alt Hacker News>And Apple Maps today is absolutely amazing.
Perhaps that is the case in the US, but in Poland, I haven't had a single app guide me into the literal bushes as many times as Apple Maps does. The straw that broke the camel's back was when, I shit you not, the navigation aspect literally expected me to drive through a lake.
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This may just be my bubble, but even among my iPhone-owning friends, I haven't seen a single person use Apple Maps in Europe, so I wouldn't be surprised if the efforts to improve the map data have been more focused on the US.
It's been some years now, but apple maps put me into a loop once in Branson, Missouri.
It drove me around a couple miles that went right back to the intersection where we started, and then wanted me to start the loop again.
I'm using almost exclusively Apple Maps in Poland and never had any issue (that I remember). Your mileage may vary and so on.
Anecdotal evidence, but I do use Apple Maps in Poland and they work just fine for me, I guess the mileage may vary.
It is the case in regions where Apple gathers their own map data from scratch, instead of relying on data licensed from TomTom and others.
I made the mistake of trusting Google Maps with driving directions in Sicily, and it always sent me down tiny single lane (but two way) roads because they were "better" by the algorithm. That taught me to trust my gut and follow the highways/main roads rather than use any shortcuts that an algorithm can conjure up. (I'm sure this has relevance in the age of LLMs).
Personally I doubt they test the hardware outside an air conditioned and dust less office in California.
if you want to be EU-patriotic, you can try the Czech app Mapy.com. it's based on OSM data as well and at least for hiking in Europe it's the best
Very regionally dependent.
Around here (Long Island, New York, USA), it’s better than Google Maps. I get to compare a lot, because I have a friend that uses GM, and constantly sends me Google Maps universal links.
I hear that it is a lot less effective in rural areas, though, and I think Google Street View is better than the Apple variant.
Apple Maps only works well in North America, possibly just the US. The same way a lot of happy paths in Apple products are designed for California/Single Culture/Single Language/Single Residence.
These reports seem unhelpful unless you specify the date at which you had this experience, as this thread is about continuous improvement over time.
Well, even generally much better Google maps sometimes tries to force me through unpaved field roads with unavoidable damage to normal cars. Or create absolutely ridiculous 'shortcuts' that save 5 metres but I should exit busy main road to join it again 100m later, spending few minutes trying to join back. Or lead me through forbidden/one way roads from wrong direction that are like that permanently since forever.
Generally they are fine, but not literally in every aspect in every place, Europe or not.
The interface and the direction instructions on Apple Maps are way ahead of Google Maps. The app performance is also much smoother / snappier, it connects to the car instantly and reliably, where with Android Auto it’been always waiting and pain. But the accuracy of maps is indeed worse.
However my biggest gripe with Apple Maps in Poland is that Siri does not understand Polish and cannot be told to navigate to a Polish address. It just can’t understand the street and city names :(
Btw: I haven’t counted the times Google Maps wanted me to go through the worst possible traffic jam (where the traffic jam was not visible on the map) or a closed road. I guess it just happens with every navigation system that errors happen.