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Google Maps's Moat: How Far Ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps? (justinobeirne.com)

Posted by msmash on from the apple-to-oranges dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the past year, we've been comparing Google Maps and Apple Maps in New York, San Francisco, and London -- but some of the biggest differences are outside of large cities. That's a comprehensive comparison. Google Maps, unlike Apple Maps, doesn't stop at outlining the routes. It offers contextual details such as depiction of buildings and other structures and vegetation. It has captured everything -- from dish antennae on top of buildings to golf courses. Furthermore, Google Maps also shows name of the neighbourhood, and has more distinguishable icons and colors. You can glance at a portion of the map on Google Maps and get a good picture of what's in that place. Apple Maps, on the other hand, looks empty. Like an unfurnished house.

12 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Depends on how many features Google takes away by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google maps was great... then they decide to take away features randomly that are extremely useful.

    At least Apple Maps is consistent.

    1. Re:Depends on how many features Google takes away by Eloking · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...and to whom they are selling the data. At least I know Apple isn't monetizing the information about where I drive.

      Hahaha that's a good one!

      From Apple's website :

      At times Apple may make certain personal information available to strategic partners that work with Apple to provide products and services, or that help Apple market to customers.

      --
      Elok
    2. Re:Depends on how many features Google takes away by sh00z · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly my point. when Apple uses my data, it's to improve my user experience with Apple hardware and software. When Google uses my data, I have no idea where it goes. Most likely to improve "targeted" advertising, but they will literally sell that information to anyone willing to pay.

    3. Re:Depends on how many features Google takes away by AvitarX · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's back, but for a long while they removed the ability to download offline maps.

      Another one they still don't have (I think) is search based layers, replaced most closely with the ability to search and add a waypoint to your route (I usually used it to have a gas station layer on long trips).

      Offline maps came back after over a year, but I don't believe search based layers ever has.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    4. Re:Depends on how many features Google takes away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are your for real? Making Google Maps way better than Apple's offering is one good example of a place where your data is used.

      Sheeeze, Apple fanboys...

    5. Re:Depends on how many features Google takes away by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      when Apple uses my data, it's to improve my user experience with Apple hardware and software.

      Apple may make certain personal information available to strategic partners

      Apple's "strategic partners" are not Apple.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    6. Re:Depends on how many features Google takes away by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Informative

      You should really include a link and indicate that there’s more in the paragraph. https://www.apple.com/ca/legal/privacy/en-ww/

      Disclosure to Third Parties
      At times Apple may make certain personal information available to strategic partners that work with Apple to provide products and services, or that help Apple market to customers. For example, when you purchase and activate your iPhone, you authorize Apple and your carrier to exchange the information you provide during the activation process to carry out service. If you are approved for service, your account will be governed by Apple and your carrier’s respective privacy policies. Personal information will only be shared by Apple to provide or improve our products, services and advertising; it will not be shared with third parties for their marketing purposes.

  2. Old joke by jfdavis668 · · Score: 5, Funny

    A man using Apple Maps walks into a bar, or a hotel, or possibly a church...

    1. Re:Old joke by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I haven't used Apple Maps for a while, but when they launched here it turned out that they'd bought maps from TomTom, who bought them from a company that they acquired in 1992 - and those maps hadn't been updated since. It was an interesting historical snapshot, and mostly buildings hadn't changed (a load of them have been here for the best part of 800 years, so only a few were obviously wrong), but a lot of pubs had changed names since then and so it was quite confusing.

      That said, last time I was near the Google Maps HQ, I had a look at Google Maps and OpenStreetMap and found that the OSM data was better. I mostly use OSMAnd for mapping - it's open source and stores offline vector maps and does offline routing (for car, pedestrian, and bicycle). I find the Google maps difficult to read - roads are only two colours, irrespective of type, and not the standard colours for a road atlas. About the only feature that Google Maps has that I'd like is live traffic data.

      I've just looked at Google Maps, and they do now have my house! I've been living here for over a year and it was built about a year before that. They don't, however, have the houses on the other three sides of the square (or, in fact, the roads for two sides). They also don't have the road that runs around the back of ours, or any of the 23 houses on those roads, or either of the blocks of flats. Oh, and the roads that they do have are in the wrong place and include a large road where there's now a block of flats, two small roads over a park, and one through someone's house. Now, compare that to OSM: They have all of the roads, house numbers for all of the houses and one of the blocks of flats, the footpath that cuts through one row of houses to the row begin, the park in the middle of the square, and the footpaths across the park. The other block is in a part that is marked as under construction, so I at least know that the map might be wrong (Google doesn't even appear to have any indication of construction work). We moved from around the corner and the Google Maps data there is weirdly wrong. It's as if they tried to draw a map by asking drunk people where things are: there are no gaps between buildings that have a driveway between them, there's a take-away at the wrong end of a row, and so on.

      Some of the buildings on Google Maps are extruded, but not consistently and they don't appear to have any correlation with the heights of the buildings (three story house: flat, 1-story shop next to it: extruded).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. OpenStreetMap by Max_W · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use OpenStreetMap http://www.osm.org/ . It is kind of Wikipedia approach to mapping.

    By the way, I use this web application to view Wikipedia articles on the OSM map: http://ausleuchtung.ch/geo_wik... . It works for all language versions of Wikipedia, and to view hotels, supermarkets, etc. this one: http://ausleuchtung.ch/travel_...

  4. Apple doesn't care about it's maps anyway by DalM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apple's maps were only ever intended to act as an insurance policy if Steve Job's thermonuclear war with Google got Google Maps removed from the App Store. That happened for a short time, but now it's back and things have cooled significantly since 2012 on the patent war. Navigation is as much a minimum expectation of a smartphone now as email is. It was only ever developed at all to ensure there would always be maps available for the iPhone. In the event that Google removes Maps from the App Store, Apple will immediately make new, immediate, and significant investments in their program. Until then, they don't care.

  5. NOT selling data is fundamental to Google by raymorris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > but they will literally sell that information to anyone willing to pay.

    Quite the opposite. Older companies that acquired data used to sell it, and some still do. One thing. That has made Google so successful is that they are careful to keep the data to themselves. It's their golden goose. They sell ADS that are targeted using the data. That way they can keep selling ads to the same companies for years, rather than selling data once. They never sell the data because then it could be passed around and that would reduce their competitive advantage.