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Comment by badc0ffee | Hacker News Reader

I found that if I search Google Maps for a specific restaurant, it assumes I must just be hungry in general. Just now, I looked for A&W and also got results for Tim Hortons, Popeyes and McDonald's.

Apple Maps never does that. Still, I usually use Google as I want an accurate idea of whether a business is actually open and what its hours are.

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I just tried "McDonalds" and only got 50 straight McDonalds results. "Burger King" nets 23 Burger Kings, one "Spareribs King" and one "Burger Chicken King". Gotta love inconsistent experiences between customers / regions.

Also, Apple is gearing up to stuff ads (cough "sponsored results" cough) into Maps, at which point it will probably start suffering the same problem..

Google Maps is hellbent on giving you ANY results. I can’t think of any recent search where it doesn’t zoom out to most of Belgium and ignores the “open now” filters if it wants to.

“Oh, you’re looking for a pharmacy open now? What about going to McDonalds, which is closed, and in a completely different city?”

My experience with Google Maps is very different. We got burned so many times going to a closed restaurant that was open according to Google that we just use the listing to find the phone number now, and we call ahead

I know it’s probably not Google’s fault. The owner needs to update their listing, but it’s just one more little thing adding up over the years to make me avoid Google altogether

> I know it’s probably not Google’s fault. The owner needs to update their listing, but it’s just one more little thing adding up over the years to make me avoid Google altogether

The owner probably never signed up for that expectation.

Try searching for a type of food that has a place in it's name, like "Nashville hot chicken". It'll either center the map on Nashville, TN, and show you results for "hot chicken", or sometimes will zoom all the way out and show you results for "hot chicken" in both where the map was originally centered and in Nashville, TN.

Gmaps always zooms out when I search. No idea of that happens for others or not.

Occasionally it scrolls me over to a different continent...

Apple Maps always assumes I'm trying to get directions to a place from wherever I'm at, even if it's on another continent.

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