[astral303]

I think Google Maps not saving your history as you described is an incredibly bad, frustrating experience.

FFS, my phone has gigs of RAM, why can’t Google Maps remember the address I searched for ten minutes ago? One minute ago? This is 2019. It has been this bad for a decade plus. Embarrassing IMO and demonstrates true UX myopia and true UX incompetence.

[SamuelAdams]

Personally I switched to Apple Maps after the iOS 13 release and haven't looked back. Because it's integrated into the OS, Apple Maps can look into your messages and auto-complete addresses from that. It can also save places without you signing into an account.

The only thing I miss is google's "offline" mode. I live in Michigan, and I frequently go on trips up north into heavily wooded areas. I don't always get cell service, so being able to save map data locally is a huge benefit. I can still search for nearby gas stations or stores even if I do not have cell service.

From what I tried, there's no way to save data in Apple Maps - it assumes the device is always connected to the internet.

[DHPersonal]

HERE WeGo has an offline version. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/here-wego-city-navigation/id95...

[Marsymars]

I would pay Apple a monthly fee to get Apple Maps on Android.

[jrobn]

I also nuked google maps from my iPhone after iOS 13.

I share your frustration.

[wlesieutre]

Normally I'd say "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence," but I really do think Google could fix this if they wanted to.

It still sucks because they don't want to fix it. Google makes their money off of people giving up info for ad targeting, and a user who only contributes one or two manually saved locations probably costs them more than they stand to gain.

[zenography]

Occam's razor also needs to be applied. If the explanation involving malice is the simpler option that makes fewer assumptions, then it is more likely.

[astral303]

I bet this has been discussed internally, but nobody cares because they don’t care about UX enough. They don’t understand the impact. The internal organization is fractured into fiefdoms defending internal services (e.g. deployment, AMP) and defending layers (e.g. SRE department), with nobody left responsible for the complete, vertically integrated user experience.

To me, this is a simpler explanation than malice.

[mackrevinack]

I started using openstreetmap 3 years ago now and I hadn't had to use Google maps since. unfortunately not everyone else might have the same luck. it really depends on whether there are mappers in your area or have been in the past.

only way to know would be to download osmAnd and find out. it's a good all rounder app. for navigation i tend to use maps.me

[velosol]

Back in the Lollipop, maybe even KitKat days the maps app would save searches locally without web & app activity on similar to how the current gmail app keeps the last few searches locally even when you have web & app activity turned off in your profile.

[prepend]

Similarly, I wish Google.com wouldn’t prompt me about how awesome chrome is every time I visit and not logged in. At least with this, I can just keep a chrome instance for only google products. So I stayed logged in, but it’s not of my real web usage.