[philsnow]

> if I'm searching "bakery" on my mobile phone I probably want the ones around me

And yet for me, even in google maps on my iphone, when I search for bakery, the first one is almost always one that's ~40 miles away, and the closest one is almost always the second in the list. The rest of the list is definitely not sorted descending by distance. If I've searched for a _particular_ ABC bakery, I get other bakeries commingled in the list even if I know damn well there are other ABC bakeries closer than those.

[Joe_Cool]

The first one is the one that put the most coins into the AdWords slot, I'd guess.

[blowski]

I live in the UK. I recently searched for “pizza” and the top result was in Thailand.

[oceanplexian]

This behavior works exactly the way you would expect in Apple Maps. A search for a bakery returns relevant nearby results.

The fact that Google doesn’t see the blatantly obvious problem, or that they try to argue that the users are wrong is a textbook case of why Apple has been doing OK in the market downturn while Google’s business continues to crash. Apple prioritizes their core products and human interface design, Google prioritizes short-term (advertising) revenue, while neglecting their core products in favor of the latest shiny thing.