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Comment by larrik | Hacker News Reader

I've been growing pretty dissatisfied with the state of electronic maps. Basic things that are usually either impossible or difficult while using Google Maps or Apple Maps for directions:

- What road am I on? What town am I in?

  - and other flavors of "where the hell am I, anyway?"

  - This is especially annoying when on the phone and the person is asking where you are, and the best you can answer is "Google says I'm X minutes away"

- What road is this coming up next?

  - instead it puts the name halfway along the road, which is out of view...

  - Some of the true nav systems (Garmin, etc) do this better.

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There's no way to see a street name on Apple Maps without zooming in entirely. And sometimes even then, I'll see something like Route 99 instead the name by which everyone refers to the road: "Broadway".

Google Maps is even worse about this.

Dear Google:

If I have my directions preference set to walking, cycling, or public transit, there is no reason to EVER show me the route number of a street that has a name. I don't care about it, and it actively gets in the way of using the map since it displaces the name, you know, the thing that is actually on the signs that I am looking at with my eyes.

It would be one thing if it showed both the name and the number, but usually you have to pinch and pan so far from where you are before you luck into seeing the name that you've totally lost your orientation on the map.

This annoys me too. I've submitted map feedback (holding and tapping 'Report a problem' on the map) before but who knows if that could make much of a difference. I assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing (although your comment seems to imply perhaps not)? We have them here but nobody I know here in Australia uses them or knows them, apart from major motorways. Maybe the other routes are used by truckers? Normal drivers though I would think only care about the street names.

It frustrates me to no end how hard it can be to see the names of streets in Maps, it's one of the most important things!

> I assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing (although your comment seems to imply perhaps not)?

In my area (Connecticut), it depends. Some streets are known by their route numbers, vs some streets have route numbers and most people aren't aware of them at all. It's more common to refer by route number if it's a busy main road that changes name from town to town that it passes through.

Then there's upstate New York, with plenty of streets that are only route numbers, despite being otherwise residential normal roads.

> assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing

Not for streets that go through a town or city and have maximum speeds of 30 mph (48 Kmh). And those are the streets that Maps displays route numbers. I don’t know of truckers using those streets.

Made even worse by traveling in a country with a language you can't read. sometimes it shows the native language, zoom in it might show an English transliteration. if you're showing it to a taxi driver it'll definitely not show the native language.

One thing that drives me nuts on Google Maps is "Search Nearby" doesn't leave your original point of interest (that you're searching around) on the map when showing results. Pretty sure it didn't used to be like this.

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