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Comment by lobochrome | Hacker News Reader

That's not true. Google Maps, in particular, has by far the best route guidance. It used to be different - but not anymore. Most in-car systems don't even attempt to route the last 300m here because the detailed one-way street narrow layout of tiny streets isn't in their mapping data, or their algorithms are too weak. Google has mostly no problem with that.

Entering Japanese addresses IS tricky, though; here, custom-built Japanese solutions outshine. There are (mainly) no street names; instead, you specify your location by filtering down from Prefecture (Tokyo), City (Ota-ku), Commune (Kugahara), District (1-Chome), Block (26), House Number (1).

Japanese systems allow you to enter it this way - with Google (or, even worse, Apple Maps), it's a bit hacky. You would specify it as Kugahara 1-26-1 and hope for the best.

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Google Maps fails in subtle but weird and sometimes costly ways.

On one side, it can't route through a bunch of valid paths. I first assumed it could be because of residents asking Google to cut traffic, but sometimes it's not even through residential areas. I see routes on the map that are avoided in favor of bigger loops, and when trying the shorter routes they're perfectly fine. Or perhaps it's the vehicle size and they optimize for SUVs ?

On the other side it will happily route you through paths that are restricted to specific categories of cars. It's up to the driver to carefully avoid them, but it really wants you to go through and reroutes you there when you deviate, so it's a huge PITA in areas you don't know and try to navigate while ignoring the navigation instructions. Cops seem to have noticed it, We've got fined the first time we fucked up, and now that I'm aware of the issue I see the cops in many of these spots basically waiting for the jackpot.

>avoided in favor of bigger loops

At this point at google, I wouldn't be surprised if they were selling your route to advertizers to "optimize your driving experience."

It should not be a surprise at all.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230129231747/https://www.waze....

https://www.waze.com/ads/

I notice that Google Maps does very poorly on my iPhone 13 Pro with the multi-level roads, like riding around in the tunnels under Tokyo or on the roads with highways above the local roads, whereas builtin navigation units usually have no problems with this. I also find their directions to be much harder to follow than the built-in navigation units when riding around the major roads where turning right requires you to exit to the left for instance. Also, Google Maps fails to provide the variety of route options with fine-grained toll-booth costs, that all navigation units I've used in the last 5 years have gotten spot-on.

Why not use plus codes? They're well-integrated into Google Maps: https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/

TIL.

The weird part is Maps will accept them for search, but not display the plus code except when looking at POI (randomly selecting a point on the map doesn't show it for me, I only could get that from the /pluscodes/ map)

This seems genuinely useful, but as usual we're having the chicken and egg problem to get it adopted ?

In mobile at least, you can touch and hold to make a red temporary POI that will show you the plus code.

But yeah, nobody uses it in the real World. If I need to share a point with someone else I'll just send them the Google Maps share URL instead, which has its own shortcode

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