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 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.
I fully agree, Osmand is so close to being great. It's clear that a ton of work has been put into it, but has a few major flaws that make it nearly useless. It's the first open source project I've considered contributing to, and I might do it soon.
* The jank you mention - it was one of the first things I noticed as well.
* Search just doesn't work. They have addresses and POI in their database, but for whatever reason, search strings don't match, and addresses don't work at all either. It's completely broken.
* Really needs the ability to toggle direction mode, i.e. always pointing north, or pointing in the direction of travel or the device's compass.
I also would like to add a couple improvements that are not really flaws with the app:
* Ability to record GPS path
* Ability to share recordings/trails - would allow me to get rid of AllTrails
Another contributing factor with the jank is the "snapping" to discrete zoom levels. One of the primary benefits of rendering vector tiles is continuous zoom!
Also, the direction mode toggle you mention does exist, and works quite well. The flipside of Osmand's awesome configurability is that it takes me 5 minutes of digging to figure out how to enable things like this.
There is trip recording, but it's disabled by default (check the plugins menu), probably to avoid cluttering the main screen too much. You get a gpx file that you can view and export.
There is also an option for "pointing north", "pointing in the direction on the compass", "pointing in the direction of movement". It's not intuitive though: double-tap the compass icon.
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.
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.
I firmly believe people won't try it if they think there's even a small chance it's not the best thing out there. Again, I use Microsoft's get the facts campaign of FUD from years ago. Simple, and extremely effect and deterred many fence sitters.
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.
Sure, if you have a marketing budget you can do all kinds of stuff. Here, OP is marketing against the app which is already at the disadvantage of not having a marketing budget and being free (which people incorrectly associate with bad).
So.. You know, do the devs a favour and don't market against them? It doesn't harm you to just stay out of it if you don't have anything nice to say. Go dunk on the big corps. They can financially handle it.
You seem to think that 'marketing' equals 'deception to trick people into buying a product'. This is a very narrow view.
Marketing is a much broader field [1]. Of course a part of it is about how to effectively convey an idea to someone. However, deceiving people will only work for short-term businesses, as it is much more work to build your image after a deception or schandal. That is why brands often cease to exist after a schandal, as starting a new brand is much easier.
I developed an open source app myself and I'd rather inform future users about its limitations before they use it. This way, they have a positive feeling towards the app, even though it could not deliver value in their case. This has nothing to do with budget (for my open source project, budget is ~0 anyways). You need budget for advertising, reaching out to potential customers, engage with your customers, etc. The budget needed for clearly communicating the value of your product is negligible.
You seem to think that downsides or limitations are inherently negative. Knowing a downside in advance is actually a huge advantage.
[1]: "Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
Didn't say pretend, asked to treat zero to low budget FOSS better than we do mega corps with infinite budgets. Help adoption by not needlessly pointing out minor issues on otherwise incredible programs. I think it's fair when the competition can market their way into anyone's pocket.
Meanwhile, Atlassian forbids in their ToS to comment publicly about Jira’s performance. Along the lines of “You will not: (d) Publicly disseminate information about the performance of the Products.”
Disagree, I think this backfires when you hear only positive praise for some software, mainly because it's Open Source, etc - then the experience is really lacking. I think it sets expectations too high.
Lots of paid stuff sucks, but marketing money convinces the masses to use it. The request is that you at the very least don't help the powerful marketing budgets.
This is a major fundamental usability concern. I’m really not concerned with what the competition is or what tone fans of this particular app expect everyone to use to help in the noble battle against the competition. I think it’s entirely appropriate to point out major usability issues and to have high usability standards for the entire software industry.
It's really not a usability concern. It works great. I didn't even notice until OP mentioned it (I imagine others woudlnt have noticed either but now will, thus my post)
Just wanted to pitch in and say i didnt notice it either until it was mentioned here. Your points are both incredibly controversial while still having reason. I kind of wonder if a similar mentality can observed in iOS vs Android. Are android users more critical of their own ecosystem as compared to ios users? That hasn't really hurt android's market share, but perhaps that's mainly due to the premium price of iPhones.
Could be! Could very well be. I personally prefer android devices because there's more variety.
As for my controversial take, I'm just trying to limit the abuse of our collective goodwill by marketers, generally. They take advantage of our good nature as we assume the best possible interpretation of their actions/words, or pretend as if the generosity of FOSS devs deserve the same criticism as a trillion dollar company just because the end results look the same on our phone. People would see it differently if they stood everyone at Google beside everyone at OSMAnd for example. Google has an astonishing 135,000 (or more) employees. OSMAnd has 20 if you include major contributors.
If you're looking for an alternative OSM app on Android or iOS that performs reasonably well, it might be worth checking out "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old maps.me), which is open source and based on OSM's mapping data.
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.
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 lässt update later.
StreetComplete is great but it is focused on updating broad range of existing objects. Every Door on the other hand is the best for adding and updating POIs.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I should probably try one of those apps, since Google and Apple certainly don't "get" public transit. Like when I'm going somewhere and need to change trains, I really just need to know the frequency of each service, not get fixated on an exact time as if I'm buying airplane tickets.
Google Maps certainly does "get" public transit. It's absolutely fantastic in Tokyo, telling you all the available routes, how long they'll take, how much they'll cost you, what platform to stand on, what station exit to take, which train car to board for most efficient transfer, what time the train will come exactly, etc. I don't need the frequency of trains, I need the exact time it comes, because that is when the train will arrive. And if I get delayed by stopping in a shop in the station, it's no big deal since the next train will arrive within 5 minutes anyway.
Here in NYC, Google Maps does absolutely none of these. It doesn't offer price, or which train car to board for efficient transfers - both of these are only offered in the Citymapper app. All the apps do offer when the next train will arrive, but most will not offer alternate line trains on the fly if you were to stop over at a shop, for example. The Transit app does offer alternate lines on the fly, but only if it was one of the initial alternatives for that sector.
Citymapper is also the only app that handles train or bus disruptions somewhat gracefully - I've had both Google and Apple maps offer routes on trains that were currently not running.
Aren't all train tickets the same price in NYC? In Tokyo, there's a bunch of different train companies, and every fare is different depending on the company, where you're going, if you're doing a transfer, etc.
>or which train car to board for efficient transfers
Because it would be useless: in America, there's absolutely no concept of a train stopping at the same place in a station every time. There could be a half-train-length difference between where one train stops, and where the next train stops on the same tracks in the same station, because the operators are so sloppy. Here in Tokyo, they stop at the exact same place every time: there's automated doors on the platform that have to line up with the train doors in many stations, and specific places to stand marked on the platform with markings for which car number will be there.
Subway trains, yes, but not the commuter rail. Plus, while on the subway network one transfer to and from the bus network is free, your route might require you to make multiple transfers that are not free. In addition, there are also cross borough express buses that are more expensive. Citymapper is the only app that shows total prices alongside the route options.
in America, there's absolutely no concept of a train stopping at the same place in a station every time. There could be a half-train-length difference between where one train stops, and where the next train stops on the same tracks in the same station, because the operators are so sloppy.
Not the case at all. The NYC subway conductors are required to manually point to "Zebra Boards" aligned with the center of the platform at every single stop - a practice that originated in Japan. Some stations also need platform gap fillers to be extended when the train arrives, which also requires trains to stop at very specific points at the platform. NYC subway platforms also have markings to stand for where the train door will be.
This is all to say that it is indeed possible to know which train car to board for efficient transfer or exit. Google Maps only provides information on which exit or entrance to use at the station, but nothing about the platform itself. Citymapper tells you that the best location to board the train is towards the back, for example.
>I think that if Facebook did just provide phonebook-like functionality I would be so interested in using it. Instead, it feels more like an application(s) built to serve ads that happens to provide some phonebook functionality.
Interesting, I guess I didn't notice this last time I was in NYC.
In DC (where I lived for years until recently), this stuff just isn't the case at all. There's no way to predict where the operator will stop the train, and it can be many car-lengths different from operator to operator.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
The funny thing was: my college who has always the newest IPhone told me one day that google maps on his phone wouldn't route him along cycle roads. It was of course Apple Maps and it doesn't have cycle routing in my quite big city in Germany (Frankfurt/M).
Well at least I now know how those cyclists get onto the Autobahn because not realising that Apple Maps doesn't have cycle routing, the poor man almost ended up on a highway.
To be fair, Google Maps’ cycling and walking directions are also very sketchy.
I think driving directions are similar or slightly better in Apple Maps. But finding the place where you want to go is where Apple is behind. Misplaced, duplicate, missing POIs is what we learned to expect. Apple needs to find a way to motivate all kinds of businesses to put themselves and their opening hours on their map.
Google directions are the second best navigation experience I had here in Germany for cycling. Close behind OSM (probably because they take data from OSM without saying so...).
Cycle ways are also quite well documented here. It shouldn't be an issue at all. Especially in such a big city. They even use OSM data officially.
My guess is: they just don't care because the market is not good enough and most of their customers are happy with car navigation. According to the wiki page [+] they have cycling maps in China which is ridiculous if you consider the bike infrastructure in Germany. It isn't if you consider the market.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
I’ve printed out Waze directions for a 5 hour drive when I didn’t have a smart phone. I was confused when Waze told me to take the next exit because it was going into a different city. Turned out when I got to that exit there was a huge line of cars reduced to a crawl on the highway and Waze had me drive through the town to, presumably, save time. 4 years later and I’m still amazed printed out directions accurately predicted backed-up traffic.
Why isn’t Waze integrated more into GMaps? I’ve heard they use it as a beta platform to test features but I rarely use google maps so I have no clue.
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.
I wonder what percent of app downloads are re-downloads onto new/wiped devices. I've had Google Maps since it first came out, back before Apple had its own maps. So every time I purchase a new iPhone or iPad, or restore one of my existing devices, Google Maps gets another download.
It's possible these re-downloads are utterly swamped by people picking apps out of the app store. But it can't hurt to have a huge base of legacy installs that reduplicate every time someone gets a new device.
Maps are social. When I search for a place in Google maps, I get reviews, pictures, it feels alive.
When I search for a place on Apple Maps, firstly it may not even exist because who cares about Apple maps, and secondly it's likely to have few reviews or photos.
I just tried with a local restaurant. Google maps has dozens of photos and 100 reviews. Apple maps has 1 review and no photos.
If you just need a satnav, then Apple maps is OK I guess, if it has the place you're going to. But why take the risk? I never open the thing.
Apple Maps shows reviews from Yelp, at least for the POIs I’ve seen. Although I don’t trust Yelp reviews entirely, I trust them more than Google reviews.
> 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.
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.
TIL. Never noticed (I do half my searches with DDG).
But it's even more terrible than Google Maps. It still has the bike shop that closed over 3 1/2 years ago and not the new shop. I just found a "restaurant" that is the actual address of a local food truck it seems (German legal imprint), and the "book shop" I did not know about seems to be a warehouse because I can't find the address on their home page. But at least some of the shops are correct...
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.
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".
> Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating
Personally I think it does because frankly speaking this sort of change tends to happen in the US/Canada and maybe a handful of other western countries at best and nowhere else, for reasons far greater than tech enthusiasts' belly-aching.
Take Apple Maps as an alternative, for example, which is pretty much only available on Apple devices and can thus not march towards parity amongst populations that simply cannot afford Apple devices (which is the majority of people on Earth). It's not just "a matter of time" before Apple Maps is a real challenger in India, because iPhones have a low-single-digit market share there. It would take actual significant action such as Apple releasing Apple Maps for Android for it to even be in the running, and even if that happens then it would still need to contend with Google Maps' existing foothold.
Right and before the alternatives didn’t even work in those specific places. Ergo there’s no reason to think there won’t be changes to competitors in 5 years in India.
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…
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Addresses in OSM are in expanded format eg 100 south 35th street. What you’re entering is likely 100 s 35th st. Osmand looks for exact string matches so it won’t find the address.
Addresses in OSM are divided into their constituent parts, so you have separate house number, street (or place), city, suburb, country, etc.
Of course, you still need country-specific code to account for all the various abbreviations, e.g. Str. in German, or the cardinal directions and road type abbreviations common in the US (blvd, hwy, dr, etc. ... I've recently fixed a bunch of those in OSM and it's quite a list). Well, and checking alt_name, local names and names in other languages in OSM as well.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mapbox traffic and routing is pretty far from ideal. Used it for driving directions for awhile because of the relative cost and ended up constantly wishing we could just use Google. I don't recall specific issues though.
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.
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.
Google maps has been becoming worse over time. It used to show metro lines by default. Now, you have to turn that on as a layer. It used to show all the stations on those lines. Now, depending on zoom, it algorithmically decides that some aren't important enough to show. It also stopped showing things like station names and what stops there. So you can no longer use it as a transit map, and just glance at it for directions. The alternative is the far more tedious interaction of typing in your destination and waiting for the server to respond with step by step idiot-proof directions when all you actually needed was the line number.
But then it gets worse. Suppose the page is still loading. For some arcane reason, part of the interface loads, then the map, then the rest of the interface. If you can't find the navigation buttons for pan and zoom, they are exactly where you first looked they simply weren't displayed yet. The interface also used to make it easy to drop pins and measure distances. Just basic quality of life utility that a good online map should have.
How did gmaps get worse? If they did literally nothing it would be better. Someone came in at some point and decided "this isn't designed enough" and proceeded to hide or rip out features. Superficial minimalism. It's not simplification, it's reduction.
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.
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).
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.
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.
I feel osmand has restored so much of my agency in regards to phone maps it is painful to go back to google maps. So far it has proved to be, by far, my favorite map application. I hope their weird mixture of opensource application with paid version makes them enough money to keep the lights on. Because it sure has made an excellent program.
One of the things I especially like about osmand. is that the developers(developer?) don't have some designer running rampant, reducing user agency in the name of minimalism. If I want 15 different status overlays cluttering up my map I can have them. It is great.
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.
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.
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).
I tested it out with my typical work commute and the routing seemed pretty reasonable actually, beyond unprotected straights and left turns on major arteries that just aren't going to be easy to do. My issues are of course the osm layer view has a lot of seemingly useless information that I can't make any sense of. Look at the region around Beverly Blvd and Silverlake Blvd in Los Angeles: What is all that red stuff randomly on roads and alleyways supposed to represent? It's also on the stands in the hollywood bowl. Bike lanes are also not demarked on here, although weird things like the 'official' route of route 66 through LA are demarked clear as day although I'm not sure why anyone would ever need that piece of information. There's also a dotted purple line on some streets that I'm not sure what it could possibly represent, because its kinda like the red lines just randomly applied without any significance seemingly. Another issue seems to be that I can't type an address at all, I need to zoom in and choose it with the mouse. Good luck with the project, hope my feedback helps some.
Quite nice; I've also tested my commute and the proposed route is quite good. I usually like https://brouter.de/brouter-web/ but a mobile app would be very convenient.
Strava and Ridewithgps are great for routing bike rides, and derive much of their routing priority from how popular roads and paths are from recorded gps tracks of their users.
Still not perfect, since cycling route quality is ultimately a bit subjective, but far better than Google Maps that makes objectively bad bike route decisions.
My experience as enterprise user of google product and services is that the client is as annoyance for them.
I believe even the poor account managers have a miserable life trying to convince the company to care for the clients.
Microsoft is the worst cloud, but I can talk to human beings quickly.
Last month I had a question about a (sadly inferior) stream processing service from Microsoft and was greet by a very good answer from the PRODUCT OWNER on stack overflow.
Fell in love for the product after that.
So, google, please stop selling services because you don't want to deal with costumers.
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 Lantmäteriet, with property borders etc that Google has nothing on. So I choose app depending on use.
+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.
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...).
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
> I still wonder at which point we can use machine learning to auto-extend OSM maps based on satellite images.
There’s https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/RapiD which helps users to add features based on AI predictions. Each feature has to be properly reviewed though. A blank import of such features won’t happen anytime soon.
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.
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.
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?
Shortest route is usually most fuel efficient, but in some cases it will surface a route that is three min longer but uses less energy for whatever reason.
I tried the eco friendly routing on a few softwares; I think https://maps.openrouteservice.org does it and our car also. In both cases, it turns highway traffic into city and B-road/Landstraße traffic.
This is counter-productive: it produces more CO2 for all the braking and accelerating.
What you need to do is don't drive 130 but drive 100 on the highway. Go behind a truck if you are okay with going that slowly (not to avoid wind, afaik then you'd have to be unsafely close, but behind a truck you cannot annoy other people because they need to overtake the truck anyhow). The downside: on an average commute of like 20 minutes, that costs you probably like 2 minutes extra (since top speed is far above average speed usually). The upside: your fuel consumption (fuel burned = CO2 created) is cut nearly in half, at least for the highway part of the trip. No braking also means less particulate matter from brake wear; no shifting back means less partial combustion. Or so I've read.
The most efficient speed (afaik): as slow as your car allows (~1000 rpm) in the highest gear it has.
I hope it goes without saying, though, that one should prioritize safety (go with the flow; worse/more(?) accidents happen in high speed difference zones) over efficiency gains.
Our EV likes to suggest a route that takes 33 minutes instead of 28, but uses 30% less electricity (and avoids rush hour backups, as a bonus). It's using HERE WeGo maps, from what I can tell. (They're underrated in my opinion. They're formerly known as Nokia Maps; it was the default on windows phone, still is free phones, and still works offline.)
"Eco friendly" is a function of the car's aerodynamics, weight, regenerative breaking, auto shutoff at traffic lights, etc, etc. It seems better left to the manufacturer to set those parameters.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Off-topic, but does anyone know of an app to “walk” Street View (Google or Apple version) in VR/AR mode? Which is to say, where you control your view by rotating the device (so you get a real feel for direction). And perhaps go forwards/backwards by tilting the screen or something?
I think that would be great to familiarize yourself with a place you’ve never been to. More intuitive and less disorienting than tapping around on the screen.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.