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?
It has gotten way worse for me in the past couple of months to the point that organic maps, even without traffic information is the clear winner.
One of the things I hate the most now is that the driving mode (you see a route and you’re represented by a little arrow) is really zoomed out and does not rotate with you, making it a worse version of a paper map
For me it rotates the map randomly. It’s not a result of thinking that I’ve turned because my arrow marker stays oriented with the map. But it’ll just rotate the map to random angles at random times.
Yep. Multiple times I have had Google maps direct me to back employee only entrances instead of the regular entrances. Sometimes it seems like Google doesn’t even recognize that the front entrance even exists.
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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?
I’d like to recommend ‘Magic Earth’ to everyone, who wants a privacy respecting Maps alternative with trafic data. I used it on several >500km trips and it only misguided me once. It uses OSM maps and can navigate offline.
The only real issue with OpenStreetMaps is that the quality varies significantly town-to-town depending on how much love it’s had by local, knowledgable contributors. Road directions are one of the more complex things to configure in OSM, especially with complex multi-lane junctions, and so densely-populated areas and major roads are likely to be quite good, whereas more rural areas can be hit-and-miss.
You don’t realize a 500km route you take once is shit. It’s when the software sends you on a shit route across town every single day when you measure quality.
I’ve driven the same general route a few times and even then, it has been quite reliable. As mentioned, it can depend on the cities and stuff, so you’re best trying it out for yourself :)
Gonna check that out for a trip next week, thank you!
Seconded! It also has a more informative cycling interface.
Does it give you multiple options for a route? Like fastest/using least petrol/no tolls, etc?
I am currently using Google maps and waze most of the time and tried Organic maps for a while for a more privacy focused option, but it only gives you one option, no alternatives of similar length/time.
Edit: nevermind, just downloaded it and it does offer alternatives. Looking good as well, will definitely test it, thank you!
In my experience, google maps is really bad at finding parking. OSM-data is just better in this regard
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.
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
Yeah I feel like it’s become bloated and slow tbh.
All this talk about organic maps here on Lemmy does not feel organic at all.
Is there an ad campaign or something?
What sense would it make to spend money on an ad campaign for Organic Maps? It’s completely free and the makers of the app literally get nothing out of you using it.
I don’t know. It’s just that it feels really unorganic how often it comes up on Lemmy.
Especially with fake sounding “organic” threads that I know from proven social media marketing.
I could very well be wrong of course but if I had the time I would investigate this further.
I mean it’s always a good assumption nowadays with chat gpt
Apparently everyone ITT has had 100 times more trouble with Google maps than I ever have had. Seriously entire categories of problems I’ve never experienced. Google maps has never tried to make me drive through a yard or field for example. Been using it since before it was a smartphone app.
It’s been discussed in other comments that because Google is A/B testing their old maps model against a new AI model that only some people are experiencing it. It’s probably only being tested in some areas.
Google maps has never tried to make me drive through a yard or field for example.
Did someone complain about that? I’m seeing tons of complains and none of them are this
Yeah ITT I saw someone say it tried to take them through a field and a barn, and someone else said someone’s yard. I thought it was weird.
They switched from giving you the fastest route by default to giving you the one that uses the least gas.
They also now offer alternative routes that take you past businesses which paid money to Google.That’s in your trip options “prefer fuel efficient route”. You can turn it off.
I know. But I won’t.
Hypermiling is as fun to me as driving fast is for others.
It’s like a mini-game I get to play every time I’m forced to drive a car.Ahh, I misinterpreted your post as a complaint. I’m not a hypermiler, but I do find the efficient routes are often the lowest stress routes as well.
Elites loves to treat working class time as a zero-value resource. It’s just assumed that everyone is willing to give up hours a week if it means using fewer plastic bags, or less gas, or taking a bus instead of a car, or charging their car during off peak hours, or whatever.
Time is treated as negligible in value.
i tend to use waze more anyway
Waze is owned by Google, and they’re slowly converging over time.
figures heh
