My dad uses Google Maps, and he mentioned that it seems to be getting worse. Like, giving him directions that are obviously worse than alternatives. Has anyone else here experienced this?
I don’t use gmap for navigation but to check locations. I had to get some cash so looked up atm and found few nearby. When I went there it was just apartments so looked up another one which turned out to just homes and small shops. Ended up getting off and asked someone working in the shop for directions and got everything I could have wanted.
Yes. I know this is like… Cliche but I do want to say that I’ve heard of, and downloaded a new map app called Organic Maps(Play Store). BUT I haven’t used it for navigation yet.
About two days after I found it, play store deleted it but I can link it, so it must be back up. If you just open it, it looks beautiful and immediately you notice that stores are not paying money to be prioritized. You can see ALL the businesses equally and I love it.
I wasn’t able to install from the Play Store, but it’s on F-Droid too.
I love Organic Maps. I used it quite a lot for navigation across Europe and here’s my list of findings in order from good to bad
- The maps are visually much clearer than Google Maps
- Businesses are all visible like you said, and so are street names, etc. I don’t know what Google did, but often zooming on something won’t get you the labels. With Organic Maps it just works. On the other hand, businesses are often missing or outdated. Google’s database is way more current and complete.
- Walking paths, benches, bins, etc. are usually better mapped-out (because it’s built on OpenStreetMap). On the flipside, this community-driven approach leaves some roads outdated and occasionally it’ll cause you having to back-track, or ending up on dirt roads. I have fun in those moments though. :)
- Its navigation includes instructions for important Y-junctions in highways where Google Maps just assumes you’ll take the correct lane. On the flipside it’ll often tell you to “go straight” even though there seem to be no other options.
- Generally when navigating, a Google Maps blunder tends to be way more annoying than an Organic Maps blunder.
- It works without an internet connection by asking you to download the maps along your route up front. This can also be a hassle when you just want a quick result.
- Sometimes the position-tracking experiences a delay, which can cause you to miss your turns. This is annoying and I hope it will be fixed.
- Computing a route can take a few minutes depending on the distance and complexity of roads.
- It uses way more battery than Google Maps.
Now, if it wasn’t for this last point, I’d use it over Google Maps every time. But the battery consumption is so bad that I only use it if I know that I can reliably charge my phone throughout the trip.
Yes. I don’t recall which community posted it and when, but Google is adifying their Maps. They literally have sponsored routes planned that will go out of their way to promote paying businesses.
It’s been wonky lately. Maybe it’s just drunk?
Yes.
They will often display prompts while driving that are on a timer “suggesting” route changes or alternates and auto selecting yes.
To abbreviate massively and not dox myself, this caused me serious financial harm as a road trip rerouted onto roads unsafe for my vehicle.
I loathe Google and many tech companies for their sheer and ardent refusal to have proper customer service, or any method of customer feedback. A/B testing will never tell you that the top navigation directions should focus on the major high numbers and road names, not what road segment you are on. I need to know what lane to be in for my next turn in 5 miles, not how many times I will fade merge between segements only to have you finally tell me the lane when I’m a quarter mile away.
Google Maps is fucking awful in so many ways that are inexcusable, and worst of all they were allowed to fucking buy more of their competitors. Right now Magic Earth is a distant also ran in this field, and due to Google’s massive proprietary features always will be without support.
And I haven’t even mentioned how my map results are plastered with promoted ads and locations. Which is just useless and infuriating when I am searching for a specific placename.
Just go osm.org and help spread the word
Alternatively, download Organic Maps and contribute to OpenStreeMaps and help make the best alternative even better.
From their page:
- Detailed offline maps with places that don’t exist on other maps, thanks to OpenStreetMap
- Cycling routes, hiking trails, and walking paths
- Contour lines, elevation profiles, peaks, and slopes
- Turn-by-turn walking, cycling, and car navigation with voice guidance and Android Auto
- Fast offline search on the map
- Export/import bookmarks in KML/KMZ, import GPX
- Dark Mode to protect your eyes
- Countries and regions don’t take a lot of space
- Free and open-source
In the last six months, yes. It suggests short cuts that can create long delays. Shorter by miles, but often worse in the end.
This isn’t a new thing but I hate anytime it asks me a question. I’ll be driving through an accident scene trying to work out where the cop directing traffic wants me to go and if I’ll need to go a different way because the turn I was gonna make is blocked off and at that precise moment google maps decides it’s a great idea to cover the bottom half of the screen with a “is tHeRe sTiLl An aCcIdEnT hErE?”
If it’s illegal to use your phone while driving it should be illegal for navigation apps to suddenly require interaction in the middle of navigating.
I ignore those types of notices.
I think it seems that way because it’s trying to promote alternative routes. whether it’s routing around slowdowns, taking a more fuel efficient route, or whatever.
however this could also be due to the user having different expectations for different trips and not changing the settings.
Yes. I’m not the only one! Maps drives me crazy. As pedestrian it’s borderline unusable especially in European old Cities where there are … actual pedestrian only pathways.
Organic Maps is a game changer here!
I know it’s not new, but I’ve been seeing a lot more “suggested” (read: sponsored) places along my routes these days. Either businesses are just now discovering the feature, or they lowered the barrier for entry. Either way, it’s annoying as fuck to have ads pop up that I have to avoid when moving the map around to navigate
It’s an intentional move they’ve been testing. Looks like you’re one of the “lucky” participants.
Personally, I’ve been seeing way more markers when you zoom in for bigger businesses meaning they are probably going heavy on pay to show.
Not to mention my saved places aren’t permanent markers in the map. I’ll zoom in, still can’t see it. Search for it, oh look, there it is, right where I was zoomed in
Yep, one shape is paid for, the other shape is not (I forget, circles or squares), and to actually see the non paying businesses you have to zoom way in now.
They say it doesn’t affect search
Yeah, about 2 months ago I noticed it no longer recommending a slightly alternate route on my way to work that lets me bypass a potentially 20-minute red light (bad light timing)
If I turn and do it myself it goes “oh shit you right” and gives me an updated ETA and shows the route, but it WONT show the expected slowdown anymore and WONT even suggest the alternate route
Does route calculation happen on device or on Google servers? Is it cheaper for Google to not show alternate routes?
I assume the route calculations happen on device as they work in offline mode, but that doesn’t explain sending me the objectively slower way when it knows what the traffic is like
Also my alternate route passes more businesses, meaning it’s not some “well advertise to him” bullshit
I turned OFF the “prefer eco routed” setting thinking it might be that, but no dice
Yes, it is. I use it every day to visit multiple locations. My personal pet peeve is when it displays “In 1.5 miles, continue straight”. On a road where there’s no changes in that distance. That’s not part of the directions, that’s just continuing. Not only is it unhelpful because I can’t not do this “step”, but I can’t see the next, actual step, which could be “In 200 ft, turn left” and won’t know which lane to be in.
I can’t prove it, but I think at some point they applied an automatic algorithm that added intermediate steps to all their routing (for when a road curves a certain way, etc), but it was too aggressive and not human-reviewed.
There’s a part of a highway near Denver where it’ll tell you to take a “slight right to stay on highway”, and there is literally no possible turn or off ramp there.
Woah, that’s crazy. I was specifically thinking of I-25! Though it does it with other roads and highways as well…
I do a lot of highway driving. It’ll frequently tell me “in X miles take the exit towards [whatever]” but it will refuse to tell me what exit number I’m looking for until I’m within a mile or two of it. This is frequently a problem when I have exits with A/B/C branches which is often. I don’t give a shit if I’m exiting towards I40, just tell me I’m exiting on 13B, and tell me that from the beginning.
It used to do this, it changed a couple years ago, and I’ve been pissed off about it every time I’ve had to drive somewhere since then.
It’ll also randomly change voices on me, it’ll flip flop constantly between the American accent and a thick British accent. No rhyme or reason to it either, it’ll be a different voice on the same turn on a different day. Drives me nuts.
That’s… some different issues. I think your phone/vehicle/GPS might actually be haunted. Do you know of any exorcists?
I’ve seen it do that for decades now, and in at least two cases I see it happen is when a highway enters town and gains a name, like how Florida Route 92 becomes International Speedway Boulevard when you enter Daytona Beach. Or, when another route joins the corridor you’re on, like throughout North Carolina US-1, US-15 and US-501 weave in and out of each other a few times along with a few state routes joining and leaving.
So I think when it hits points like this, it sometimes interprets them as intersections rather than junctions, and its programming requires it to issue a direction for an intersection. YOU might not see it as an intersection but IT does.
I don’t need any instructions at all at an intersection unless the instruction is to turn
Thank you. I’m not actually that old-school, but back in the day, the only directions that mattered were the changes. “Turn right on the dirt road, and follow it for about 35 miles. Turn right at the crazy magenta and black diner…”
That’s exactly what it is. I just had this happen where two US highways merge, and it told me to “keep straight on HWY 20” at that location. You’ll also often see this where two interstates merge for a while in and around cities.
A bigger problem I have than occasionally hearing “Keep straight on Highway 20” is “Keep straight on US-20, US-94, US-1, US-15, US-501, US-99, US-98, NC-24, NC-27, NC-17, PG-13, PS-5, N-64, I-95, I-85, I-40, Bragg Boulevard for 1.3 miles.”
It puts the instruction at the beginning, and then it talks so long you forgot what it told you to do. It’s how you stack overflow a human.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What were you saying?
Here’s some “high quality” (heh heh) anecdata for you: I navigated from my house in Somerville to a restaurant in the Seaport district of Boston last night, in the POURING rain using public transit and walking.
Google maps literally was leading me around in circles downtown once I got off the train, so I switched to Apple Maps and it was straight shooting from there on in.
I think GMaps is more susceptible to the tall buildings fouling the GPS. Not sure why?
