On a recent Sunday afternoon, I needed to drive from my home not far from Apple HQ to a small town in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. I know very well how to get to Marin, but I was not familiar with the town and how to get there on Marin’s curvy roads. I generally prefer Google Maps, but I thought I would give Apple Maps a try, as I do occasionally.
My normal route is to head northeast (south of San Francisco Bay) and then northwest on Interstate 880, which takes me past Oakland to the San Rafael Bridge to cross the bay. As I drove on 880, Apple Maps suggested I get off and use a different freeway to head east, then north, then west to wind up on the same bridge. That’s a longer route that may make sense when there’s traffic or construction on 880, but it did not on this clear Sunday.
As I ignored its suggestion and continued on 880, Apple Maps kept suggesting I get off at each subsequent exit, presumably to either backtrack on 880 or use surface streets to get to the route it was suggesting. I couldn’t see the complete route it was suggesting, but as I continued, I kept seeing my estimated arrival time increase, from the original 12:45pm to 12:52, then 1:05, then 1:13. When I finally got far enough on 880 so that Apple Maps gave up and just told me to continue on, the ETA returned to 12:45.
There was no congestion on 880 or any indication that there had been in the few minutes before I traveled. I’m no fan of Google, but Google Maps does a more reliable job of getting me where I need to go.
I’ve found all three dominant map apps (Apple, Google, and Waze) to succumb to this problem from time to time, some more often than others. It appears to be an inherent flaw in the routing algorithms, but without access to the code I’d be hard-pressed to pinpoint, or even speculate on the nature of, the flaw.
I have noticed that the claim of “real-time” traffic updates is exaggerated. The apps’ knowledge of traffic conditions is dependent upon accurate and timely data, which is usually contingent on having sufficient users active in a particular area at once. On a lighter-traffic day like a Sunday, there simply may not be enough information to accurately reflect current conditions. Plus there will always be some degree of lag as the servers process the data they’re getting. So the traffic level the app shows you is always likely to be at least a minute behind real-time, sometimes longer.
I’ve also been tripped up by Waze’s “Avoid private roads” option multiple times and had to turn it off, because it’s not always clear whether a particular road is marked as “private”. And most condominium complexes and unified housing developments are marked as “private” in my area, which sometimes causes Waze to be unable to provide me a complete route at all if “Avoid private roads” is turned on. So there’s a number of hidden factors that affect routing.
What would be really nice would be if the apps could tell you why they’ve chosen a particular route, especially if the route they’ve chosen seems to be longer than or is different from one’s usual route to a particular place.
This has happened to us with Google Maps, too (I almost always use Apple Maps, my wife always uses Google Maps when she drives.) But what we do in a case like this is that we just drive the way we want to go for the part that we are comfortable with and ignore the prompts (knowing it will eventually get to a point where it stops trying to reroute us) just so we can have the last few miles of prompts, for the part we don’t know.
A few years ago, on a trip from Sydney to Adelaide, Apple Maps refused to recognise the Sturt Highway, which is the only reasonable route through that part of the large country. It tried to take me a route that involved hundreds of kilometres and many hours extra driving. No signs of roadworks or crashes that might have indicated a temporary detour was needed.
Luckily I only use Maps to supplement my navigation skills
None of them are all that accurate nor intelligent. Waze sent me down a dirt road but Apple Maps got it right. Other times, Apple Maps messes up and Google does better. Waze is from Google so it does almost as well as Google Maps.
No matter what, it is still better than printing out MapQuest directions and maps or using a traditional road trip map. 1st world problems and all…
We’re currently on a 5 week holiday around various places in Europe and in February we did two weeks in northern Japan. All I can say is maps has been, unreliable. In Japan it was nothing short of terrible and in Italy it was average at best. We’ve had similar results from Google and my personal experience with Waze has also been poor (although my kids seem to like it).
We’re currently in Lofoten, Norway and have a long drive today - there’s not that many roads so I’m hoping Maps can get us where we’re going.
My problem with Apple Maps is that it fails to label many major thoroughfares. It goes like this:
Maps will find and pin my destination in a city. At its standard zoom, several big streets and boulevards will be unidentified. I zoom out once. Still no names for those streets. I continue to zoom out until I view the entire city. Those streets are never labeled.
For two years, I have sent Apple screenshots and even screen videos of the process. I send direct comparisons with Google Maps. No response from Apple.
I agree. The worst part is that the other roads are labeled, but frequently the route they choose does not show the road label except a a very specific zoom level, and then it disappears. Never understood that.
Google Maps does this. I recall it doing something like saying “there’s congestion ahead, I’ve found a faster route” and giving me an option to switch to it or stay on the current one. It seems that hasn’t happened to me recently, but it does always give a reason, even if simplistic, often saying “You’re still on the fastest route.” Apple Maps, being Apple, just knows best without explanation.
When planning a trip to London last year, I noticed that Google Maps identified major streets by their A number (like A306) but refused to give the name. That might help someone driving, if those numbers are displayed prominently, but for me mostly planning walking routes, it was useless given how frequently road names change.
I do notice other problems with not showing street names at various amounts of magnification.
I have never gotten a response from Apple after sending a correction for Maps. Google has in the past sent an automatic acknowledgement and then a “we have fixed it” confirmation, though I got nothing in response to a recent correction.
Yes, they do that sometimes if they want to change your route while you’re already following it, but not consistently, and they don’t like to explain why they recommend a particular oddball route when you’re setting it up. I normally follow a set route to frequent destinations, and use Waze to alert me to traffic issues, but sometimes it will try to send me off on some cockamamie path when there’s no indication of any issues along my regular route. And it loves to tell me to get on the freeway for a half-mile when I’d get there just as fast by staying on the surface roads and avoiding the traffic lights at the entrance and exit ramps.
And then there’s their inability to figure out what direction you’re facing when you start a trip. I live on a cul-de-sac, and about half the time, Waze will ignore whatever direction I’m actually facing and tell me to go around the center of the cul-de-sac because it’s decided I’m facing toward it (I’m not—our parking is perpendicular to the road, not parallel). Many times in unfamiliar areas, none of the three maps can provide me enough information about where I actually am for me to figure out from its directions which way to exit my current location. Sorry, but there’s no street signs in the parking lot!
I could go on all day about the shortcomings of mapping software. I always keep paper maps and/or downloaded digital maps available.
Try doing it from a parking garage! I got myself to an exit once so I knew it had service before I started navigation and it got me all turned around. That was over 10 years ago and I don’t think I’ve seen an improvement in that at all.
I’d also love to know how it’s getting road hazard and speed trap info. Maps will ask me if the incident is still there but I don’t know how it knows to begin with.
There are times I will re-route myself and Maps is really insistent that I turn back around. Its like it can’t handle that I’m off the course it made. I get it will tell me to make a u-turn for awhile but it seems to take too long to figure out I’m still going in the right direction, just a slightly different way.
Apple Maps always prompts me when there is a different route for some reason. One difference from Google is that it will select the new route if you don’t respond to the prompt. I think Google defaults the other way. But - for me, with Apple Maps there is always a prompt.
Travelling through Central London to the East End last week Maps entered a doom loop of sending me down a long standing cul de sac from which it couldn’t recover even after quitting the route and restarting from the location. I switched to Google but even that sent me via a tortuous route. Got there in the end but it was painful. Almost missed my A4 A to Z of London that I used to have to use.
I find they all do this from time to time but increasingly less. I use Waze for long distance and Maps for shorter. I find Google Maps good for restaurant ratings but not much else.
I’ve always equated using any SatNav to having a person sat in the passengers seat, insisting they know the quickest route, and who then gets 15 minutes down the road and says “I think this is the way we should be going”.
Always have an idea in your head of where you roughly should be heading, and certainly never follow them blindly.
Back when Internet-based map sites were new (early 90s?), I tried mapping from my house to a friend’s, about 5 miles. The site, I think it was MapQuest, had me turning left off of a bridge to an Interstate highway, then exiting the highway to resume on local roads. The problem was that the left off the bridge was a killer drop of 30 or 40 feet as there was no entrance of any sort from that road to the highway.
I did send the site a nice note regarding the problem and shortly thereafter the directions didn’t feature the left turn & drop.
While GPS directions may have their issues, I’ve never failed to arrive at my destination when using them, which is 100% of the time when traveling outside Ithaca. I can’t remember the last time I used a paper map, but it was probably well over a decade ago.
I only use paper maps for research/poring over… I love that.
But for driving, never now. My wife has a combination of an intuitive directional sense and the ability to point out turns we should have taken. I have Waze and Apple Maps. We get there.
