According to the Wall Street Journal, iPhone users are increasingly finding reasons to choose Apple Maps over Google Maps, with some customers commending its clear public transport directions and visually appealing design.
It’s not “better.” But it’s fine, it’s there by default, and it doesn’t send my precise location to Google.
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The one thing I don’t like about its navigation mode is that it can’t be used for anything else at the same time. If I start walking directions to a restaurant and then someone asks me what time it closes or if there’s a bar nearby then I have to cancel the navigation or use a different app to look that up.
@red__raven I haven’t used Google Maps in a long time. What really won me over several years ago was Apple Maps would say something like “Go past this light and then at the next one, turn right”. Does google do this now?
This is my favorite feature over Google Maps, soooo much easier to make your next turn instead of looking for street names while you are trying to drive.
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It does not
I actually like the interface better in Apple Maps.
I agree - It’s way easier to read. I was driving through Chicago recently and found Waze was really hard to read when there’s a lot of exits happening all at once and it caused me to miss my exit. I’m neutral on Google Maps readability - Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s not.
Google is far more updated and capable though
Tend to agree - Also, Google Reviews are far more trustworthy than Apple Maps’ Yelp integration. If Apple Maps switched off Yelp or offered the ability to connect to Google Reviews, I’d consider moving over entirely. The other issue with moving over though is that everyone else uses Google Maps, so I have access to quite a few crowdsourced Google Lists on Google Maps.
I mainly use Waze for distance driving to monitor for po’ po’, Google Maps for reviews and for having an offline map downloaded and Apple Maps when I’m driving to someone’s house whose address I have stored in a contact card. Each has their uses but at least Apple Maps is finally getting offline maps this fall.
One thing that I absolutely hate about Apple Maps: trying to navigate home after navigating out somewhere. I swear I’ve got to close like 5 layers of garbage context left over from navigating to the first place. What the hell is the point of having a favorite if it’s gonna be hidden when I try to use it?
If I’m trying to navigate home, it’s because I don’t know the best way and I almost certainly used navigation to get where I currently am. So I have this issue almost every single time I use it.
I’m not sure what you mean, did you set your home location in your profile in contacts? That is also an angle of criticism but it exists. For locations in your profile it will always put them in front of everything else.
I think there’s typically one more step than what I just replicated from home, but this is what I just did:
- Open maps -> search target
- Click View locations -> click a location
- Click “go”
My issue after arriving and then going to navigate home:
- Open maps -> click “end navigation”
- Close listing of target locations
- Close search results for target
- <insert other random crap here if I ended up browsing stuff before navigating earlier>
- Finally, back to the home default maps screen, where I can click “home”
That’s how I feel as well. I do my best to use it out of principle to stay away from Google services the best I can. My one biggest complaint is that when you’re navigating, Apple Maps takes over your lock screen. I think that’s getting changed in the next iOS release however.
I don’t recall it taking over my Lock Screen, but Apple Maps does lock you out of any interaction with the app while navigating. That can be really frustrating when I’m riding as passenger and want to look up some potential stops en route. Have to cancel my destination just to look at anything else.
While in “GO” mode your lock screen will be the maps navigation.
Also, by clicking the bottom thing (where you can press end route) and pressing “Add Stop” you can look up potential stops en route.
It has become my “dad time” Sunday morning activity to submit corrections to Apple Maps in my area. The area where I live was recently designated a national park so we receive a ton of tourists and this is like my little way of helping
I switched to Apple Maps because Google Maps lies too much and gives worse directions.
I decided to start walking to one of my jobs. I didn’t know the way walking since I always took the train. Google told me it would take about 45 minutes. It took nearly an hour, and Google had me take all these back roads I would never be able to remember.
The next week, I tried Apple Maps. It told me it would take 55 minutes, and gave me this very clear route that was easy to remember. And it did little things, like have covered roads be a slightly different color than regular roads.
I’m not sure how it is for driving, but for walking directions, Apple Maps is so much better.
I’d switch from Waze in a heartbeat if Apple added the ability to show the current speed and speed limit of the street/road I’m on.
Yeah, I’d also like a feature of current speed. Apple Maps already has speed limits though.
I prefer it in most cases. I still will spot check it against Google for POI data, but I find the map easier to use, the transmit more accurate, and the integration with the phone better.
Yeah I prefer it now too, even here in The Netherlands. I like the interface better and the native CarPlay integration is a huge plus, especially because it works with both my car screens.
There is however still a lot of room for improvement, for example, it doesn’t clearly show how much time you lose in a traffic jam when looking on the zoomed out 2d view (which is what I use most). And I would love to see the feature TomTom used to show my average speed in a speed controlled zone.
Still not having cycling directions in Amsterdam is pretty unforgivable, for me
You can use one app for car navigation and another for cycling. I am positive that Apple will add cycling navigation in the future.
Yeah Google Maps does alt transit mapping very well. Using it for ski slope mapping blew my mind when that launched.
It’s not better. But I use it. Why? Google maps changes my route without asking me, over and over.
I hate when Google is like “here is every thing you did last month” it’s a reminder wow I need to get this thing off my phone.
Now if only Maps would remember to always navigate to my custom pin location for work rather than 50% of the time taking me to the physical address.
You set the work location in your profile in contacts.
Yes I have my profile set correctly as the physical address. But my parking garage is about a half block away and so I manually adjusted the pin to the garage location. Sometimes Apple Maps will correctly automatically route me to the pin. But some of the time it decides to route me to the physical address. It’s not a huge deal because of the route is basically the same but I don’t understand why it doesn’t just work. Haha
Hmm, I haven’t experienced that but I have experienced Apple Maps trying to take me through employee-only doors instead of the parking lot.
Interesting. I do that for my home address (the entrance to the underground carpark is on a different street to the actual address), with a saved “Home Carpark” location and it always navigates me there when I choose to navigate Home in CarPlay.
I can’t believe I never thought about naming it a little different so I’ll try that. Thanks!
I feel like the bit that gets missed in these conversations is how terrible Waze has become in the last few years. The UI has always been awful, but it’s started just straight up not working any more. Each release seems to introduce new bugs.
I can’t remember the last time I had an “oh shit, it saved me 20 minutes” moment with it. More often than not it seems like it’s just using me as an experiment to try out increasingly insane new routes for no benefit (I know it has to send a certain portion of its users on crazy routes to try them out, but it seems like it’s always me).
The only reason is to get reports of speed cameras, but Apple Maps has started doing that now and seems to be a bit less insane when it comes to routing.
It’s fine where it’s available, but having come back from Central America it sure seems like Apple has no plans to move in there.
I like Apple Maps more too, though I still use Google Maps in some situations.
One of my biggest “dealbreakers” is that if you copy an address from Google it actually copies a giant google.com?etc=etc,etc=etc link, but Apple Maps copies the actual plaintext address.
The only Google app I use is YouTube. I switched to iOS to stop all that spying and tracking to sell my data to anyone.
Ever heard of uYouPlusExtra?
No what is that?
EDIT. Ok found the GitHub. The installation looks a little bit wonky. What method did you use?
I did both. First I did TrollStore because my iPhone happened to be on 15.0.1 . But because that was an iPhone 7 that had the baseband issue it broke last year when their warranty expired. If you’re on 15.0.1 then use TrollStore. But if you’re pass that, then use AltStore.
Apple maps is better for me in larger cities for walking directions or for finding local restaurants and shops. I still prefer google maps for driving.
