Google maps to IOS

[Anonemous]

Wish there was night mode and lane assist in Google maps.

 

[WelshBloke]

Wish there was night mode and lane assist in Google maps.

There is a night mode in Google maps (at least in the Android version). It automagically changes to it at night.

 

[TuxDave]

Wish there was night mode and lane assist in Google maps.

I think I learned a trick in the Apple forums of the "DIY nightmode for everything". There's an accessibility option to make a triple click on the home button to invert all colors. It's pretty dumb, but really useful.

 

[ponyo]

Wait, there is no night mode for Google Nav on iOS? What about Apple Maps?

 

[Eug]

How much data does Google Maps use? When I was at work I started some App Store downloads on WiFi (with cellular data set to off for App Store downloads). They didn't finish before I started my journey home. I then turned on mapping and turn by turn navigation for a 20 minute car trip.

I just checked the phone, and it seems I've probably used about 300+ MB of cellular data in these last few hours. Frack! Suddenly my 2 GB data plan doesn't seem so great. (I've never used even 1.5 GB data in a month before, even with a few days of tethering.) I think it must be a bug in the App Store settings and it's downloading over cellular even though I told it not to. However, I want to make sure it's not the Google Maps app.

Great app by the way. The interface is slow on my iPhone 4, but otherwise it's way nicer than Apple Maps.

P.S. It's not the Podcast app cellular data bug, since I don't have the Podcast app installed.

 

[TuxDave]

Wait, there is no night mode for Google Nav on iOS? What about Apple Maps?

Nope for both (I think)! It's pretty of stupid of them. Hence why I enabled the triple click thing.

 

[Anonemous]

Wait, there is no night mode for Google Nav on iOS? What about Apple Maps?

Yea, no night mode in iOS version. So everyone shake their phones to submit feedback for nightmode and lane assist!

/remembers when Navigon or iGo had lane assist way before Garmin/Tomtom

 

[TuxDave]

Yea, no night mode in iOS version. So everyone shake their phones to submit feedback for nightmode and lane assist!

/remembers when Navigon or iGo had lane assist way before Garmin/Tomtom

Lol I was thinking "what the hell do you mean shake the phone" then I saw the feedback window pop up. Lol and feedback submitted!

So yeah, I gave it a try on my way home. The usual GPS problems still remain. A person who knows the local routes is always going to be better than a GPS and so it wanted me to go down some smaller road instead of the main highway which would've been slightly faster and much easier to deal with. Having the voice of Google Now is definitely very pleasant on the ears. Other than that, no real complaints.

I REALLY like the way it handles alternate route suggestions. I know Apple maps shows the various routes by showing the complete map and the different blue lines representing each path. Google maps is more like a tab with the "via <some main road>" so you get the basic idea of where it's going to take you. Again, as a local the tabbed method is quicker to understand. I'm sure if I didn't know the area, "via some road" wouldn't be very helpful.

 

[ponyo]

Google maps routing me to go down smaller roads instead of the main highway drives me insane. It's almost a deal breaker for me. If I put in long distance route, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get pulled off the main highway and taken through all kinds of smaller roads and backways. It's beyond irritating. I ended up getting a ticket last time because it routed me to go through all these bogus speedtrap towns instead of the main highway where I could've set the cruise control to 75mph the entire way.

 

[khha4113]

Google maps routing me to go down smaller roads instead of the main highway drives me insane. It's almost a deal breaker for me. If I put in long distance route, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get pulled off the main highway and taken through all kinds of smaller roads and backways. It's beyond irritating. I ended up getting a ticket last time because it routed me to go through all these bogus speedtrap towns instead of the main highway where I could've set the cruise control to 75mph the entire way.

Are you sure you didn't check "Avoid Highway" in its settings? Anyway, it usually provides other 2 alternate routes for you to choose.

 

[silverpig]

How much data does Google Maps use? When I was at work I started some App Store downloads on WiFi (with cellular data set to off for App Store downloads). They didn't finish before I started my journey home. I then turned on mapping and turn by turn navigation for a 20 minute car trip.

I just checked the phone, and it seems I've probably used about 300+ MB of cellular data in these last few hours. Frack! Suddenly my 2 GB data plan doesn't seem so great. (I've never used even 1.5 GB data in a month before, even with a few days of tethering.) I think it must be a bug in the App Store settings and it's downloading over cellular even though I told it not to. However, I want to make sure it's not the Google Maps app.

Great app by the way. The interface is slow on my iPhone 4, but otherwise it's way nicer than Apple Maps.

P.S. It's not the Podcast app cellular data bug, since I don't have the Podcast app installed.

Well it used to be graphical tiles, but this version is all vector based, so it should be much better on data usage. If you're doing satellite view, you'll get hit with a lot of data usage though.

 

[badb0y]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Google overlords.

Apple's Maps app is passable at least in NY but Google maps is on another level.

 

[Eug]

Well it used to be graphical tiles, but this version is all vector based, so it should be much better on data usage. If you're doing satellite view, you'll get hit with a lot of data usage though.

Yeah, that's what I figured. Vector based, and no satellite. Just street view as I neared my home, so I had predicted just a few MB total. I'm gonna try this again, but I highly suspect it's the App Store that did it.

So, while Google Maps is great, I'm not so happy with iOS 6. I guess the only really good news for us iPhone 4 users and iOS 6 is that Apple fscked up Maps good with its replacement of the previous, which led Google to release an awesome one.

In fact, Apple basically indirectly killed 95% of all 3rd party mapping apps IMO, because everyone else is going to be using Google Maps, while some of the lazy ones will use Apple Maps just because it's already installed.

On my iPhone 4, Google Maps is now on my front page, and Apple Maps is on page 2.

 

[zerocool84]

Google maps routing me to go down smaller roads instead of the main highway drives me insane. It's almost a deal breaker for me. If I put in long distance route, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get pulled off the main highway and taken through all kinds of smaller roads and backways. It's beyond irritating. I ended up getting a ticket last time because it routed me to go through all these bogus speedtrap towns instead of the main highway where I could've set the cruise control to 75mph the entire way.

Google gives you the shortest route, if you don't like it then use an alternate route it gives you or go your own way. It's doing it's job correctly, not its fault you're speeding.

 

[Anonemous]

huh, is there an option to toggle highways or toll roads/ferries?

 

[MrX8503]

Yeah you can toggle avoid highway's and tolls. A killer feature I think.

 

[Eug]

Yep, my huge data usage yesterday is not from Google Maps. I did another short trip and the data usage was about 2 MBs or so. Damn App Store.

So, I'm guessing for people who use this every day for a few trips might use 100-200 MB a month. However, if it's just occasional usage, then it'd be less than 50 MB per month.

 

[ponyo]

Google gives you the shortest route, if you don't like it then use an alternate route it gives you or go your own way. It's doing it's job correctly, not its fault you're speeding.

Shortest route is not always the best way. Especially on long drives. And sometimes the two alternate routes suggested isn't much better because it still likes to route you through back roads during the middle of the trip. It does give you the option of your own route which is nice but that's only useful if you know the route. But I wouldn't be using it if I was really familiar. But I've been burned several times by Google Maps because it routes using the major interstate for like 150 miles and then next 100 miles it routes me through some god awful small dinky back roads where speeds are constantly changing from 20mph to 65mph before putting me back on major interstate for next 150 miles. So you're constantly having to pay attention when the drive is already tiring enough. And when you're driving through these unfamiliar areas in the dark late at night, it's even worse. And since these really rural backwards areas still stuck in the 1950s deep South, most of the time you lose your good cell signal data and drop down to EDGE/G or worse no signal. Google Maps does this to save maybe 10 minutes on the entire 400 mile route if everything goes according to plan while ignoring the fact the major highway would've likely been just as fast or even faster since you can set the cruise control at 75mph and coast the entire way.

Don't get me wrong. Google Maps is awesome in the city and for short drives. But for long drives, I've been burned enough I tend to bring along my TomTom as well. So I prefer Apple Maps which uses TomTom for longer drives and Google Maps for short congested city drives.

 

[Red Storm]

Ponyo in my experience with Google Nav over the years it always goes for the fastest (time) route. If it ever wants me to take back roads it's because I either told it to avoid highways, or because of traffic and whatnot that way will be faster. It does not "always" just do it on its own, not by a longshot.

 

[Eug]

Somehow that post made me think of Deliverance.

 

[ponyo]

Ponyo in my experience with Google Nav over the years it always goes for the fastest (time) route. If it ever wants me to take back roads it's because I either told it to avoid highways, or because of traffic and whatnot that way will be faster. It does not "always" just do it on its own, not by a longshot.

I'm not saying it always route me through the back roads on its own during the middle of a trip. My experience is that it tends to pick that route in the beginning of the trip because like you say it's usually the shortest route. I'm just saying the shortest route is not always the fastest or the most optimal route. All this can be somewhat avoided if you plan your route in advance and look through the route suggested by Google Maps from the beginning. Which I tend to do now since Ive been burned multiple times. My experience with TomTom is that it tries to stick to the major interstates much as possible. Google Maps, not much so.

 

[Tom]

how about giving an example between 2 cities where Google maps routed you off the nearby interstate..

 

[Red Storm]

I'm not saying it always route me through the back roads on its own during the middle of a trip. My experience is that it tends to pick that route in the beginning of the trip because like you say it's usually the shortest route. I'm just saying the shortest route is not always the fastest or the most optimal route. All this can be somewhat avoided if you plan your route in advance and look through the route suggested by Google Maps from the beginning. Which I tend to do now since Ive been burned multiple times. My experience with TomTom is that it tries to stick to the major interstates much as possible. Google Maps, not much so.

There could be many factors that affect that choice. Maybe the traffic is worse in a certain area when you first set the route so it picks another way.

We drive down to Outer Banks (NC) every year, and this past year while looking at our usual route on Google Maps I noticed we were being pointed another way. I switched it to our usual route and noticed half way down a lot of traffic we normally run into. This year we got a different route from Google and it turned our usual 5-6 hour trip into 4 hours. If it did what you say TomTom does we would still be using the longer way, so I'm glad that Nav didn't just default to major interstates the whole way.

 

[MrX8503]

What would be cool is that if you can tap and drag to modify the route. Kinda like how you can do this on desktop google maps.

 

[TuxDave]

What would be cool is that if you can tap and drag to modify the route. Kinda like how you can do this on desktop google maps.

I do that on the fly. I ignore part of the directions and make it recalculate a route.