Comment by protastus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by protastus | Hacker News Reader

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That's because Google Maps got massively worse over the years.

I'll add to your list of issues:

  * distracting me while I'm driving with a banner that blocks the bottom half of the screen, with a message written in small font, asking if a speed trap is still on the freeway. This is distracting and unexpected, leading me to take my eyes off the road to get a basic understanding of what the app needs, which starts with reading the text. Ironically, the font is small due to the inclusion of a "reminder" to only interact when it is safe.

  * screen space co-opted by ads, promotions and reviews for local businesses.

Google Maps and Gmail are products that rose to the top by being best in class. I can only assume that the smart people who built the original product, made many wise choices, and said "no" when it mattered are long gone. The new blood is not of the same caliber, and can only get promoted if they make changes. Unfortunately for them, the user experience was already excellent when they joined, and thus was difficult to improve upon. Seems like they resort to adding details that aren't relevant to the user, and trying to monetize things that are not core to the product. Every instance of feature creep and every dark pattern pulls the experience away from optimality, regressing on goals that were achieved 10 years ago.

My biggest gripe is how I know when I need to stay on a road for say 20 miles. It used to say, “continue straight for 20 miles” but almost always now it

“Continue straight for 2 miles”

“Continue straight for 3 miles”

“Continue straight for 5 miles”

……

Then at some point I have to wonder ok when exactly is my exit coming up. And I have to zoom out on the navigation to see oh I still have a few miles to go. The progress it shows is always based on whatever fractional random segment length they’ve got me on at the moment. So I can’t quickly tell that I’m halfway into that 20 mile section

This often happens when differently-named or -numbered roads join end-on (i.e. one road becomes the other as you drive along it), and Apple Maps does it too sometimes.

Yeah I do get that. However, it used to not behave this way. So I can't help but think they broke something in recent years. I think they just wanted to increase the frequency of updates probably for "engagement" since tech companies generally go with quantity over quality on notifications. But this just breaks the functionality for me.

I forgot to mention sometimes "Continue straight for 1 mile" causes me to begin my migration from left lane to right lane in anticipation of the exit, then she just says, "Continue straight for 3 miles" and I'm livid. (Not sure if this is widely understandable but I tend to speed and usually am in the left lane passing/speeding, while exits are generally on the right so I interpret "Continue straight for 1 mile" as I have an exit coming up).

That impacts me with Apple Maps on occasion: if there’s some road name/id change that is effectively invisible as a driver because I’m still going straight, or more annoyingly when there are roundabouts in my path.

I often choose to use apple maps for nav. One annoyance is I will chose a preferred route out of the options it provides --that's good. Then, for no reason, Apple Maps decide mid-course somewhere that I must have actually wanted the other option I did not choose and it tries to re-route me. This happens from time to time, not too frequently, but enough to be annoying.

Ads in an app which is being used for navigation while driving, are you serious? if so, then Google should be taken to court for reckless endangerment. In-app ads (tailored for attention grabbing and engagement) and safe driving are simply incompatible.

No sane pilot would ever accept ads popping up on the controls in an airplane cockpit, so let's keep them away from a car's dashboard, too. The fewer distractions the better.

I haven't seen ads popping up while navigating, but I have been getting what appear to be ads in the direction read-outs, e.g. "In 500 feet, turn right at the Wendy's."

Which is, honestly, one of the least-annoying types of ads I get on a regular basis. Sometimes it's much easier to follow than a street name anyway!

... at what point I end up saying sh*t, I didn't see a Wendy's there, was this the right road? and having to interact with the app _again_ to determine if what I just did was correct. :/

It does still show you the name of the street at the top directions card. This is part of the audio directions

Where I live this is the way we give directions (e.g. 2 blocks past McDonald's take a right), so to me it feels more natural than looking for a street name.

Next level will be detecting if you’re local to the area and using descriptions of landmarks that used to be there but aren’t present anymore.

  Turn left where the Tastee-Freeze used to be.

You missed it last time don't do that again :)

With apologies to Laurie Anderson:

  Hey Siri! How do I get to town from here?

  And she said:
  Well just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall
  Go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway
  Take a left at what's going to be the new sports center
  And keep going until you hit the place where
  They're thinking of building that drive-in bank
  You can't miss it.

  And I said: This must be the place

you never know, with GANs and transformer models, DALL-E type models, and stuff, Siri just might be able to come up with that in the near future

You know, the one where you tripped and chipped your tooth in the fourth grade…

> Sometimes it's much easier to follow than a street name anyway!

I think that is entirely the point. Apple Maps added something similar around a year ago, where it now says "After this light, ___" or "Take the next ____", which is much easier to understand than giving a street name that you have never heard of. It gets you to look at the road more than at the map which is a bonus for safety.

Just want to confirm that this is exactly why they mention it. It isn't ads so much as POIs (Points of Interest) are useful to use when navigating (sometimes more useful than streets).

I've been suspecting ads because it's very limited in what businesses it will call out. Like, less than 5% of the time, I'd estimate.

Maybe I’m being too charitable, but I suspect it’s down to a few requirements: instantly/universally recognizable to drivers, easily visible from the street, located on corners, and always pronounced correctly by the maps voice.

Fast food restaurants and other major chains fit that bill reliably enough that you could automate adding them to directions. Telling drivers to take a right at, say, a local restaurant that may not have an obvious sign could easily be worse than relying on street signs.

Landmarks are great, especially something like a Clock Tower, Water Tower, etc., but things like Starbucks, and others come and go out of business. MacDonalds is an exception in that they own their real estate and are unlikely to move. But many others can lose their lease and become something new.

I haven't seen ads in navigation mode.

Google, at least via Waze, egregiously displays banner and pop-up ads.

... when you are stopped in traffic or at a light. And IIRC, this was there before the Google acquisition?

Disc: Googler but nowhere close to the products discussed here.

It shouldn't be showing ads at all, ever while in a car regardless of whether the car is moving or not.

Maybe these ads are part of the reason every third stoplight I have to honk my horn because the guy ahead of me is dicking around on his phone after it turns green?

To maybe illustrate this a bit better, they are presented as location pins along the route, no banner or full screen ads. Pretty minimally distracting honestly

Waze used to show *full screen* ads when it detected that the car was standing still. Maybe they still do in some regions, they don't do it anymore where I live...

I feel like that's one big hurdle in tech in general. the best and brightest want to work on development of the best new shiny thing. but maintaining quality and "maintenance engineering" is the boring but important part in terms of reliability...but that's when the geniuses bolt and leave the company to do something else.

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