[DannyBee]

"Google Maps' advantage has a lot more to do with data than algorithms."

Given literally everyone else collected the data well before google, and maps was still better, this seems wrong.

Google developed better ways to get the data and automate it, not just got better data. For years, literally everyone else had better data.

[SyneRyder]

Apple is not even trying, or is leaving their Maps team terribly under resourced. I've been running some experiments submitting the same edits to Google, Yelp & Apple simultaneously (since Apple uses Yelp data), and timing how long each takes to update. The last time I publicly recorded my results:

Google Maps: 40 minutes

Yelp: 3 days 20 hours

Apple Maps: 13 days

https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/668473075365642240

I know Apple's policy is to screen edits carefully to ensure accuracy & avoid vandalism, but it's actually making their maps more inaccurate, because it takes longer for errors to be fixed. Google has also started incentivising frequent editors with rewards (like free 1TB Google Drive subscriptions), which helps encourage people to make the corrections in the first place.

[Doctor_Fegg]

OpenStreetMap: 0 minutes

[mcphage]

That wouldn't be good, either, since it would mean no quality control of the data going in.

[Doctor_Fegg]

Most first-user contributions to OSM are reviewed by the existing community: for example, many of the regional OSM IRC channels have a bot which pops up first-time edits, so a regular can check on them. It's just that they're retroactively moderated rather than proactively, which avoids new users being disillusioned when their edits don't show.

[dizzy3gg]

Not really. Google collect more, like wifi info :/ and images (street view). Google really did revolutionise mapping.

[regularfry]

Google Maps was better before they did that.