[HN Gopher] Google Maps' moat is evaporating (2020)
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Google Maps' moat is evaporating (2020)
Author : ivanvas
Score : 103 points
Date : 2022-08-09 19:32 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (joemorrison.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (joemorrison.substack.com)
| eruci wrote:
| As I was saying a few days ago:
| https://twitter.com/geolytica/status/1550787103268769792
|
| Google maps is going the way if google search. I looked up
| directions from orikum to rinas and i first get a full page ads
| that's tricky to take off. Then 2/3 of the page is hotel ads.
| [deleted]
| boredumb wrote:
| I try to shill https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete
| as much as I can and actively contribute in my area when ever I
| remember.
|
| One of my biggest motivating factors is that I'm nearly trapped
| in google search for things that involve local search and wanting
| to see a map, distance to drive, x,y or z in my area.
|
| I've also just recently stumbled onto the
| https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-android-4-1-released/ ability to
| load into my car so that's neat.
| ezfe wrote:
| For people on iOS, "Go Map!!" is a great OSM editor
| andrepd wrote:
| I haven't been able to figure out the reason for this: why is
| it that scrolling the map in Osmand is _so janky_?! It 's
| ridiculous: scrolling stutters at ~5fps and when I let go it
| re-draws everything with no attempt at caching things or
| smoothing the rendering process. I've no idea why this is the
| case but it's definitely the only major blemish on an otherwise
| superb app.
| fezfight wrote:
| So, in a scenario like this, where the competition is a super
| mega company with effectively infinite money, I think we
| should all agree not to make comments like this about FOSS
| projects.
|
| I know that sounda crazy but here me out. One of Microsoft's
| old tricks is called FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and
| Doubt. The idea is that people's opinions of things can be
| nudged using fear, uncertainty and doubt. Enough to sway
| opinion at scale.
|
| In this case, if you truly believed an app is superb, you're
| doing it a massive disservice by giving it your criticism
| publicly. I know, I know, how dare I suggest you not provide
| useful feedback on a public forum. But the thing is, I
| believe your single comment will prevent a not insignificant
| amount of adoption! Adoption by the masses often helps these
| projects undertake QoL improvements like what your comment
| describes.
|
| Contradictorily, I believe honest critism of entrenched apps
| made by huge corporations is vital to help the smaller guys
| get a chance to share the wealth for exatly the same reasons.
| memen wrote:
| Assuming that by 'adoption' you mean, regular use of the
| product.
|
| There is also expectation management, which is an important
| aspect in marketing. The goal here is to set the
| expectation of a future user at the actual value the
| product delivers to the user. This can go wrong in two
| ways: 1. Underdeliver - user will be disappointed, i.e.
| negative user experience. 2. Overdeliver - user will be
| content, but expects you to overdeliver in the future as
| well, which you will not be able to do indefinitely.
|
| My point is: it is key to manage expectations of future
| users. Pointing out both strengths and weaknesses of the
| product makes sure expectations match actual value and make
| for an overall positive user experience when evaluating for
| adoption.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I _think_ I understand what your goal is.
|
| I also firmly believe it can only backfire spectacularly.
| What you are explicitly advocating is asymmetric FUD "for
| the good guys".
|
| And it's not like people won't notice the scrolling and re-
| draw of the app; I've experienced it myself and it's a
| massive deal breaker for regular usage :| . If anything,
| saying "I enjoy this app even with this crappy aspect", may
| help people get over that initial, immediate hump and see
| the value in rest of the product.
| leni536 wrote:
| AFAIK it's newer android storage API limitations that they
| did't work around yet.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I have that complaint as well. But I also think it takes too
| long to route. I'm sure a lot of people would complain, but I
| wish they'd try and mimic what Apple and Google do for UI.
| lmm wrote:
| BRouter makes the routing a zillion times faster. It's an
| absoulte pain to install and configure, but worth it.
| raybb wrote:
| Street Complete is great. I just wish they made it easier to
| enter the hours for a business. I don't know how they could do
| it but if a business has different hours each day it's quite
| painful to get that info into the app.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Do you have any specific ideas how to make it easier? I admit
| that it can be obnoxious, especially if business has gap in
| the middle of the day.
|
| But it seems to me case where data to enter is simply complex
| and I see no obvious way to make it easier.
|
| What worse, typically multiple days have the same opening
| hours, so interface is optimized to make this kind of input
| easier (ability to select multiple days at once)
|
| (I am one of contributors to that software)
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| Funny. I work at Yelp and this was one of the interview
| questions I was asked almost 10 years ago.
| frenchy wrote:
| I actually thought it was suprisingly good, given the
| difficult problem domain.
|
| It's been a while since I used it, but one thing that might
| help would be to look at the interface the for Alarms in
| Android. It looks pretty similar, but it's a little bit
| different, and I think a little bit easier to use.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Thanks! Just in case you (or someone else) has feedback about
| things which are unclear or confusing: please comment.
|
| (I am one of contributors and recently completed small round of
| UX testing, see
| https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/discussions...
| )
| jcynix wrote:
| I really like StreetComplete, and tend to use it while taking
| a walk or hiking, but ... the last time I used it, adding
| info about sidewalks was annoying. Legt? Right? But no Option
| to say "on both sides" ... need to check the lasst update
| later.
| faebi wrote:
| I only recently noticed how far OSM has progressed compared to
| Google Maps. Yet, it's missing one dominant client which works
| nicely and user friendly across the board. Nothing comes close to
| Google Maps despite the way worse map data. And Google is
| compensating most of the missing map data by far superior routing
| with real world traffic data. The lack of map data starts to show
| up in niche routing like walking, hiking and biking though...
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| That would seem to be a missed opportunity for a really great
| open source project. Google collect traffic though the clients
| so there's no real barrier to a better client.
|
| I actually find Google's routing pretty frustrating. Maybe in
| cities you want the shortest/fastest route given the traffic,
| but outside of cities other factors are at play, such as road
| quality (ie width, straightness, max speed) and directions
| simplicity. The usual "one size fits all" approach of Google is
| sorely lacking. Map routing is crying out for customizability.
| Thlom wrote:
| We were on vacation in a part of the country we are not very
| familiar with and relied on Google Maps to tell us the way.
| On the last leg of the trip back home there were two routes,
| one were significantly faster, so we chose that and ended up
| driving several miles over a mountain on gravel roads.
| Luckily it was mostly in good condition. :-)
|
| It was worse when Google Maps tried routing us around traffic
| by sending us off the highway and down on narrow roads
| through neighbourhoods and side roads. Poor people living
| there suddenly had a main road along their homes. This kind
| of thing should be regulated.
| shade wrote:
| I was on vacation in Utah last week with some friends, we
| missed our turn onto the gravel road our rented cabin was
| on. My friend was using Google Maps to navigate and said
| "oh, Google says you can just take the next turn rather
| than turning around" - the "next turn" seemed fine at first
| and then after it was too late to back out (no way to turn
| around), it became a rocky, rutted forest road. Even though
| we had a 4x4, it was the most terrified I've been in a
| vehicle in 25 years or so. When I checked Apple Maps later,
| it didn't even show that as a navigable route.
|
| Anecdotally, a friend of mine in Oklahoma says he never
| uses Google Maps to navigate because it has a bad habit of
| trying to route him down unimproved ranch roads of dubious
| quality.
|
| Personally, I usually prefer Apple Maps since it plays
| nicer with CarPlay, and while Ohio has fewer roads of
| dubious quality like that, my experience left me much less
| trusting of GMaps.
| delusional wrote:
| The frustrating thing is that stuff like traffic data is
| available, it's just not used in any of the OSM plotters.
|
| I've been working on a faster OSM plotter for a while now, but
| the data format is really a pain.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Mapbox offers traffic data that they collect themselves.
|
| I don't know how accurate it is compared to the tons of
| Android smartphones sharing their location to Google, but in
| areas with many Tesla it is good enough.
| delusional wrote:
| At least here in denmark the authoritative source for
| traffic information makes it available under a CC Universal
| license in the DatexII (european standard) format.
| ugjka wrote:
| Google maps routing is top notch for long distances but when I
| need some finer details of some place, I always turn to OsmAnd
| j-james wrote:
| Organic Maps is close: https://organicmaps.app
|
| It's open source, development is very active, and there's much
| more of a focus on user experience (2/3 of the pinned issues).
|
| Though it does notably lack public transportation routing.
|
| https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps
| faebi wrote:
| It's already my favorite on iOS but then again, I can't use
| it in the browser. Even worse, every time I open it, it nags
| me if I want to continue the "location search". Just show me
| where I left off instead of forcing me to press pause or
| continue. I also want to sync my favorite places across
| devices, can't do that. Also it's missing a "download the map
| automatically, I have unlimited data" option. It's how OSM
| often is, riddled with too many decisions, and not really
| using the rich amount of available data.
| rst wrote:
| Might give OSM another try because I'm getting really
| frustrated with Google Maps, particularly on mobile, when I
| just want to see a $@#%!% map. It's gotten astonishingly
| reluctant to show you the names of cross streets, which makes
| it darn near useless if you're walking around, and want to head
| in a general direction, but _not_ on a particular prescribed
| route (which I find myself doing quite a bit doing urban
| exploring). It 's like they think everybody's traveling point
| to point, and wants directions, with the map just being some
| kind of odd tease for those.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > far superior routing
|
| Bike routes "work" at best.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| And walking and public transit routes are quite broken in
| many, many places.
| girzel wrote:
| I am 100% in on OSMand and the whole ecosystem, but I still
| curse out loud every time I have to enter a street address into
| its address "parser". I know it's a hard problem, but it's
| horrible. None of the app's other shortcomings are meaningful
| to me.
| ygra wrote:
| Didn't OSMand do something strange to guess addresses instead
| of using reverse geocoding? I seem to remember that there
| were plenty of addresses that are actually in OSM and
| Nominatim has no trouble finding that OSMand cannot find or
| places in wildly different places.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Google Maps is much better as a navigator than as a map. It can
| tell you how to get to the specific location you are interested
| in, but it doesn't give you a good overview of the area.
|
| It doesn't show you as much detail as it could. The color
| scheme has a poor contrast. The colored zones are ambiguous and
| often misleading. You see a random-looking sample of points of
| interest rather than a consistent listing of every single
| location of a certain category and significance. Major roads
| and streets are easy to see, while railroads fade into the
| background. And sometimes you can see major bridges only by
| zooming in, as Google Maps thinks they must be insignificant
| because you can't drive over them.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Google Maps is much better as a navigator than as a map._
|
| This is true specifically for cars and maybe mass transit.
| But for navigating on foot or bicycle, OSM is much better.
| OSM tells me where water fountains and park benches are, and
| has far more trails marked. Google Maps excels at leading
| people to places they might spend money, and is mediocre at
| most anything else.
| Fomite wrote:
| Moving to a more rural area (though still a college town) has
| been eye opening.
|
| I've lived in my house for two years. Google Maps still doesn't
| know it exists (Apple Maps does, but that is a recent
| development).
|
| The number of business whose websites, directions, etc. have to
| note that Google Maps is lying to you, and under no circumstances
| turn right there, are staggering. As is the algorithm's deep
| desire to take you off a highway and send you down a gravel road
| because it's theoretically faster.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Discussed long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25568335
| stuart78 wrote:
| I switched to Apple Maps several years ago and whenever I go back
| to Google, particularly on mobile, my preference for Apple Maps
| is confirmed. Google has too many ads (especially showing the
| ever-present Walgreens icon) and too much visual clutter. I do
| prefer Google's pins to Apple's dots, but Apple makes it easy for
| me to categorize locations with different lists and different
| colors. Google lets me do much of this, but doesn't allow me to
| set differing colors by list. Also, their 'favorite' list is just
| the most recent 500 starred places, so once something goes to
| 501, it simply disappears.
|
| Definitely still room for improvement from Apple here, but they
| seem way more engaged and invested than Google does at this
| point.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| I don't know if it's still the case, but GMaps drove me away
| from using it for nav a couple years ago by recommending
| "shortcuts" that led to dangerous situations, for example an
| uncontrolled crossing of 6-lane surface roads, just to avoid a
| single crowded intersection. Adjusting the "aggression" of
| recommendations (I forgot the setting) did not seem to help.
| Have never had the problem with Apple Maps.
|
| Nowadays the ads seem really bad when I see somebody else using
| it.
| what_ever wrote:
| You can have multiple lists in Google Maps and the Maps can
| show those lists together on the UI. I have "Favorites", "Want
| to Go" among other lists with different pins (including
| colors).
|
| Disc: Googler but nowhere close to the Maps team.
| stuart78 wrote:
| Thanks, I think I didn't write that clearly. I do have
| multiple custom lists, and as far as I can tell there are
| five categories: Want to go, Favorites, Travel plans, Starred
| Places and custom. Each of these presents differently, but if
| you have multiple custom options (I have a dozen or so) there
| is no distinction between them, at least available on web
| that I can find. They are all turquoise pins.
|
| I will also readily admit that I may be a marginal case here,
| but Apple's more subtle treatment serves obsessive pinners
| like me without cluttering the map.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Perspective from someone who doesn't at all follow open maps or
| any of these other products: I've never felt a need to use
| anything else (besides when I want to use Google Earth for more
| niche reasons) and I didn't even know half of them existed. The
| Google Maps API is also used at work for various purposes and
| still seems to be the industry standard. I don't know about the
| fees but the API has been easy enough to work with.
| nicbou wrote:
| If you need more information about your environment (road
| type/quality, trails, toilets), it's bad.
|
| If you need to do more things with a map (load tracks, show
| multiple things on the map at once, follow a very specific
| route), Google Maps is appallingly bad.
|
| It has a few very frustrating UX issues but that would be
| nitpicking.
|
| Now that they started forcing ads and social features, it got
| worse.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 2020. Can we see the bottom of the moat yet? Let's consider the
| article's key argument: a combination of concerns including
| microsoft, facebook, and mapbox will kill Google Maps.
|
| Facebook is on the ropes, completely rudderless with a big phone
| attached to their collective face. Mapillary might as well have
| been converted to neutrinos when Facebook acquired it.
|
| Microsoft does not now nor did at any time possess a consumer map
| product that anybody gave a damn about. They do have a nice
| competitor to Google Earth Engine, that's cool. GEE is awesome by
| the way and the article fails to discuss it meaningfully.
|
| Mapbox the company completely imploded after taking a huge round
| from softbank, failing to IPO, and going to war against its own
| key staff members.
|
| Really the fact that the article goes all the way to the end
| without even mentioning Esri says a lot.
| adolph wrote:
| > Microsoft does not now nor did at any time possess a consumer
| map product that anybody gave a damn about.
|
| Not a consumer map produce, but the maps, weather, and imagery
| in Flight Simulator is pretty awesome.
|
| https://www.polygon.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-guide/213...
| hrpnk wrote:
| For some time, links to Google Maps that I get over messages are
| opening up in the browser, which is hugely annoying. Else, one
| has to upgrade the App, but it's unclear why. Did they add new
| permissions to the App that it requires an explicit confirmation
| of upgrade? It does not get updated as part of the regular auto-
| updates.
| clairity wrote:
| as much as i wish it were true, it certainly isn't evaporating
| because of apple maps, as implied by the post. apple maps is
| serviceable for directions, but on just about everything else,
| it's inferior to google maps (and i say this very begrudgingly
| because i'm no fan of google).
|
| he notes 'look around' as an example of apple reaching parity,
| but that's such a minor feature, and a great example of where
| apple has misplaced its priorities. apple needs to do a much
| better job of getting accurate POI (places of interest) and being
| able to search on those on just about any facet a user can
| imagine. beyond the basics of roads, addresses, and directions,
| that's the _killer feature_ of maps. instead, they create
| slightly better 3D renderings of urban buildings and tout that as
| some huge UX improvement in their annual keynote.
|
| apple, please actually improve the killer feature and not
| everything else. i want to retire google maps (and waze) for good
| on my devices.
| chomp wrote:
| Yeah... I'm not sure I agree on 'look around' being a minor
| feature or a misplaced priority, but I definitely agree about
| it being pretty crummy on POI. I think part of that is because
| Apple's POI database is partially Yelp's POI database, whereas
| Google has its crawlers working to seed its POI db.
|
| Another issue is that business owners immediately think Google
| and add their new business to Google maps, but not many think
| about Apple maps. Maybe this might change in the future, but I
| think Apple will need to add some grease to incentivize that
| effort.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I would donate towards an Open POI DB sitting on top of
| OpenStreetMap, and the ongoing system needed to keep that DB
| updated (automated emails/sms/postcards/outreach and folks
| contributing data back from ground truth).
|
| This is the equivalent of a phone and location directory, and
| it should not be locked up by Google (or another commercial
| vendor for that matter).
| clairity wrote:
| it's not that 'look around' is not important and has no
| priority, but that it's incorrect. if apple had solid
| POI/place data, then they could work next on improving look
| around, indoor maps, and 3D models, because that does add
| value, but not as much as accurate POI data, hence misplaced
| priorities.
|
| yelp is was a smart way to get a jump start on place data,
| but apple should have spent much more time and effort (and
| some of it's $100B+ warchest) on getting this to a much more
| useful place on their own, especially if it really has
| designs on challenging google in the autonomous car space.
|
| as a product manager, i can only shake my head when i see
| such a basic flubbing.
| tarentel wrote:
| That's primarily my biggest issue with apple maps as well
| although I try to use it over google maps. It's been 2 years
| since I left the US but prior to that apple is pretty
| horrendous outside of the US in my experience as far this goes.
| It's not great in the US but it's pretty worthless at finding
| anything you might be interested when you're not in the US.
| Again it's been two years so maybe it's better now but given
| that it hasn't improved here in the big city I live in I can't
| imagine it's better outside the US.
| robotnikman wrote:
| There is also the fact that Apple maps is only available on
| Apple devices, while Google maps can be used from basically any
| device with a web browser. Google benefits greatly from this
| since a lot of info is crowdsourced.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| For what it's worth that hasn't been my experience. I switched
| from Google to Apple Maps when I changed from Android to iOS
| about a year ago and basically didn't notice a difference,
| except that I'm now forced into looking Yelp reviews, which
| sucks. I was dreading that transition, but it ended up being no
| big deal.
|
| Maybe I just rely less on the POI aspect of the service than
| you do? I tend to use navigation more, which if anything is
| better on Apple.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| I've mostly switched to Apple Maps now. I often compare the
| two and while Google Maps is certainly more complete, I find
| Google Maps full stop wrong often when searching for things
| like "Mexican food". It shows a pizza and kolache place,
| while Apple Maps won't.
|
| Regarding directions, I find Apple Maps more accurate in the
| time to destination and the UI much more pleasing. That said,
| if there is a ramp closed, Google is more likely to know
| about it.
|
| For reviews, I find Google and Yelp mostly useless, Google's
| reviews appear spammed while yelp is known for removing bad
| reviews for money. Google has some neat insights like "how
| busy is it now", but I've found it to be very unreliable,
| Yelp can sometimes let you get in line at a restaurant.
| Google will have more photos usually, so that's a win.
| valarauko wrote:
| _Regarding directions, I find Apple Maps more accurate in
| the time to destination and the UI much more pleasing._
|
| At least for transit, the UI is middling at best and
| downright confusing at times. For example, taking a bus or
| subway only shows you the origin and destination stops
| (with the route and stops in a secondary view), while every
| other app prominently shows you the approaching stop and
| how many stops left to the destination. Once you get off
| the bus/subway and need walking directions, Apple Maps does
| not switch, something many transit first apps will do.
|
| For me, the app with the best UI for public transport is
| hands down the Transit app. It's also the only app I've
| seen that will ask to confirm which bus you boarded if
| different buses approached your stop at the same time.
| Plus, the app will update transfer options based on your
| ETA.
|
| UI/UX aside, for route planning with public transport
| Citymapper is still the best.
| valarauko wrote:
| While I do generally use Apple Maps for directions, their
| utter reliance on Yelp for POI is frustrating. I find I have
| to confirm business hours with Google Maps which has tended
| to be more reliable when in conflict, at least in my
| experience in NYC. I also wish Apple Maps had an offline mode
| - I find I have to fall back to GMaps on the subway.
| jahewson wrote:
| It already happened. Apple is doing POI in-house now and it's
| much improved.
| brundolf wrote:
| It varies widely by location. The only persistent problem I see
| with Apple is that most business locations seem auto-generated
| from the address, which can mean they're a couple doors off
| from where they're supposed to be. But I fix those whenever I
| see it happen, and I've gotten a dozen or so contributions
| accepted by Apple, so that's cool
|
| Also, for what it's worth, I definitely miss Street View; it's
| not just a novelty, and I'm glad Apple added their own version.
| I'm not impressed with the Apple version's current coverage,
| but I'm hoping it improves
| bartread wrote:
| I use Apple Maps for nav in the car because the Apple Carplay
| support is better, and it's usually pretty good, but I've had a
| couple of occasions recently where I've questioned the
| directions it's given me: like, why aren't you routing me
| according to shortest time to destination even though that's
| what I want?
| clairity wrote:
| for that, i usually check traffic first, to see if that's the
| reason. if not, i take the route i want and let maps adjust
| automatically.
| shafyy wrote:
| For me, the killer feature of Google Maps is Reviews. For
| directions, I now usually use Apple Maps, although somehow I
| find myself "double checking" with Google Maps, especially for
| public transportation. Also the opening hours are more accurate
| on Google Maps, because a lot of business actively update their
| Google Maps profile, but not their Apple Maps profile (probably
| don't even have one there).
|
| I've noticed that Apple Maps recently added their own review
| system with the thumbs up and down, so it looks like they're
| trying to get there.
| valarauko wrote:
| _For directions, I now usually use Apple Maps, although
| somehow I find myself "double checking" with Google Maps,
| especially for public transportation._
|
| In my experience both Apple Maps and Google Maps can give
| unreasonable directions for public transport, with the best
| in class being Citymapper. It's also the only service that
| provides guidance on which subway car to board (closest exit
| for transfers, for example).
| avianlyric wrote:
| Look around should be powering quite a bit more than just look
| around in the app. Google uses their street view data as a
| source for POI data, lane assist data, signage data, speed
| limit data and far more.
|
| I've seen more than one case where Google has clearly used OCR
| on streetview imagery to add business to their database (OCR
| typos and all). They also OCR signs to improve driving
| directions, and update street names, and they also use OCR to
| extract speed limit data for roads, as most places don't have a
| single easily accessible database of speed limits.
|
| I think it's reasonable to assume that Apple is gonna be doing
| the same things. Sure it also feeds some pretty UI, but if you
| wanna know where things are, then photographing the entire
| world is a pretty robust approach.
| changoplatanero wrote:
| I remember reading somewhere from someone on the google maps
| team that the most difficult challenge in maintaining google
| maps is keeping up to date and accurate information about the
| millions of small businesses in their map. Being able to trust
| the information about restaurants and businesses is why I use
| google maps.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| This isn't my experience with Google Maps. Particularly
| during the pandemic, a lot of businesses were bordered up but
| still ostensibly "in business", with signs on the doors
| saying they'd be back in a few months. Google Maps claimed
| these businesses were all open during their normal hours.
| valarauko wrote:
| Fair enough, but in my experience in NYC Apple Maps was
| even worse at this.
| wsinks wrote:
| I've found recently that even in SF, google maps's small
| business data is out of date and untrustworthy. I can trust
| it to give me a phone number and sometimes the website, but
| the actual omnibox info is only useful for businesses that I
| know are really well trafficked by the younger demographic.
| schoen wrote:
| Are they now robocalling the small businesses (and having the
| robots speak with the staff) in order to confirm their
| details? I had that impression from somewhere, but I don't
| know if it's right.
| elil17 wrote:
| They developed an AI which can call and make reservations,
| change an appointment, etc (Google Duplex). The do use it
| for that purpose:
| https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en
| kube-system wrote:
| Google has a lot of POI data, but it's not necessarily good
| data. What POI data do you find missing in Apple maps? Most of
| the recent issues with retail establishments changing hours has
| also affected Google Maps in my experience.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It wasn't hard to find an example. The restaurant nearest my
| house that I could think of which closed most recently was
| Cesar in Berkeley. Google has it listed as permanently closed
| and does not draw a POI for it. Apple says it will be open
| today at 4pm.
| em500 wrote:
| And outside of the US it only gets worse. Apple only lists
| about half of the stores in a shopping mall near where I
| live in Amsterdam. They still list a bank branch as open
| that has been closed for around two years now. Amusingly
| they also list the department store that replaced it
| (correctly at the same address). Both the bank and the
| department stores are from about the largest chains in the
| country, not obscure mom and pop stores.
| kube-system wrote:
| Google has most of the restaurant times around me correct,
| but the map is also littered with a bunch of businesses
| that don't exist. Their small-business data is a mess. It
| looks like a lot of independent contractor hustles that
| people have are incorrectly listed as brick and mortar
| businesses. There's at least a dozen in just my
| neighborhood -- single family homes incorrectly listed as
| things like night clubs, schools, retail stores, a church,
| etc.
| clairity wrote:
| literally every time i go to search for anything--a
| restaurant, a venue, a specialty shop, etc.--apple maps
| returns an arbitrarily limited and often
| unrelated/nonsensical results set. it also has a habit of
| zooming me to an entirely region/country, when it knows my
| exact location right now, because the data is so sparse and
| incomplete.
|
| i'm not saying google results are perfect, far from it, but
| they certainly don't typically do the above.
| smeyer wrote:
| For what it's worth, I also get annoyed with how often
| google thinks I want "Foo Cafe" in Atlanta when I'm really
| looking for "Foo Restaurant" two blocks away from me in
| Boston.
| kube-system wrote:
| Dealing with that is enough to make you want to go to
| "Foo Bar"
| clairity wrote:
| randomly, i tried "king and i", which was my favorite
| thai place in boston (way back in the day), and it did
| find one nearby me first. the search ahead list did show
| the one in boston too, further down (i'm super happy
| they're still around btw).
|
| but yah, foo anything is like a box of chocolates. you
| just never know what you're gonna get!
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Ditto when you're specifying a target for routing: "Ok lets
| just zoom you out a hundred kilometers..."
| dont__panic wrote:
| Doesn't matter how good their POI data is if they pollute the
| search results with Dunkin Donuts, Arby's, Burger King,
| McDonald's, and any other godforsaken chain restaurant who
| pays to be first in line. Especially on mobile, I find it
| very, very difficult to look through restaurant matches that
| search my criteria because:
|
| - Maps won't show all of the results in the map view
|
| - Maps prioritizes these kinds of chains that pay good money
| over more relevant restaurants (for instance, I searched
| "Cafe" in Boston last week, and both McDonalds and Dunkin
| Donuts were among the top 5 results. Not exactly the most
| relevant results)
|
| - no matter how much you zoom in, Maps just won't show you
| certain businesses. I'm not sure if they haven't payed up
| enough protection money to Google, or if the business listing
| isn't optimized, or what... but it's a crap experience when I
| _know_ there 's a great business in a general area but every
| time I search, Google zooms me out to shove Wendy's in my
| face
|
| Do other people experience these same issues with Google
| Maps? Am I somehow using the product wrong? I've been trying
| to contribute to OSM and use it instead when possible, but
| the POI data just isn't quite complete enough... and
| businesses almost never update their own hours on OSM.
| nr2x wrote:
| It's great for directions!*
|
| * if you want to take the silliest route possible to a store
| that went out of business three years ago, but Apple thinks is
| open until 6pm on Tuesday
| TylerE wrote:
| For directions, traffic, etc, Waze is king. Of course, Alphabet
| owns that too.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| "Look around" and "street view" are a pretty big deal, I use
| that all the time. Or more specifically I use street view
| because it exists here.
|
| I know this is a pretty bay area centric site, but for most of
| the US Google has this feature and Apple still doesn't. Around
| 20 cities total, with a heavy concentration in California. For
| about of third of the states in the US they cover a single
| city, the majority of states they have nothing.
|
| EDIT - what's particularly surprising to me is how thorough
| Apple's rollout has been in Canada compared to the US. They've
| got every city and every highway, as well as getting off the
| highway to drive tiny towns like Warren Ontario where the total
| points of interest are one fire hall, one post office, one
| cafe, one restaurant, one credit union, one mechanic, and one
| gas station.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?va=j&t=hb&q=warren+ontario&ia=web&ia...
|
| Why have they done so much in Canada, but are missing tons of
| major places in the US still? Houston but not Dallas or Austin,
| Miami but not Jacksonville or Orlando, Philly but not
| Pittsburgh, not Nashville or Memphis or Knoxville, not Colombus
| or Cleveland or Cincinnati. Not to mention the entire country
| outside of large cities.
|
| Just makes me wonder what's going on over there. Did they drive
| a ton of miles and then realize their US cars were collecting
| defective data? Accidentally deleted a datacenter?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Why have they done so much in Canada, but are missing tons
| of major places in the US still?
|
| >What seems to be happening is that there are actually two
| versions of Look Around. One version has POI labels,and the
| other does not.
|
| This suggests that it takes Apple much longer to process the
| Look Around imagery that has POIs. And it's likely that
| during this same processing, Apple is also extracting other
| features from its imagery (like road markings and real-life
| building colors) that are, in turn, being used to generate
| the new "city experience".
|
| In other words, Apple's Look Around coverage in the U.S. and
| U.K. is so limited right now because Apple is likely still
| processing it and intends to show POI labels throughout both
| countries.
|
| https://www.justinobeirne.com/look-around-united-states-
| cove...
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Interesting. I wonder if this is preparing for a US-focused
| launch of their AR glasses.
|
| Disappointing because I'd like to have the non-POI version
| working and have no interest in a $2000 AR thing.
| com2kid wrote:
| I've found the directions from Apple Maps to be far easier to
| follow than what Google Maps gives. Heck Google Maps gives
| plenty of nonsensical directions, even in cities where Google
| has an office! (Seriously though, wasn't the Google Maps team
| in the Seattle area for awhile? Why so many long standing brain
| dead bugs with local stuff...)
|
| "turn left in 600 ft" vs "turn left at the Jack in the Box up
| ahead."
|
| IMHO the single largest improvement to Google Maps in the last
| few years has been the inclusion of traffic lights on the map.
| Location data, especially in cities, is often spotty and can be
| plus or minus a block, knowing I should turn at the stop light,
| or one intersection before the stop light, is the single most
| useful bit of information Google Maps gives me, and it is
| unfortunate I have to look down at my screen to glean this bit
| of important data.
|
| I've listened to the instructions Uber's mapping app gives to
| drivers, and it also seems to be an improvement over what
| Google Maps has.
|
| > apple needs to do a much better job of getting accurate POI
| (places of interest)
|
| Parking garages is a huge one. The day Google Maps added
| parking structure information for corporate offices (well over
| a decade ago) it became far more useful. It doesn't always have
| it, but when it does, super nice.
|
| Google Maps used to also accept tons of community
| contributions, for better and for worse. I am sad to see them
| go though, some people used to update food truck information
| regularly, and still today you can see the last location a food
| truck was marked as being at!
|
| Edit: Google Maps has also gotten pathologically obsessed with
| the "technically fastest" route over the years. At present,
| they will regularly direct drivers to do stupid things like
| turn left across 3-4 lanes of highway traffic, instead of going
| down 1 block and using an intersection that has a left turn
| signal. Are Google's directions technically 1 minute faster?
| Sure, at the cost of 1 extra white hair on my head. Not a good
| trade off.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _At present, they will regularly direct drivers to do stupid
| things like turn left across 3-4 lanes of highway traffic,
| instead of going down 1 block and using an intersection that
| has a left turn signal. Are Google 's directions technically
| 1 minute faster? Sure, at the cost of 1 extra white hair on
| my head._
|
| Telling drivers to turn left across traffic costs far more
| than that. It contributes directly to gridlock, which wastes
| everyone's time and fuel.
|
| It's inexcusable that turn-by-turn providers don't allow an
| option to disable or at least penalize left turns in their
| routing algorithm. UPS figured this out, what, 20 years ago?
| wizofaus wrote:
| At least Google maps usually makes it easy to compare 2 or
| 3 different route options and let you choose which makes
| the most sense. But I agree it should more heavily discount
| "dangerous" manoeuvres, or at least ones that could
| potentially take far longer than the average time. As far
| as whether such directions contribute to gridlock, I'm not
| so sure - in principle if everyone followed directions
| generated by the same algorithm with access to "live data",
| it should significantly help reduce it. It'll be
| interesting once all cars are self-driving/self-navigating
| whether that proves to be true, and whether there might end
| up being fundamental conflicts between different algorithms
| used by different makes of vehicle.
| com2kid wrote:
| It isn't the left turn that is the issue, if there is a
| highway in the middle there isn't much else you can do,
| after all if you are going to go across it you may as well
| turn left at the same stop light. I'm discounting the
| option of driving across all lanes of the highway without a
| stop light, since that is an even stupider plan than
| turning left to get onto the highway!
| mcphage wrote:
| > IMHO the single largest improvement to Google Maps in the
| last few years has been the inclusion of traffic lights on
| the map
|
| This is something I wanted for _years_. I was so happy when I
| finally started seeing it in Google Maps and Apple Maps.
| philjohn wrote:
| I used Apple Maps ONCE in my CarPlay enabled car.
|
| I asked for directions to my daughter's school. It took me
| somewhere 5 miles away, but in the general area.
|
| It's not a small or unknown school either, it's a well known
| and large preparatory school.
|
| That's the kind of first experience that turns people off for
| good - I know it did me.
| mongol wrote:
| So many different uses for maps. I use different apps for
| different purposes. While Google Maps have the commercial info,
| it is poor as a recreational map (hiking etc). For that I use
| Locus Map. For car navigation I have started to use HERE. And
| then there are the official websites, such as in Sweden
| Lantmateriet, with property borders etc that Google has nothing
| on. So I choose app depending on use.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| +1 for Here Maps navigation (especially like the speed limits
| and speed trap features), but they make keeping a list of
| locations really painful. You'd think they purposefully trying
| to make it unusable.
| debesyla wrote:
| Same. For hiking (geocaching) I just use OpenStreetMap and
| especially the german version of it (for some reason german
| version of Lithuania map seems more accurate...).
| adolph wrote:
| This is an article worth skimming. Key point is below.
| Interesting parts are links and summaries to the other mapping
| efforts. For example, I wasn't aware of Amazon's efforts.
|
| _OpenStreetMap (OSM), over the next decade, has the potential to
| do to Google what Android did to Apple: dramatically grow the
| overall market while drawing a clear line between the larger
| "open" ecosystem and the smaller "proprietary" one. The
| difference is that while Google Maps probably makes billions
| annually, it also probably costs billions to maintain, leaving it
| wallowing in a low-margin no-man's land compared to its big
| brother Google Search._
| glial wrote:
| I switched to Apple Maps as part of an attempt to de-googlify my
| life. It's pretty good 95% of the time. That 5% inconvenience is
| worth it, to me. However, after seeing the OSM mentions in the
| comments, I'm inclined to check that out... Apple Maps doesn't
| have offline navigation, and I wish it did.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Organic Maps works quite well. Though Google Maps is still
| better for car navigation and POIs - but if you need it for
| walking/hiking/tourism or need offline map data then it can be
| much better. Obviously there is also the entire privacy/open
| data angle that may be crucial or irrelevant.
|
| Mapy.cz are quite nice (sadly, they fail to mention source of
| data in violation of OSM license)
| db1234 wrote:
| What if this attitude catches on? i.e. ok with working well 95%
| of the time? Can that break Google's search dominance? What if
| there is a new search engine which does a good enough job of
| indexing top 'n' websites and not really care about hyper
| optimized results based on personal preferences? If such a
| search engine works well 95% of the time and that's good enough
| for most people, it could take significant traffic away from
| Google. People could still fallback on Google for those highly
| optimized results for complex search queries.
| [deleted]
| jacobolus wrote:
| DuckDuckGo works a higher percentage of the time than Google
| does for me, with a lot less visual clutter, advertising, or
| underhanded attempts to trick me. YMMV. (Though I would still
| prefer have Google search from ca. 2005-2010.)
|
| In particular,
|
| > _highly optimized results for complex search queries_
|
| Google has gotten almost completely worthless for these, but
| unfortunately no other search engine does a good job with
| them at this point either.
| adolph wrote:
| Apple Maps is a great OSM client.
|
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Apple
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20211204010048/http://gspa21.ls....
| swozey wrote:
| It's not free and has a pretty different use case but most of
| us in the Jeep community use Gaia GPS for offline maps, if you
| want to stay away from G it may be an option.
| ralusek wrote:
| The Jeep community sounds wild
| swozey wrote:
| We get lost a lot!
| lallysingh wrote:
| The moat can't go fast enough. It's still there, and I don't use
| Apple Maps so I can't tell if that's much better, but really,
| Maps hasn't improved in years, and generally seems worse.
|
| I'd eat the pain of going Osm (and I've been paying for OsmAnd+
| for years) but it doesn't know where anything is, and when it
| does, the routes are pretty bad.
| nr2x wrote:
| I'm not aware of anybody doing "eco friendly" routes with the
| intelligence, scale, or impact of google maps. Sure, it's not a
| sexy cool thing, but it's important.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Walking and biking are much more "eco friendly" than saving
| some fuel on a car ride, yet google maps has no idea where the
| bike lanes are half the time.
| nomel wrote:
| For most cases, minimizing energy means minimizing
| accelerations (positive or negative). I think that's usually
| the same route that minimizes time, and that's how most roads
| are planned: as steady as possible traffic flow. In most places
| I've lived, there seems to be an intentional penalization going
| off the "main" road, with stops signs at every intersection, so
| you don't drive through the housing areas.
|
| Do you mean routes that might avoid great elevation changes or
| something?
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| I don't remember the last time I used google maps. I use apple
| maps.
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| TIL just how huge Mapbox is. Good for them.
| faebi wrote:
| I still wonder at which point we can use machine learning to
| auto-extend OSM maps based on satellite images. Or even better,
| at which point Tesla on-the-fly data can be used to create
| persistent maps. I mean just have a look at the visible amount of
| data in that link. You literally can see the swans.
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=22/47.36686/8.54401
|
| Ignoring Tesla FSD itself, just look at the generated map data.
| Imagine how much more we can get if we don't need to run this at
| 20fps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkXcySUnJk
| throw8836 wrote:
| I was a googler working on Google maps at the time of the API
| self immolation.
|
| There were _strong_ complaints from within about the price
| changes. Obviously everyone couldn 't believe what was being
| planned, and there were countless spreadsheets and reports and
| SQL queries showing how this was going to shit all over a lot of
| customers that we'd be guaranteed to lose to a competitor.
|
| Management didn't give a shit.
|
| I don't know what the rationale was apart from some vague claim
| about "charging for value". A lot of users of the API apparently
| were basically under the free limits or only spending less than
| 100 USD on API usage so I can kind of understand the line of
| thought, but I still.thibk they went way too far.
|
| I don't know what happened to the architects of the plan. I
| presume promo.
|
| Edit: I should add that this was not a knee-jerk thing or some
| exec just woke up one day with an idea in their dreams. It was a
| planned change that took many months to plan and prepare for with
| endless preparations and reporting and so on.
| nr2x wrote:
| The CEO is an MBA who just lets the CFO run the place.
|
| I honestly think Larry and Sergei want their piggy bank to grow
| and put people in charge who would focus on on thing only:
| stock price.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| sentrms wrote:
| Quite a drastic change of direction it was. I wasn't willing to
| pay what Google asked for my sites maps usage and went to
| Mapbox until they stated raising prices. Currently using OSM
| with osm-static-maps https://github.com/jperelli/osm-static-
| maps It's still pretty complicated to run your own tile-server,
| something I would love to do.
| upupandup wrote:
| I don't buy these outlandish claims. the fact is for most people
| on desktops and android device are staring at Google Maps. I have
| Apple Maps too but I simply do not use it because I've grown used
| to just typing maps.google similar to how i just type the keyword
| in the URL browser and expect it to work.
|
| Google is truly the king of monopolies. Maps, Videos, Search.
|
| It really is remarkable and they will juice this forever.
| asdff wrote:
| Speaking of maps, anyone want to finally make a biking maps app
| that doesn't suck? Both google and apple maps throw you to busy
| arterial instead of parallel running residential roads that see
| no traffic at all. They are also both terrible for hills. "Pretty
| flat" usually just means less than 1000ft of elevation change in
| my experience. It basically leads you into false flats unless you
| go through the routing by hand with an actual topographical map
| (which google maps and these other competitors do not provide, I
| go to us govt sources).
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| I've been building (OSM-based) bike routing at
| https://cycle.travel/map. Web only for now but iOS app in beta
| testing. Always happy to hear feedback!
| mongol wrote:
| I have not used it for biking but Locus Map is at least an app
| where developers care about these usecases. Check it out
| silversnitch wrote:
| Google maps moat isn't evaporating. Most of the alternative
| mentioned here work only either in certain cities in US (like
| Apple Maps) or in specific countries.
|
| I'm a user in India and nothing, absolutely nothing comes close
| to Google maps in both urban and rural areas.
| bhupy wrote:
| Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its
| moat is evaporating.
|
| 10 years ago, most of the alternatives mentioned didn't even
| work in certain US cities or specific countries, and that's
| changed. It's only a matter of time before that holds true in
| India, and beyond. What that slow and steady march towards
| parity does to a moat can certainly be described as
| "evaporation".
| renewiltord wrote:
| Apple Maps verbal directions are better but Google Maps often
| gets me there quicker and more early detects changes in the world
| (closures, temporary closures, accidents).
| otterley wrote:
| (2020)
| extragood wrote:
| The article seems to completely ignore one simple thing that
| guarantees that Apple Maps can never fully compete with Google
| Maps: Apple Maps is only available on Apple devices. Today, iOS
| represents 27.5% of all mobile users, meaning that the best they
| can hope for is 1/3 market share. That assumes that Apple doesn't
| make any radical changes to their closed ecosystem philosophies.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| So what? Apple is well accustomed to succeeding and profiting
| wildly with minority market shares.
| impulser_ wrote:
| Google Maps is in the top 5 most downloaded iOS apps worldwide.
|
| So even Apple users don't want to use Apple Maps.
| labster wrote:
| Or, like me, you download Google Maps as a backup map app.
| Not having a map available is higher risk than most apps
| breaking; it's worth it to have a second option if Apple goes
| down.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Ok but as an Android user that users Google maps I can't
| remember when it last failed so this makes me think maybe
| Apple maps isn't very reliable?
| nequo wrote:
| > Google Maps is in the top 5 most downloaded iOS apps
| worldwide.
|
| It was listed in 7th place in this 2021 year-end round-up:
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/02/apple-most-
| downloaded-a...
|
| > So even Apple users don't want to use Apple Maps.
|
| I don't think that this follows from your claim. I have both
| Google Maps and Apple Maps but use Google Maps only for
| street view. I use Apple Maps for nearly everything including
| navigation.
| rasz wrote:
| 1/3 market share, 2/3 of the profits.
| etchalon wrote:
| Apple released extensive Maps APIs that mean third-parties
| could use Apple Maps on Android and on the Web.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| A lot of the comments here also completely ignore that basic
| fact when talking about alternatives to Google.
| superchroma wrote:
| Is google maps profitable? It seems to be another thing done for
| the sake of maintaining a market dominance with no clear monetary
| justification or roadmap.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Its estimated revenue is $5 billion per year with plans for $11
| billion in 4 years(from 2019). And based on the amount of ads I
| see there, it seems very believable.
|
| [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-maps-
| poised-11-billion...
| dylan604 wrote:
| It never ceases to amaze me at the creativity in where they
| can shove an ad
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Maps seems like the expected place to put ads. Billboards
| have been around forever.
|
| Not blockable by ad blockers, you have people with intent
| to drive by certain places, or drive to certain places.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Maps' ads are a little more pernicious than billboards.
| You'll note that Google doesn't display all the
| businesses that appear on a map every time, but if you
| pay up it will display your business, even make it
| prominent.
|
| OSM shows all businesses (as far as their data goes) and
| that is the right way to go. There are ways of dealing
| with clutter. The fact that I can't find what I know is
| there on Google Maps (unless I do a text search for it)
| is infuriating and a deal breaker.
| com2kid wrote:
| Lots of B2B and embedded use cases. Want to make a product
| showing driving times between destinations? Google Maps API,
| $$. Want to show how busy a restaurant is? Places API. Someone
| just did a bike route and you want to tell them the elevation
| gain they did? API call.
|
| Google Maps and Places actually both have a ton of paid use
| cases, largely around being embedded in other apps. My defunct
| events startup made heavy use of both.
|
| Something this article neglects to mention is that Google Maps
| has an inherit advantage by being baked into Android. Even if
| Maps isn't using any private APIs or has any special
| permissions, the sheer install base that they can use to
| collect data gives them a technological lead over anyone who
| isn't Apple (or one of the large Chinese phone manufacturers in
| any of the markets they have large market share in).
|
| Traffic data? Aggregated from millions upon millions (billions)
| of Android users. Restaurant busyiness? Google knows how many
| of their users are at a location. For quite awhile (not sure if
| this is still the case) if you took a photo of a restaurant on
| your phone, Google would just outright ask you to upload it to
| Google maps. Yelp can't compete with that!
|
| As an aside, these are also some of the reasons why Microsoft
| kept fighting for some smartphone market share. There are so
| many things you can only do if you are installed by default
| _everywhere_.
|
| Google can go up to websites "You should enable Google accounts
| for login because literally 70% of smartphone users have a
| Google account".
|
| Boom, overnight market share in a related market, analytics
| data flows in at a furious rate, ad revenue keeps going up.
|
| "Let your customers pay with Google pay, double digit % of all
| smartphone users have it setup."
|
| Anyone who isn't Amazon or Apple (maybe Paypal due to
| historical market share) can replicate that salespitch, and for
| whatever reason Amazon stopped focusing on Pay with Amazon (no
| idea why, awesome product).
| bee_rider wrote:
| A (completely tangential, barely related) thought -- it was at
| one point pretty well known that Apple's app store was quite a
| bit better than Google's, in terms of $/download. I wonder if a
| similar trend can be seen in maps.
| [deleted]
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