Real-World Observations about Mapping Apps

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I just noticed that Apple Maps—despite its new better mapping in California—still doesn’t display hiking trails in parks. Google Maps has no problems displaying them and they appear to be rather accurate if you compare to the park service’s own maps.

We’re not talking serious trekking routes somewhere deep in backcountry. These are regional parks with few-mile long well maintained paths, often fire trails. Many you can make out by eye just looking at the sat images, ironically well visible even in Apple Maps. But switch to mapping mode and there’s zilch. Just faded green surfaces.

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A couple of apps I like for travel in Europe are Omio, which has schedules for air, rail, and bus in one app with ticket purchase. It also knows about discount cards that can be purchased by seniors, for example. Free in the app store.

Moovit has excellent transit maps. The bus system in many cities is confusing. Often there is no overall maps of the transit system available online. Moovit will tell you what bus to take, literally walk you to the bus stop, tell you how many stops to your destination and then alerts you that your stop is coming up, at the stop before tells you your stop is next and then tells you to exit the bus at your stop. If there is a walk to your ultimate destination, it guides you there step by step, turn by turn. Free in the App Store.

If you travel frequently or even country hop on your annual vacation, you’ll love TripIt. Trip automatically receives all your confirmations for bookings, made online or made some other way. As long as your are mailed something about your reservation, TripIt gets it and adds it to your trip.
So you bus into the airport, your flight with Gate info and seat number, your train into the city center, you hotel reservation, and your dinner reservation all on ONE screen. If you have actually online tickets or Boarding Passes, TripIt will link to them. The Pro version costs an annual subscription fee and adds text notifications of delays and gate changes and help rebooking after a flight cancellation. But the basic app is free in the app store.

As to Google Maps versus Apple Maps, my vote goes to Google. Now that Apple allows deletion of built in apps, I have deleted Apple maps.

Google has over 1 million volunteer local guides submitting data. Google lends the 360 degree cameras in a backpack so they can gather Street View data from places motorized vehicles and bikes can’t go. Want a Street View of hiking the trail down into the Grand Canyon or walking into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Google Maps has got it. Google Maps also has a 3D perspective view with wireframes of the tall buildings and landmarks.

Not to mention Google’s network of photographers who make money filming the interior of businesses who are trying to improve their Google map listings.

Yeah, Google is going to use my data to sell ads most of which I will never see on my MacBook by an effective use of ad blockers. But Apple cannot compete with 1 million human reporters and Google Earth.

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Generally I use Apple Maps, the Siri integration works for me and it’s ended up being a kind of default.

I’ve stopped using the GPS apps from Navigon, they’ve discontinued updates and removed them from the App Store but they were, in their time, excellent.

I do a lot of planning for trips and include Google Maps when I require additionality, particularly StreetView as well as trail maps such as Viewranger. I’ve been really impressed with how detailed and informative the various hiking and trail maps are. If I’m going up anywhere specific I hunt for apps or sites that are focussed on that locale, for example, for my hillwalking in Ireland I use mountainviews.ie which has not just maps and trails but also hikers reviews and info, including wayfinding markers and warnings about hazards as well as estimations of difficulty and duration.

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We covered TripIt and some similar apps a few years ago:

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That’s nothing. I was chairing a meeting of the Gregson Community Association in Lancaster, Lancashire in November 1996. Afterwards, I was exhausted, partly due to the content of the meeting and partly due to poor health. It was a dark night, a bit foggy and everything was grey, including every building in the estate where I lived. I walked back to the house where I was sub-letting and got to Ennerdale Close, I think, and I’m sure I stood outside my door but could not be sure because the street sign was missing, everything was dark and grey. My head was swirling, my eyes might have been swivelling. I walked downtown to the bus station, hopped in to a taxi, said “Ennerdale Close, please” and 10 minutes later I was home.

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Back in 2011-2012, just days after I got my beautiful new iPhone 4S featuring the just out of beta Siri, I had a job interview in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the wilds of Brooklyn. There was an especially nasty ice/sleet/snowstorm that day, so my husband drove me there but couldn’t wait to pick me up afterwards. So I confidently asked Siri for “directions to the nearest subway station,” and in my fancy nice shoes slipped and slid for many, many blocks that seemed like slogging miles in the Antarctic. Siri sent me to a Subway sandwich place that was in the opposite direction of the nearest subway stop.