Comment by carlosjobim
3 days ago
There's plenty of negatives for Google Maps. None of those are deal-breakers, while the negatives of other apps are deal-breakers.
Negatives of Google Maps:
- Awful graphical interface
- Bad performance
- Ads
- Offline maps could be better implemented
Features where other apps fail, but Google Map works well:
- Unable to zoom or pan map because of janky response. This core feature needs to be right, or the app is unusable.
- No public transport integration. Makes the app unusable if you're on vacation in a different country without your vehicle. Apple Maps fails hard on this. Which is when you are most in need of good maps.
- No routing or bad routing, or routing only for cars and not for bicycles or public transport. Deal breaker for everyday use. Organic Maps has awful routing.
- No business information or outdated business information. For example, Apple Maps will ignore or reject updates which you as a business send to them, using the Apple Business account.
- No or few or outdated photos for businesses. Reviews aren't that reliable, as you mention. But photos will tell you many times what you want to know.
Fair enough. I don't think we are going to agree on much nor convince each other because:
- You want one app that works almost everywhere in the world and UX is paramount to you. Less privacy and mediocrity is fine
- I am happy to use more specific apps that excel at specific functions, and accept some lower performance/UX for the £0 I paid and £0 I paid in giving up my privacy (with the exception of Citymapper - I don't use it myself though. I figure out each city's public transport myself, or talk to staff).
We'll just go around in circles calling out the pluses/negatives of each app
There are absolutely good (enough) alternatives to Google Maps though, I won't budge on that.
edit: I'll also plug newly-discovered Gnome Maps on the desktop. It does walking/cycling/car/public transport routing too, though no idea how well. No satellite though. Also, Comaps has emerged as an Organic Maps fork due to some governance disagreements