
Ask HN: Apple maps vs. Google maps today? - softwareman
How do they compare? 
Should Apple release their map app on Android?
======
arethuza
I use Google Maps, Apple maps, Bing maps and OpenStreetMap

Some comments:

\- Apple maps were pretty awful when they first came out but now seem good
enough (and I generally use them for walking directions in cities)

\- Google StreetView is great - satellite view where we are in the UK is about
12 years old so useful for a historical view

\- Apple and Bing satellite views are good, much more up to date that Google's
and often better quality

\- Bing in the UK has Ordnance Survey maps down to 1:25,000 which is _awesome_

\- OpenStreetMap often has details (particularly footpaths) that no other map
has

Edit: Was impressed with the speed that Google had the new Queensferry
Crossing bridge on their maps - neither Bing or Apple have this on their maps
yet. OpenStreetMap does, of course!

Edit2: Use my cars built in sat-nav, mainly because of the ergonomics (big
buttons) and multiple displays.

~~~
amelius
Do they all support an offline mode, where specific maps can be downloaded in
advance?

~~~
arethuza
I'm very old school when it comes to offline mode - if I'm going somewhere
where I _need_ a map (e.g. up a mountain) I'll either buy the relevant OS
waterproof map, or print out a map and carry it in a waterproof case and use
with a compass.

Edit: I don't know if anyone has died in the Scottish mountains because their
smartphone battery ran out but I've certainly been in plenty situations where
if I didn't have some kind of navigational aid I'd have been in serious
trouble!

~~~
Piskvorrr
Commendable. A map that doesn't need batteries is the best map.

------
zimpenfish
Apple Maps is fine. The rendering is still slightly worse than Google Maps
when it comes to putting relevant information in the viewport (street names,
primarily.)

But the search ... good grief, the search still sucks donkey balls through a
molecular straw. It seems to lack any sense of your local context and location
- which is kinda relevant for maps!

e.g. frequently when I used to search for "charing cross" whilst in London, it
would offer "Charing Cross, Glasgow" as the default. (That's been fixed now)

There was another time I was searching for something in, IIRC, Dover, UK
whilst in Dover, UK and it offered me something in Maryland, USA. Absolute
dogshit.

And it just plain doesn't know about real places - searched for Leigh Library
the other week (whilst about 400yds away!) which lives on Civic Square (part
of its official quoted address) and the only "Civic Square" it offered was in
Motherwell (Scotland!)

~~~
m_st
Full ACK, the search should be contextual, but I get US results in
Switzerland! Or when I search for "Train station", then I expect it to suggest
me the closest ones until I continue refining my search. But I get results
from other countries or that are very far away. Also "Train station <city>"
doesn't always give the same result as "<city> train station".

~~~
_nalply
Once I searched for a métairie in the French speaking Jura mountains (a
métairie is a mountain hut offering food and rest) and got Metairie, LA.

------
thomasfoster96
The biggest issue that I (being in Melbourne, Australia) have with Apple Maps
is that it is _incredibly_ slow. It was barely usable because of the speed on
my iPhone (even on 4G) before I removed the app, and is pretty much unusable
on my Macbook. I’m talking up to a minute before an actual map would display,
and often up to 30 seconds when zooming in. I know quite a few other people
have the same problem - even the Macs in the nearby Apple Store take ages to
load anything. I can only assume that Apple doesn’t have a data centre in
Australia or south-east Asia that serves the Maps app.

Google Maps is pretty reliable. I do use it a lot for walking though, and
there are some issues in that department: strange routes, especially if there
isn’t a road nearby, often useless time estimations, etc. Plus up until
recently public transport wasn’t supported in Melbourne (but was on Apple
Maps), which was a pain. Public transport support still isn’t 100%. My main
qualm is that the web version drains my laptop’s battery at an alarmingly
quick rate - and on my phone it certainly doesn’t help battery life either.

OpenStreetMap’s data is far superior to both Apple Maps and Google Maps in my
experience - the only problem is that not being commercial means that search
and routing are pretty much useless. I would happily use an app that offered
all the features of Google Maps but used Mapbox tiles (and gave me a choice of
map style).

~~~
adambrenecki
I'm in Adelaide, Australia and I've never had this problem; I get maps within
a second on both iOS and macOS, ADSL and LTE (Telstra in both cases).

(As an aside, from what I've heard, public transport support being terrible in
Vic is mostly on PTV's head, not Apple or Google.)

~~~
thomasfoster96
Strange - I just tried Maps on my Mac again and it was ~20s from the window
opening to a map appearing (but much quicker when zooming out/in). I’m on TPG
ADSL, which is usually able to stream 4K Netflix/YouTube with very few
problems. But as I said, even the Macs in JB HiFi and the Apple store take a
long time to load Maps, and I’ve had the same delays in Tasmania as well.

Yeah I wouldn’t be surprised if PTV bureaucracy had something to do with it
but it’s not as though they themselves are bad at technology, given their own
app has been able to track trams and some buses for years...

------
jitl
Apple is still pretty far behind, in my view.

Here’s an excellent in-depth comparison:
[https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-
comparison/](https://www.justinobeirne.com/cartography-comparison/)

~~~
dmitriid
It's not complete without the equally amazing followup
[https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-
appl...](https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-apple-maps)

~~~
zimpenfish
Strangely, Patricia's Green is now fully fleshed out with paths and green (at
least on iOS 11b8.)

------
m_st
Switzerland here. Apple Maps is still pretty bad compared to Google Maps.

While Apple Maps is indeed usable, Google Maps is just so much better.
Recently I searched for a train station like "Bahnhof Flamatt" and Apple Maps
gave me something in the US. Another day I searched something in Bern and
Apple Maps gave me results for New Bern in the US. On another day I suddenly
got black and white (!) maps in Apple Maps, then I got blurry maps. All of
areas that were just fine before.

 _Edit: typos_

~~~
m_st
I occasionally use Apple Maps while driving because of the nice integration.
But then you can't see the current song anymore! Is anyone at Apple using
this??? I can't believe they didn't consider this and use a small portion of
the screen to show the current song and allow prev/next/play|pause.

------
tigroferoce
I'm not a heavy user of Apple Maps, but from my personal non scientific tests,
the support in Italy is pretty bad, so I guess it might be bad elsewhere
outside the U.S. As an example, Google Maps knows a lot about my city,
including public transportation and most of the shops, while Apple Maps does
not.

------
sdfjkl
We've been sailing Europe, so had plenty of opportunity to compare maps in
different locations.

Google maps is great for navigating cities you're unfamiliar with. It gives
you public transport information (not complete, missing buses here in Porto
for example, but pretty good), points of interest (with funny gaps though),
place reviews with photos and the search is really good. On my aging iPhone 4S
both the app and the maps and search results load faster than Apple maps. The
web version has recently gotten more horrible and is the usual Javascript
overloaded catastrophe that just doesn't work at all on crappy internet
connections (which is the norm when traveling). I have a bookmark for the old
(now called "lite") version. The phone app is okay but has the horrid habit of
nagging you ceaselessly about wanting you to log in and share your everything
with Google.

Apple maps search is _atrocious_. Even pasting in an exact address, it will
often find some completely irrelevant spot in a small town in the US instead
of anything over here in Europe where I am. Searching for things like
"library" is even more hopeless, it'll show me something like "Library road"
in a village in Cornwall rather than the library in Porto just around the
corner from where I'm standing. The only time I ever use it is if I want to
show people on a far zoomed out view where we've been, because the OS X client
is faster than Google maps web and really nice to navigate by touchpad.

Bing maps has often more recent and higher resolution satellite images than
any of the others. I can't speak of any of their other features as I only ever
use it via SAS.planet, but when I want to check my nautical charts with
satellite images I often end up using Bing's data.

------
jochakovsky
I use Apple Maps pretty regularly since I have a car with CarPlay. Most of the
time, it works fine. But for trips in heavy traffic, I always turn to Google
Maps to find the best route. I'm considering getting an Android phone as my
next phone just to have Android Auto. Is Google Maps missing in CarPlay
because Apple doesn't want to allow it or because Google doesn't want to
provide it?

~~~
CSDude
As far as I know, Apple allows only audio apps I guess

------
ksec
It depends on Region. But Generally speaking Google is still the best, and
Apple is (only) good enough for certain places.*

I was searching for news on iPhone NFC-F / Suica, ( Simply the best NFC tech
there is and has been for the last 20 years and still have not picked up
stream due to various stupid reasons ) I stumpled upon

[https://atadistance.net/](https://atadistance.net/)

* I dont know the site owner nor affiliate with it.

It basically explain in details how crap the Apple Map in Tokyo are. And it is
the same in many other places in SEA Region. My guess is that most part of EU
aren't any better.

Edit: I am not sure if anyone on HN can shine any light on the process. Why do
Apple buy data from third party sources and not at the same time create their
own? And if Google buy data sources as well?

------
smcl
Apple maps is "ok" here (Czech Republic) but there's really no reason to use
it, mapy.cz and Google Maps have everything Apple does but also things like
transit stops, more businesses (mapy even has building numbers and cycle
routes) and it also tends to be slightly more accurate.

Here's a comparison of the three on my current location because I'm bored
waiting on something:

[https://imgur.com/gallery/cFpcx](https://imgur.com/gallery/cFpcx)

~~~
Piskvorrr
...and OpenStreetMap, even more detailed:
[http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/49.17020/16.62639](http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/49.17020/16.62639)

------
binaryanomaly
I was travelling recently in Russia and Asia for a few months. My impression
was that Google Maps is in general by magnitudes better and more helpful than
Apple Maps.

It depends a bit on the country though as for some countries Google does not
own the Map data and services are limited, i.e. in China and also Japan afaik.

OpenStreetMap is usually a good alternative especially if you are not able to
read local languages. Otherwise you'll be fine with local versions such as
baidu maps, etc.

------
hamuraijack
I use Apple Maps for 99% of my needs. I only use it as a driving aid and don't
really care about cartographic accuracy. I prefer the directions Apple Maps
give since they seem to use less complex routes. I really dislike how Google
Maps will use tiny side roads that are impossible to find and exit, just
because it's 1 minute faster. Most of the time, I lose that benefit because
those side roads are not easy to navigate.

------
blikdak
Apple Maps is still pretty much unusable in New Zealand, missing or bad
information, no finer detail than maybe street name or even suburb, almost
non-existent search capability that seems to guess the wrong place if it can't
find what you're looking for. The list goes on. Google Maps however seems
fully functional over here, including Street View.

------
dwb
Apple Maps is good enough for me ninety-five times out of a hundred (in the
UK), and it's a lot faster than Google Maps. Between that and Galileo on iOS
(OSM data), I'm pretty covered though I do keep Google Maps lying around just
in case. Apple Maps has improved by at least an order of magnitude since it
was first released.

------
piecu
Disclaimer: I live in Poland, not US, so my view can be a bit different.

I use Apple Maps very often as I use CarPlay in my car (it does not have
Google Maps interface). And I really appreciate how good these maps are,
especially when I compare them to the initial release. They have very good
coverage and are updated often enough.

The other advantage is that it really has good live traffic info. I sometimes
compare it to what Google Maps or Waze offers (either when I'm stuck in
traffic or with my passenger) and it usually better reflects current
conditions.

The only think worth improving is calculating routes as sometimes it doesn't
want to get current traffic conditions into considerations (especially when
there is long route). And it is sometimes very slow in calculating routes.

------
sksksk
I find that in richer countries with more iPhones, Apple Maps is on par with
Google Maps. But in places with fewer iPhones, it can go a bit haywire.

Here's a couple of Apple/Google maps comparisons I've noticed and taken
screenshots off. First one in San Andres (Colombia), second in East Jerusalem.
[http://imgur.com/a/QgnS3](http://imgur.com/a/QgnS3)

I also noticed that Apple Maps would translate street names, in lots of
Colombian countries, streets are laid out in a grid. With the streets that go
east to west called "Calles", and north to south called "Carreras" (i.e. Calle
69 con carrera 4).

Apple maps would translate these to be called Street 69 and Road 4.

~~~
m_st
Sorry to object, but: Switzerland is a _rich_ country with more iPhones then
Android phones (until recently that is). Apple Maps is definitely not on par
with Google Maps here.

------
heavymark
Apple Maps has slowly gotten better and better over the years. I use it now
mostly over Google Maps, however that is mostly because of all the
integrations with iOS Homescreen/Apple Watch/CarPlay etc and the UI, etc. In
the end, it's a better experience than Google Maps on iOS, but would definetly
not recommend an Android version since all those iOS benefits wouldn't apply
on Android, and at the root of it, Google Maps still has superior data, so I
don't see people on Android using Apple Maps, but rather tha opposite, would
make them like Apple even less and not want to switch. In my opinion.

------
pawelkomarnicki
City navigation + smartwatch is much better for me with Apple Maps than it was
ever with Google and Android Wear :-) I switched entirely to Apple Maps
lately, car navigation is flawless as well :-)

------
dmoo
I have Car Play so use Apple Maps a lot. If I am going somewhere new I check
the route on google maps as well to see if they agree. I used Apple Maps a lot
in France this year on holiday and always got to where I needed to go. Routes
chosen were sometimes questionable in terms of using the best road but I have
had this with a Garmin in the past as well. It's unfortunate that you cant
download an area as you can on google maps but the new european data roaming
directive has helped this somewhat.

------
yoz-y
Apple maps has better traffic information in Paris. Google will happily send
you to a closed station and it does not have marked exists. Both are shit
compared to City Mapper though. However in general Apple has far fewer
locations and generic search works less well (e.g. looking for a cleaner).
Apple maps has better integration (but that is a low blow) and better
interface for walking.

Google has better offline mode and caches maps for longer, so it works better
without internet connection.

------
madiathomas
I switched from Android few months back. Tried Apple Maps and it was awful and
lost me on several occassions. Maybe it is where I am located. I stay at
Johannesburg, South Africa. Google Maps is always up to date where I stay and
closed streets are updated. Google Maps always avoid roads which are under
constructions. With Apple Maps, it is not the case. Decided to stick to Google
Maps. I will try Apple Maps in 2-3 years.

------
sgtnasty
I use navigation every day on the iPhone. Google maps is superior in my view
(in the USA) over Apple maps because:

1) You can turn off the voice navigation. 2) Google maps show you which lane
to be in for an oncoming turn. 3) Google maps have a better "sense" of which
lane you are in when you are in an initial turn. Apple maps seem to get lost
and start to re-route.

------
jamie--stewart
I think Google Maps is way more advanced when it comes to peripheral
information such as business listings.

For example, a small stationery shop near where I live was marked as closed in
Apple Maps, when Google Maps (correctly) showed that it was open for a couple
more hours. That sort of thing makes Google Maps the winner IMO.

------
nkristoffersen
I prefer the design of Apple maps... but as a full-time traveler I need the
offline capabilities of Google maps.

~~~
zimpenfish
The maps.me app has decent offline support (downloadable regions) although the
rendering is a bit garish.

------
YouKnowBetter
I drive a lot in Europe, country to country. NOTHING beats Google maps to get
me from A to B while avoiding whatever would slow me down. As much as I enjoy
particular features of Apple Maps (Better indicators of particular highway
splits), it is just lousy at having a clue what is up ahead.

------
mrmondo
I've switched from Google maps to Apple maps as of about 6 months ago, I find
that in Melbourne (Australia) recent street changes seem to be updated more
frequently on Apple maps, I also find the app to use less battery. I'm sure it
differs city (or maybe country) by country.

------
limeblack
I live in a place with a lot of roundabouts and I will say Apple Maps gets
them right 1/3 of the time while Google Maps has never been wrong.

------
harryf
In Switzerland Apple Maps is missing the public transport, which Google has -
a killer feature.

------
cstuder
I use Google Maps for their biking routes which seem to work pretty well.

No bike routing on Apple Maps.

------
rrdharan
Apple Maps still lacks cycling directions, which is a killer feature for me.

~~~
flukus
In google maps I had to switch back to car directions anyway, there are a
number of places with awful bike paths running near the direction I'm
travelling and the directions keep trying to force me onto them.

------
konart
Russia. Apple maps are useless compared to Yandex or Google maps.

~~~
pawelkomarnicki
Is there any non-Russian app that works better than Russian one in Russia
anyway? ;-)

------
hiven
I deleted apple maps as soon as I could

