Hacker News Reader

Comment by jayd16 | Hacker News Reader

First impressions matter. Has Apple Map's reputation caught up to the reality after the initial launch was underwhelming? Apple might be trigger shy.

View on HN

General consensus in this thread seems to be it's better than Google now, and for me (at least) I never bother opening Google Maps anymore; I did often early on.

Although apple maps has had the better client for quite a while, it can still be whack sometimes in actual directions.

I have not found this to be the case in my couple of years since I moved to Apple and would never have guessed Google was better at some point.

Google maps had been a pain point coming from a pretty rural area, Apple does not have this problem.

Rural is a huge issue and Apple surprisingly seems to actually respond and fix issues - I reported one once and it was fixed the next time I bothered to check, so good on them.

Google still routes you to the middle of a cornfield there, and I don't know how to get that fixed.

That may be true in the US, but for example in Berlin, cycling directions are still unavailable and POI search is still behind google maps. I would prefer to use Apple Maps, but it’s lacking.

There’s also no way to share a route with someone else.

Very much dependent on the country. Where they have rolled out their “new” maps based on their own mapping (and not licensing a mix of others like TomTom), they are much much better than people think.

https://www.apple.com/au/newsroom/2021/12/apple-rolls-out-al...

In Australia, I rarely go for Google Maps anymore. Apple Maps search and driving UI is cleaner, the LookAround streetview equivalent is great, and spoken directions are more natural. Google Maps still has the edge in business location data though - like finding “a barber nearby”. As more people use it, it’s clear Apple Maps is catching up there too.

But when I was in southern Europe, which I guess haven’t been upgraded yet, I found they’re a long way behind Google Maps in terms of routing, detail map data, and updates to business locations.

Apple's turn by turn instructions are 10x better than Googles.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com