Christina Warren, writing for Mashable:
Apple Maps. Just typing the words can drive fear into the heart of any iOS lover.
OK, that might be a little extreme, but for the many users who were burned by Apple Maps with its introduction alongside iOS 6 back in 2012, the app doesn’t exactly bring up fond memories.
Apple Maps has improved a lot over the years. At WWDC in June, Apple made a point to note that its mapping app (which is installed by default) is used 3.5 times more than its closest competitor. That competitor, of course, would be Google Maps.
Christina then proceeds to dig back in, taking a fresh look at Apple Maps running on iOS 9.
Her conclusion:
Here’s the bottom line: If you were burned by Apple Maps three years ago, it’s time to give it another shot. It’s not so much Apple Maps is inherently any better at mapping than Google Maps, because I’m just not sure that’s true. What is true, however, is that Apple Maps is much more tightly integrated into the core iOS experience.
I absolutely agree with this. Apple Maps has improved in many ways. I want Apple Maps to be so good that I never have to turn to another mapping app to check some aspect of mapping: traffic, newly constructed roads or route changes, planned closures, newly opened retail, etc. No mapping app is perfect, and with iOS 9, I am feeling more comfortable relying exclusively on Apple Maps.
I’ve been testing iOS9. Google Maps remains superior. The margin is not as large as it used to. But there’s no question about this. There’s almost no reason to use Apple Maps unless you just want to spite Google.
In The Netherlands the satellite images are vastly better and more recent on Apple Maps. Also navigation is better on Apple Maps in the cases I tested both, but that might be because TomTom (which is a data provider for Apple Maps) is a Dutch company.
Google Maps still has something important to me that Apple Maps doesn’t: Street View. I wouldn’t want to imagine doing relocation research without it.
Clearly there are many reasons to use Apple Maps, not just to spite Google.
Personally I have no problems with the data. I live in Florida, perhaps its just better here, but its always worked just fine for me. I simply like the APPLICATION better. Forget the data and map itself. The client side software still blows away Google. And thats extremely important to me. Animation/scrolling is smoother, much better interface (IMO), better performance, I’ve noticed better battery life using Apple Maps. And all the iOS integration is a nice bonus, like occupying the lock screen during navigation, Siri integration, etc.
I don’t think the majority of iOS users would be using it, if it had no merits. People aren’t stupid. If something annoys them enough, they look for a substitute. Google Maps is such a big name that everyone knows about, so its not like users aren’t aware of alternatives.
Just because it is better than it was does not mean it has caught up to the competition. And I would be curious how much of that 3.5x is due to Siri rather than conscious choice by customers.
But how much of that use is because they are using Siri or click an address in an email where there is no customer choice? I use Apple Maps more than I would like for just that reason.
I like Apple Maps, and it’s always worked well for me in the Los Angeles area. However, my biggest issue is how it displays traffic with the very small dotted lines. It’s hard to see at a glance when driving. For this reason, I primarily rely on Waze for driving directions.
Apple Maps routing by addresses is much better. Apple’s by-name business and landmark data is frequently not there, but generally accurate if present… unlike Google’s, which has an abundance of data but is frequently wildly incorrect.
It’s the difference between not giving directions and leading you to completely the wrong place. I’ll take the former, thanks.
It’s not just that; navigation is better in Canada, too. I actually had Google Maps try to send me down through Seattle (let’s call it a 3 hour drive each way) to get to the next city over. Both start and endpoint were in Canada.
I still keep Google Maps on my iPhone just in case (ever since Siri tried to navigate me to a nearby oil refinery when I said I needed gas), but I haven’t needed to open it in a year or two. Apple Maps is at the “good enough” point, even if there’s still room for improvement.
Never had a problem with Apple maps and like it WAY better than Google Maps or Waze.
I use GPS on a daily basis and Apple maps by far is better than Google maps.
There’s pros and cons to both Apple and Google Maps. The thing I can’t stand about Apple Maps is the traffic. You can’t tell how bad traffic is at all with Apple Maps – worst UI for traffic I have ever seen. Google Maps wins hands down with traffic info. And it’s not that difficult to fix for Apple – make the streets full orange, red, dark red, green, etc.
And, of course, Maps works perfectly with Watch already with iOS 8. You can drive to your destination without ever looking at either your iPhone or Watch, because the watch uses different pulse patterns to tell you to turn left or right. Brilliant.
When I think back to Apple Maps in iOS 6, I think, “at least the rest of iOS worked at that time.” I get filled with nostalgia and longing for a time when the only technical problem I had with my iOS devices was that there were no longer any transit directions in the Maps app.
As just one example, Safari 7 is a much, much, much worse product than Maps 6. They should literally rename Safari “There Was A Problem With This Web Page So It Was Reloaded.”
So please, please, please can we get the current Apple software up to the quality of Apple Maps in iOS 6? That would be really wonderful.
Nope. I’ve just typed my work address into both apps and the detail in Google Maps is superior. Also, typing the address brought a quicker result with Google Maps too.
Sure, it’s only a sample of one, but this has been my experience with these two apps since day one.
Will iOS 9 change this? Time will tell but history shows that it won’t.
In the UK Google Maps are still way superior. However, the thing that bugs me most is that none of the major maps let you create a route manually and then follow it in turn-by-turn mode. I don’t get why that isn’t a thing that they let you do?! It’s either their route or just make your own way.
But the Apple Maps app is very responsive, which is a real bonus.
Because your hand-created route may not respect one-way streets, closed
roads, etc., and the overhead of handling the infinite complexities of verifying ad
hoc routes is probably large.
Those are good reasons, but I guess it’s also because it’s such a niche thing to do (really only useful for road trips), so not worth the time to build in support for it. It’s just that as a cyclist, this is how we plan and ride virtually all of our routes, so when I came to do it for a car journey a few weeks ago, I was just a bit miffed that it just wasn’t possible — especially because on Google maps you can create your own routes in the web app — you just can’t open them in the app…
Or unless you’ve been sent to the wrong location by Google, or been told to take a six hour detour by Google.
Apple Maps is better for me, at least, here in BC. Google has more locations of interest, but a high percentage of them are wrong. (Sometimes, entire cities are wrong.) I would rather have Apple Maps not know a place than Google Maps pretend it knows it. And Apple Maps routing is better.
And I will always remember when Google tried to send me down through Seattle and back (the same streets, even) to get a couple of towns over.
Absolutely. Street view is amazing.
I think content blocking is going to take care of most Safari problems. “A problem” is probably it running out of memory, which it does because so there’s so much extra content due to advertising.
This is not so much the fault of iOS updates, but the incredible size increase of advertisements lately.
You can do this with the Google Maps web site and a bit of creativity, but I don’t think there’s any way to make the iPhone follow it.
Edit: I see you mentioned this in a later post. Sorry. Wrote this first. 🙂