Re:Apple Maps vs. Google Maps
by dan-robertson on Saturday July 10, 2021 @01:49PM
(#27795137)
One thing that really winds me up is that the colour scheme in google maps is ‘wrong’ in the sense that it does not match existing local maps. Apple maps have put a lot of effort into making the colour scheme and labels match existing maps. At least where I live in the uk.
Motorways show up in blue with white-on-blue-rounded-rectangle labels (matching road signs) with A-roads in green. Junction numbers show up as white-in-black-rounded-rectangle like on road signs. On google maps, the motorways and A-roads are yellow. Motorways get blue labels but it’s the wrong shade and shape. A-road labels are slightly better. A failure of apple maps is that they don’t show junction numbers on the regular maps while google does. But their maps mostly look like the road atlases I remember.
If I look at public transport, apple have made a much better attempt to match the look of underground maps in London (failure example: the map doesn’t make it obvious that the jubilee line stops at green park.) Google maps don’t get such good results though they try to match colours of lines. Google maps don’t have national rail but apple do. If I look at New York, apple have tried to capture the different style of their metro network (also their American road labels look like the road signs and this seems less the case for google but I don’t know so much about US road signs.)
The feature I really wish for, especially in car play, is plan views of road junctions like roundabouts or weird intersections. Neither maps app does this.
Motorways show up in blue with white-on-blue-rounded-rectangle labels (matching road signs) with A-roads in green. Junction numbers show up as white-in-black-rounded-rectangle like on road signs. On google maps, the motorways and A-roads are yellow. Motorways get blue labels but it’s the wrong shade and shape. A-road labels are slightly better. A failure of apple maps is that they don’t show junction numbers on the regular maps while google does. But their maps mostly look like the road atlases I remember.
If I look at public transport, apple have made a much better attempt to match the look of underground maps in London (failure example: the map doesn’t make it obvious that the jubilee line stops at green park.) Google maps don’t get such good results though they try to match colours of lines. Google maps don’t have national rail but apple do. If I look at New York, apple have tried to capture the different style of their metro network (also their American road labels look like the road signs and this seems less the case for google but I don’t know so much about US road signs.)
The feature I really wish for, especially in car play, is plan views of road junctions like roundabouts or weird intersections. Neither maps app does this.