's coming in a year... Basically useless for 99% of people.

While Maps also has some discrepancies between cities and also different countries, in general it's a lot more consistent and features roll out more widely.

You make it sound like Apple's efforts stop after announcing at WWDC. They do seem to be following through. The "new maps" were announced in 2018. They finished the continental US in January 2020 and since expanded to Canada, UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy with the most previous update released last month.

Justin O'Beirne has followed Google/Apple maps in detail for years https://www.justinobeirne.com/

Forbes is an American business magazine and the author covers cover security and surveillance. So I wouldn't think his advice is meant for everyone.

Announced WWDC 2018, arrived to the neighbor to the north 2.5 years later in December 2020, that's still quite a gap. But to be clear I was referring to the brand new detailed maps announced this year.

> This will only be available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and London by the end of the year.

So 4 cities 6 months after announcements.

Yeah, over here most Yelp reviews are utter crap. Maybe 1-4 reviews and the average is around 2 stars for really good places.

Apple Maps doesn’t even have cycling navigation in Amsterdam lol.

Literally unusable.

Apple Maps doesn’t have cycling navigation anywhere, kinda strange for such a hip and (self proclaimed) environmentally conscious company. That renders it literally unusable anywhere, IMHO.

[Edit: I just learned from another comment that Apple Maps _does_ have cycling directions at least in London, which I didn’t know about]

It does as part of the ‘New Maps’ but very limited geographically unless you’re in China, California, or a few other cities- see https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/#maps-cycling

I tried Apple Maps again recently to drive to my daughter's school half an hour away.

Despite it stating that the destination was indeed that school, I ended up in a residential street over 3 miles away.

The carplay interface of it also wasn't as easy to follow as on Google Maps - which is surprising.

This happened to my wife and me just last night on the east coast of the UK. We followed directions to a named restaurant POI on Apple Maps and ended up in the middle of nowhere.

Google Maps took us right to the door.

I tried apple maps 2 years ago just because my android died and my wife pulled out her iphone.

It was on a tahoe trip to ski, we happened to hit a snowstorm that day. Apple Maps decided to optimize the route and suggested a better route through a friggin road that passed rather close to a ski station (could even look the name up).

We had a 4x4 and we were fine for the most part, but things got really bad when descending, started loosing traction and in one turn we actually slided and the snow stopped us on the edge of a cliff, not even exagerating.

To be 100% clear, this is entirely our fault. We should have been with chains from the very beginning. But it's still shocking to me Apple Maps would suggest such a freaking route in the middle of a snow storm. Would Gmaps have done the same? Probably?

Experience was bad enough to swear never open AMaps again.

I’ve been using the Verizon map app for navigation for many years. Until recently, it’s been better for me than Google- it’s simplified, which is good when driving.

But it’s not as reliable, in the sense that it sometimes recommends seasonal roads that are closed in the winter and even in the summer need AWD.

I haven’t had any problem with Apple Maps, and I appreciate the integration with the Apple Watch. So, I’m using it more. Plus, the Yelp app connects to Apple Maps automatically.

And I’m drifting away from Google, anyway.

> But it's still shocking to me Apple Maps would suggest such a freaking route in the middle of a snow storm.

I think you’re significantly overestimating Apple’s AI efforts if you think that’s shocking.

Google, maybe they’re smart enough to pull that off today, but I’d be surprised.

However, I’m notoriously bad at predicting future tech, so what do I know.

In London I find Apple Maps superior to Google Maps in almost every way.

Apple's cycling routing is miles ahead of Google's.

I was very happy when Apple "finally" added cycling directions in London. That was the only reason why I used Google Maps.

Apple does give me some funky directions through Victoria Park, though I'm always surprised when any map service can route through parks somewhat well.

Why did you switch?

> I was very happy when Apple "finally" added cycling directions in London. That was the only reason why I used Google Maps.

Yes: I absolutely understood the catalyst, but not the reason. I will rephrase my question: why did you want to switch? Is that less confusing? The person I am responding to seemed eager to leave Google Maps, but couldn't because of one critical feature; once that critical feature was there, removing the reason they had not to switch... but, there still had to be some remaining reason why the person switched: a reason that had caused them to be waiting to switch this whole time (and while I have some ideas as to what that reason might be, it isn't at all obvious which one and I didn't want to bias the answer by suggesting any). Is this really such a strange concept? :(

Personally I prefer using Apple Maps when possible because the app is a lot more fluid, it has a dark mode, and it feels better about privacy.

> seemed eager to leave Google Maps, but couldn't because of one critical feature

I never wanted to use Google Maps, but had to due to the feature. Using "Apple Maps" was the default preferred position.

I think Apple Maps looks better and is easier to use than Google Maps. I especially dislike the Google Maps turn by turn directions interface.

Good for you one mega-city in Europe* got proper apple treatment after 10 years lets wait 20 more years for other monster cities, and then they can maybe add some cities under a 10 million population :D

What’s the other option? Google is the only internet map ever? Or no other internet map can ever release anything until they have perfect global coverage?

How about OSM?

Love osm and osmand, but if I'm travelling in town then I go to Google map for real time traffic and public transit.

What is a good iOS app for turn-by-turn directions (driving, biking, walking, public transit) that uses OpenStreetMap data?

Organic Maps is IMHO the most usable OSM app for Android. It's available also for iOS, no idea if it's 1-to-1 but worth giving it a try.

It’s in the store. It touts working offline, do you have save map data for an area first or can you use it the same way as other map apps?

I’ve used Google Maps’ offline saving feature when traveling internationally and where cell service is poor or absent.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/organic-maps/id1567437057

It works only offline. You download the area before you can zoom in; there's no online tile-on-demand.

OM is ok, but the contours are coarse and in meters. I use Gaia, which has far more capability and also works offline. But, note that Gaia has been bought recently by Outside. I’m concerned about maintaining privacy, based on the email they sent.

I should mention that Apple Maps, being vector based, can be pre-downloaded using the hotel wifi when you are in a roaming area and will work for many blocks around the hotel without using the radios. Google won’t.

The Google Maps app will let you explicitly download quite large areas for use offline.

> It touts working offline, do you have save map data for an area first or can you use it the same way as other map apps?

You download a region before being there, then you can use the app completely offline. The 'completely offline' modus only works for the downloaded data, obviously.

I'm using it quite a bit abroad, since roaming data outside of Switzerland is really expensive :)

Organic Maps is amazing. For hiking and climbing it has routes that Google and Apple do not put on their maps. For offline mode you can download entire US states or countries and the search is instant once you've downloaded the data to your phone. I still use Google/Apple Maps for navigation, but mostly because I've never give Organic Maps navigation a try.

For car navigation I've used https://www.magicearth.com/, which I've found to be really good.

https://cycle.travel/ is (in my opinion) unbeatable for bike-navigation, but I use it more for planning a ride (and exporting the GPX file to my Garmin Edge) than for 'on-the-go' routing.

I don’t think Apple needs perfect coverage, just more than “parts of the USA and 10 major cities worldwide”.

Sell iPhones cheaper in countries that have reduced features.

Apple Maps tends to be better in English speaking countries, or otherwise where there's a lot of iPhones. Google Maps is almost universally better anywhere else.

Same in Dublin, Ireland. Here, the quality of Apple Maps improved significantly about a year ago.

Their shop/restaurant opening times are still totally useless though. I live in Stoneybatter (next effectively 15 min walk from the city centre for those not from Dublin) and I’d estimate that at least 1/3rd of the correct waypoints, opening times, and associated data in the area is from me slowly correcting stuff over the last few years.

For restaurants, etc, I usually start with Yelp, which uses Apple Maps for navigation. I get the rest of the details from Yelp. (I’m in the US)

> In London I find Apple Maps superior to Google Maps in almost every way

Google Maps is good in a backwater town in some country you've never heard of.

You mean like Karachi, Pakistan? Is that a backwater town to you?

For cycling in London, in my experience:

CityMapper >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Apple Maps >>>>> Google Maps

It is, though one thing apple could improve is the feedback on errors- it’s routing thinks some major streets are one way here and that others aren’t which seems hard to fix.

Are you able to plot multiple routes yet?

Well in the medium sized Norwegian city I live in Google maps doesn't have integration for the local public transport company, but Apple maps does. It's also significantly more responsive.

Apple Maps is even worse? Because in my pop 200k city (somewhat big for Germany), OSM has far better information already.

I think Germany is kinda special case in Europe (privacy laws etc) so google maps are probably a lot worse then in the rest of Europe :) [Never use google maps in Germany and i only visited Germany once in my live :)]

I switched to Apple Maps a couple years ago and it’s been much better for me around the US; especially, Denver and Portland areas. Google maps still has a lot of issues with navigating around Portland.

Yeah. I've used OpenStreetMap too, and while it does tend to be more accurate than Apple Maps, Google Maps is still unmatched. If you're on an iPhone, I'd recommend you switch to OpenStreetMaps at the very least.

>Google maps >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> apple maps here in Europe

Apple has been creating their own map data and switching over to it for a while now.

North America is complete and Europe is just starting with the UK finished and online and the Iberian Peninsula just coming online a month ago.

https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps-portugal-spain

In the UK Apple Maps is my preferred choice for Navigation. Google wins over finding actual places, though Apple Maps is getting better fast> I also use Apple Maps driving in France with no problems.

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