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by mantas 2953 days ago
TBH Google navigation sucks in recent years. No, I'm not going to take dirt road shortcut while driving on highways is supposed to be 10min longer. If locals speed on that dirt road in their AWD vehicles, that doesn't mean I'll do 70km/h on unknown dirt road in a small FWD car.

It got to the point that I'm double-checking all Gmaps directions on other services. And if I know area well enough, I don't need Gmaps at all..
1 comments
jacksmith21006 2953 days ago
Used Google Maps all across Europe not long ago on holiday and just amazed how well it works. Kids would try with Apple Maps and mostly we would end up laughing as it directed us to some crazy place that Google Maps would get on the first try.

But my issue is the bigger picture. I just do not get why it is acceptable at Apple to provide a poor user experience with Siri and Apple Maps compared to competitors?

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mantas 2953 days ago
Incidentally, I am in Europe. Apple was laughably bad a couple years ago, but it's getting better. Although still not as good as Google. But now Apple conservative routing sometimes is better than Google's too opportunistic one.

Another problem is Google still can't get house numbering correctly. They just don't care and get be off by 0.5km in some developments. What is worst, they don't tell they don't know exact location. They pretend to guesstimate it and sometimes it goes really wrong.

Sometimes their guesstimation messes up the address itself too. For example, recently I was looking for XYZ square #123. They routed me to XYZ street #123 instead. Which was in a different neighbourhood.

All in all, neither Google nor Apple beats old good Garmin and local mapping with UI brought straight from early 00s.

Both Apple and Google and care about smaller markets or less visited locations. If 90% of their customers are happy 90% of time, I guess that's enough for them :/

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jacksmith21006 2953 days ago
Here is a nice breakdown that shows how far Apple is behind in UX.

https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat/

It is all about providing the optimal user experience which was something really important to Apple in the past.

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mantas 2953 days ago
Which again is good example of Google opportunistic not always being the expected way. It sucks when Google marks some shitty shed as building. "Oh, it's a turn behind a house!" Nope... In case of Apple, it's quite clear. "You better start looking out, we have no clue where next turn is".
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