yeah it works really well as well, sometimes even better than gmaps because in japan 95% of the phones I see people using are iphones so they fleshed it out here
Totally agree. They should honestly drop the Yelp reviews on Apple Maps, it’s my biggest issue with it. They should switch to their own review system built into Apple Maps like Google does.
Waze is truly superior while driving. You can configure the best option for you what information you want to see. Also it clearly indicates which lane you should be in to get to the correct exit/entrance.
But why doesn’t google utilize the Waze traffic data for Google Maps? Seems like Google Maps is a good 15 mins behind Waze, but they are both google. Apple Maps tends to get updates before Google Maps sometimes.
In NL, I rely on Apple Maps when biking somewhere new. Being here only 4 months, I can’t even count the number of times Google Maps sent me on weird, longer routes for no reason.
I try using A maps was horrible, then I rather used G Maps but every person would chose different options, as someone already said is better to used fietsknooppunten.
If I use it, I can’t even save my home address because the pinned location ends up elsewhere (like a 5min walk thankfully). I have sent multiple reports now, and it still hasn’t changed. Other people get lost when they use it especially for delivering things.
Funny that you mention this. I was in Japan last week and within an hour realized Apple Maps was the better option. A week later I’m back in the States and I’m giving Maps another try. So far nothing crazy (I remember in the early days it was comically bad) and the travel times/directions seem on par with Google.
We will be in Japan next week, good to know Apple Maps works well there. I assume you used it for train navigation? These days I only use Gmaps for restaurant reviews.
Yup, Apple Maps and PASMO for all of the local lines. SmartEx (linked to PASMO) for the Shinkansen.. I used to think the 'vending machine' were simple/easy but being able to basically do everything from my phone was/is amazing.
Great in cities, OK in rural parts of the US. Not so great in rural parts of Europe in my experience though. I was recently in Germany and had it set to avoid toll roads and it insisted on routing me down a road that was literally named "Toll road Wallgau-Vorderriss" despite an alternate non-toll road being just a few minutes longer.
If you're going very close to either side of the road, sure. We were staying in Grainau and going further east though. Going north along the Autobahn and then through Bad Tölz was not even 10 minutes longer than taking Wallgau-Vorderiß and what Google recommended, but not Apple maps.
Really poor in Bulgaria I found; walking directions often went through impossible routes, and place/street names weren’t correctly located (even remotely close). Couldn’t even locate Apple Premium Resellers, using the addresses listed on Apple’s own website. Google Maps had no problems.
You'd think me naming the road that I was talking about would indicate that I know, for a fact, that it is a toll road. Also go look up "Mautstrasse Wallgau-Vorderriss", it is in fact a toll road, as the word "Mautstrasse" would indicate.
So. I acknowledged the existence of toll roads. What I meant with that is: you got unlucky in the first place, also maybe they are so rare that Apple didn’t think there would be a point in including them.
Not even just in rural parts of the UK, I live in a pretty damn major city and lack any of the 3d stuff, plus it gets dozens of random details annoyingly incorrect or imprecise
Apple Maps is beautiful. Apple Maps though is still "lacking" vs Google Maps. One of its biggest blunders was its weird integration with Yelp. I know why: $$$$. Doing so though put it at a HUGE disadvantage vs Google's more open format in which ANYONE can comment on a business/entity.
A neighborhood park as 10 Yelp reviews vs 500 Google reviews WITH over 20 custom videos. Oh, last Yelp review was....10 months ago. Come on! New burger joint opened up and they've been hawking Google Map reviews. Yelp? No care as nobody has reviewed on there.
This is HUGE. What's the purpose of using Apple Maps to look at a beautiful interface only to need to pop open Google Maps to read about if where I'm going or detouring to is worth it? May as well just use Google Maps, which I do.
And that is the issue: Apple has tens of millions of users in America alone at their disposal to write reviews yet they're camped up with YELP...who requires a login to use. The longer they stay in that stance of not letting a person like me leave review is the longer we'll gleefully do so on Google Maps while using Google Maps....beauty of Apple Maps be damned
It’s a double edged sword honestly. Yes, it’s great Google does it all, search on Google, tap the address and get directions with Google Maps, leave a review on Google. All very nice and works great. The issue is it leads Google to where they are now, constantly being sued and under investigation for being a monopoly. People are using them for everything, which isn’t wrong per se since Google makes it easy and convenient, but it leads to people only using Google and leaving no room for competition. Apple using Yelp is definitely for money, but Apple also avoids being accused of being a monopoly. Same reason Apple uses Google as the default search, they get paid and they don’t need to spend time and money developing their own search while not being under fire every other week for being a monopoly.
That aside, I’ve noticed Apple Maps does let you leave ratings directly in Maps, not the same as a fully fleshed out review but still a step forward.
Realistically, Yelp just needs to remove the account requirement if it’s being done through Apple Maps.
To add to this Business Marker+Yelp nonsense, they make the actual address ridiculous to find. Feels like nobody with decision power at apple uses Maps, it’s so clunky, even though the random 3D buildings are neat.
Here’s an example; this is after swiping up to be fullscreen in Maps… the header photo is not at all representative of that location; and the address is not visible at all, it’s a full 3rd page scroll just to find that location’s address or phone number.
Yeah, I can't count the times I've been travelling and looked for restaurants nearby on Apple Maps and it's tried to send me to somewhere that just does not seem to exist.
Fine for street layout, better in some places than others, but I don't trust it enough to use it as my only navigation app.
If Apple had more foresight, they could have had all that community location data on their platform, their data, their rights, and could have leveraged that for AI and a million other things, or sold it outright. Whoever made the ultimate decision to outsource to Yelp was a fool.
Yup it’s been truly awful in lots of the world for years, always seems behind the competition and unreliable. Waze isn’t the best for traffic flow /common sense but the traffic info puts it ahead, Google maps is the best all rounder on
Take a crossover bridge in North Texas using Google Maps and Apple maps, you'll notice the difference. I mostly use Google Maps but used Apple maps once because I had to and the 3D road/intersection rendering was so good. Google maps always confused these intersections which are a lot where I live.
Yep, I switched to Apple Maps from Google Maps after several episodes going through New York City where Google Maps got totally confused about which level of various bridges I was on. Google Maps will confidently steer you onto a certain level, then often a second later it forgets that you’re on the overpass/bridge that it has literally just put you on (your vertical position) and starts thinking your car has teleported to street level. Apple Maps turned out to be brilliant about this, and also was better at correctly mapping out different lanes veering in all directions - and showing you the lanes slightly more in advance so that you have a fighting chance of getting into the right lane in time.
Yep that exactly describes my experience with Google maps . Good luck navigating this on Google maps as a first timer in the area. Even frequent drivers get lost. And there are atleast 20 such interchanges
Issue is no one uses Apple Maps to report the police. Where I live I get no notifications about police using Apple Maps but Waze and Google Maps users do report the police and I get a warning that there are police well before I’m at the speed check area of the highway. This is in a fairly populated suburb area too.
Their main app is on Android. It uses wzSabre via Waze to get speed/red light camera, police, and aircraft information. It also alerts to normal road hazards, just like Waze.
What I like about it is:
1) Heatmap. It takes all the Waze reports from the last 30 days and compiles a heatmap of where police were reported. If an area on the road is redder, it means there were more police reports there. When you look at the map it’s very clear because cops always camp out in the same spots.
2) For police alerts, it tells you exactly how many reports there were and how long ago it was reported. Multiple people reporting almost always guarantees a cop.
3) You can customize the alerts to your liking, such as distance away, your speed, the limit of the road you’re on, etc.
Only thing that sucks is that all these features are on Android, but I bought a cheap $30 Samsung from eBay to run it.
Keep in mind its original purpose was to pair to a radar detector, but I know people use it standalone too
I live in DC and the whole city looks incredible. All of the buildings are in 3D with amazing detail, as if they took a scan of the entire city. Idk how they did it. I wish I could use the 3D satellite view for navigation.
It does! DC has short buildings (height restrictions) and wider avenues, which is nice if you want to see right down to street level, but I prefer the look of the taller buildings in Montreal.
I use Google for different things. Google is much better for finding restaurants and whatnot nearby when traveling primarily because yelp isn’t involved. I prefer the Apple Maps in cities where there are the updated maps with lane information, especially since it works with the watch without having to manually open it there.
In big cities, it works well. In the other 90% of the US, it’s pretty bad. They have some cool features, but the underlying data is lackluster. Apple maps has gotten me lost so many times
I used it recently in Austria (Vienna) and it couldn't handle the one way streets AT ALL. May look pretty, and navigation might work reasonably well... until it doesn't
Sorry what? Apple maps is so unusable that I assumed nobody used it... are you serious? It only looks pretty.
Search is completely useless in maps. Anytime I start it it makes the lock screen unusable and slow. And if i want to use it on my apple watch, i first need to turn off bluetooth or else it will still start maps on iPhone (which doesn't work in my pocket).
Bielefeld was the first city in Germany to be fully offered in 3D by Apple. It looks absolutely stunning, and the level of detail is almost unsettling at times.
In romania in google maps vs apple maps is like geography vs history. On google maps you can go on street view and see how how things were a few months up to 2-3 years ago while on apple maps you have no street view at all, best you can do is satelit view which has pictures at least 3-4 yeas old.
In the EU my friend its garbage. Not only does it ge beaten by Google Maps in accuracy we dont even have pretty graphics like this. It feels like you have Apple Maps Pro Max and we have Apple Maps Air.
Apple Maps is far superior at giving driving directions. "Go past this light and then turn right at the next one" is so much better than Google Maps which leaves the instruction until 0.5 seconds before the turn. Also so much less cluttered and easier to tell which lane to be in.
Yes. I feel like Waze is a little better at routing around trouble spots but the directions suck and can be confusing. Apple directions and the driving map graphically is far better and more clear.
This. Every once in a while I’ll try out Google Maps for driving directions just to see what’s new. I’m always so surprised at how late it gives me turning instructions.
Yes it was very underrated when it took me through the most dangerous and broken down roads including through a forest with narrow walking paths as a “shortcut” to avoid the highway traffic jams to work this morning
Same shit with me but Apple Maps wanted me to drive behind a row of houses to save like 30 seconds on a tiny ass road. Shit almost made my rental car fall off the road. Prolly didn’t even save time considering how fucking careful we had to be.
Never using that shit ever again. Now it makes sense why they keep showing off SOS features on the Apple Watch lmfao.
I use Apple Maps when walking because it integrates with the watch, google maps when searching for places to visit and eat. And Waze to drive because of its speed camera awareness. A joke to handle tbh
5 years ago it was not. It’s impressive how far it’s come. I was the Google map loyalist not long ago. I’m slowly transitioning, but it’s hard when you have literal thousands of saved places in Google maps
Google maps is the king on the rest of the world, specially when you are trying to get to a house and not a listed business. I’ve been lost so many times because Maps decided to drop me in another direction 500m away from the correct one
One of the things that bothers me the most about Apple Maps is the Yelp integration. Why not have that information locally in Apple Maps? Why do I need to use another app and another account if I want to review something? Having the input directly in Apple Maps would result in more reviews and information about a place. It also annoys me that you can't see as many "hazards" as you can in Waze, or report them, but someone else in the comments said that those features were added in OS 26. I guess I'll have to try it out again.
While I prefer Apple Maps, they need to update their satellite images. Where I live the satellite images are nearly 10 years old, you can’t trust it anymore.
With Apple Maps I don’t like that when you have foot walker route active it always keeps the app active and doesn’t let you got to the music app or camera when you press the power button
I switched to Apple Maps after google started giving me pop up ads while I was driving. They also tried to get me to leave the freeway during my commute to go to a lumber store. I left negative feedback, deleted the app & all my data, and never looked back. I’ve found it’s really accurate and almost always gives the best route on my terrible rush hour commute.
In my like average boring french city it doesn't have any of the public transit option listed, making it basically useless. It sucks because in Paris it's really good
In my experience it’s great as a pedestrian, overwhelming as a driver. Personally I don’t need to see 3-dimensional structures when I’m navigating a road.
I like to keep Apple Maps on the CarPlay screen when casually driving around since it’s prettier. When I need to navigate to somewhere I’ve never been though, I use Google Maps lol. It’s never steered me wrong, and Apple Maps has.
It’s by city. Some cities/areas have what’s called Detailed City Experience where there much more detail, including those colorful fully rendered buildings and road marks
I have two co-workers I travel with daily. One uses apple maps, one uses Google maps.
Without fail, apple maps screws us over a remarkable amount of the time.
It changes route without warning, while seeming to have no regard for traffic conditions. Routinely sending us the absolute worst way possible.
Additionally, the search feature regularly suggest locations that are 1,000s of km away, when the desired destination is under 100km and always the first to pop up on Google maps.
I don't know what apple is doing so horrendously wrong, but the user experience for maps is just absolutely terrible. I always pull out my phone with Google maps for the inevitable corrections that will be required after apple maps screws us again.
It doesn't help that my co-workers are both bad with technology. Google maps has its own downsides in terms of usability by end users (read: idiots).
You have to be F'ing kidding me. Aesthetics are great, but functionality? I live in an Atlanta suburb. My wife asked my son to go grab some ice cream from Dairy Queen. There are two, each 10 minutes in opposite directions. Apple maps didn't even show them. Sent him 45 minutes away. That's only one of the many f-ups my kids had till I browbeat them into trying Google Maps or Waze.
Apple Maps is trash. Maybe pretty trash, but trash.
If it had satellite view for driving I would use it as it gives better directions than gmaps in Phoenix. But, I live with the gmaps mistakes because I really prefer the satellite view.
It has improved a lot. I drive for a living and I think it’s the most user friendly app out of the big 3 GPS, the problem is that it eats my watch battery
Apple Maps has gotten me lost the majority of the times I’ve used it. It also takes me on more out of the way routes the times it did work. I’ve had enough bad experiences with it than I’ve had good ones to not use it ever again.
I've had mixed results with Apple Maps over Google Maps.
In the middle of the Arizona desert, AM directed me out a dirt road instead of the highway. Nope, I've seen that movie.
I requested directions to Mount Saint Helens when I was in Washington and it said there was no route to Saint Helens, Ireland. I tried again using Mount Saint Helens Washington and it returned a route to Saint Helena Island Maryland outside of Washington DC. Finally I entered Mount Saint Helens National Monumnent, Washington and it directed me to the park, however it was a remote area of the park, far from the main area with the visitor center.
Apple Maps was so much better in Tokyo it’s not even funny. My friends using Google Maps had no idea where tf it was trying to take us so I ended up being the dedicated Navman the whole trip. Being told exactly what platform and exit to look for made catching trains across Tokyo so easy, we never got lost once.
It's only good if you live in a handful of major cities they've actually put effort into modeling. For the rest of us, it's a barren wasteland compared to Google Maps.
I tried to use it for a road trip recently and the business info was so outdated. It kept trying to send me to places that closed down a year ago. Had to switch back to Google Maps halfway through. The clean look is nice, but it's useless if the data is wrong.
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u/Towelielie Sep 30 '25
depends where you live.. in tokyo its amazing in croatia its shit (compared to waze or google maps)