It’s gotten a lot better, but I still find the address database better in Google Maps, which helps when you have only a fragment of an address. I also find that the Apple Maps database has a lot of roads that read the same. For instance, in Texas where I live, we have a lot of “Ranch Roads” that are numbered. Think of them like state highways in other state (which we also have; don’t ask). For whatever reason, most of the Ranch Roads are spoken by Maps as “Ranch Road,” not with the number. So, if you have a spot where multiple Ranch Roads intersect, Maps will just say “turn left on Ranch Road” instead of “turn left on Ranch Road 123.” It’s tremendous annoying. In another state, imagine it saying “turn left on Interstate,” without a number. Anyway, Google Maps does better.
I used to work to resolve addressing disputes and google just doesn't expose (maybe even store) the relevant information for a lot of parcels of land.
It’s all available freely from the government in simple formats but for Joe Public they don’t know that much less how to access it and it’s the case that technicians on the ground don’t always have it in their SOP either. Google has a level of market dominance that means their errors can be, for a small individual or over an aggregation of small individuals, costly.
Yep, they all have flaws. I just fine that when I want to drive somewhere, Google does better for me than Apple, though certainly Apple has improved a lot recently.
Google Maps often picks the non-idiomatic thing. It'll say the road name when no sign uses that, and it's a US highway that you have been following for a while. Or it will tell you the state highway number when it is a major named artery, and nobody knows that it is a state highway at that point or uses the highway number. This makes it hard to know if it is carrying you along on the same route or if it has come up with one of its weird shortcuts to save 1 minute.
It has absolutely no clue about roundabouts. On a journey in England or France on a road that has a roundabout every mile it will constantly spam you with "take the second exit onto wailing street" every minute, when a human would say "go straight at the next 20 roundabouts staying on the A38".
Here in Australia Apple Maps names everywhere by local council, which isn’t used at all, we use localities. I have reported this as a bug repeatedly but they just keep at it.
It just means nothing here except who you pay to collect the bins.
On macOS there are so many basic things you’d want to do - share itineraries, annotate places, keep lists of things, but there’s not even a document concept. With the exception of guides, anything you do is ephemeral. It’s excellent at planning a route, but doing anything with that route, including getting back to it later is useless.
I primarily use Apple maps and bounce back to google sometimes because I think the browser experience is so much better and it is faster to just type my terms right into ironically safari. Every time I do I think it is still simpler and snappier. Especially true if I have recently tried to use the MacOS maps app… that never behaves how I would imagine it should if I go beyond a simple location search. There are things about the ios app that make me crazy too. No qualms about the maps themselves these days.
It’s gotten a lot better, but I still find the address database better in Google Maps, which helps when you have only a fragment of an address. I also find that the Apple Maps database has a lot of roads that read the same. For instance, in Texas where I live, we have a lot of “Ranch Roads” that are numbered. Think of them like state highways in other state (which we also have; don’t ask). For whatever reason, most of the Ranch Roads are spoken by Maps as “Ranch Road,” not with the number. So, if you have a spot where multiple Ranch Roads intersect, Maps will just say “turn left on Ranch Road” instead of “turn left on Ranch Road 123.” It’s tremendous annoying. In another state, imagine it saying “turn left on Interstate,” without a number. Anyway, Google Maps does better.
Google is not without its errors.
I used to work to resolve addressing disputes and google just doesn't expose (maybe even store) the relevant information for a lot of parcels of land.
It’s all available freely from the government in simple formats but for Joe Public they don’t know that much less how to access it and it’s the case that technicians on the ground don’t always have it in their SOP either. Google has a level of market dominance that means their errors can be, for a small individual or over an aggregation of small individuals, costly.
Addresses are hard. OSM Nominatim struggles with them all the time. Probably the biggest hurdle to OSM adoption, imo
Yep, they all have flaws. I just fine that when I want to drive somewhere, Google does better for me than Apple, though certainly Apple has improved a lot recently.
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Google Maps often picks the non-idiomatic thing. It'll say the road name when no sign uses that, and it's a US highway that you have been following for a while. Or it will tell you the state highway number when it is a major named artery, and nobody knows that it is a state highway at that point or uses the highway number. This makes it hard to know if it is carrying you along on the same route or if it has come up with one of its weird shortcuts to save 1 minute.
It has absolutely no clue about roundabouts. On a journey in England or France on a road that has a roundabout every mile it will constantly spam you with "take the second exit onto wailing street" every minute, when a human would say "go straight at the next 20 roundabouts staying on the A38".
Here in Australia Apple Maps names everywhere by local council, which isn’t used at all, we use localities. I have reported this as a bug repeatedly but they just keep at it.
It just means nothing here except who you pay to collect the bins.
Salt Lake City roads are amusing
"Turn right on East one hundred and twenty three thousand South"
Yep, that’s sometimes true as well.
On macOS there are so many basic things you’d want to do - share itineraries, annotate places, keep lists of things, but there’s not even a document concept. With the exception of guides, anything you do is ephemeral. It’s excellent at planning a route, but doing anything with that route, including getting back to it later is useless.
All true, but you have to measure it against how enshitified Google Maps has become.
I primarily use Apple maps and bounce back to google sometimes because I think the browser experience is so much better and it is faster to just type my terms right into ironically safari. Every time I do I think it is still simpler and snappier. Especially true if I have recently tried to use the MacOS maps app… that never behaves how I would imagine it should if I go beyond a simple location search. There are things about the ios app that make me crazy too. No qualms about the maps themselves these days.
I don't agree with that assertion. Just because google maps has become one thing, doesn't excuse Apple maps flaws. They can exist on their merits.
The app on macOS is terrible, like all Catalyst/SwiftUI ports. Fisher-Price software.
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Maybe elsewhere it is. Here, it's terrible.
In general, for all it benefits from globalization, Apple disappoints on global markets.
In the US. In many other countries it's borderline useless.
I haven't used google maps in years.
90% of my usage of it is because it actually displays the map on my Watch, whereas Google Maps & Citymapper only show directions.
If it weren't for that, I'd use Citymapper for practically everything.
It’s okay. It’s still subpar and barely keeping pace with Gmaps
it was far inferior to its competitor when it was released
That was, what, twelve years ago? Hardly seems relevant.
it's relevant in the context of this conversation:
> Ternus recently gave an interview where he said this about the initial flop of Apple Maps:
While it is great now, it did flop because it was terrible.
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And they just added ads.