I use Google Maps by listening to the directions through a bluetooth speaker in my helmet so I rarely am ever actually looking at the screen. I absolutely hate how many times it will interrupt/announce absolutely useless information, or at times suddenly announce a route change for a 30 second faster route and it'll just sit there waiting for my input which I cannot provide in order to cancel.
You might find it less aggravating, dunno.
Plus, for longer trips paper maps are way better on a bike, since Google is really aggressive about what roads they hide. I've found way more fun roads to travel on after using this method. Plus, with a tank bag you always have your rain gear and other necessities with you. Only downside is they look ugly.
Last summer this had my blood boiling. I was part of some backed up traffic but I could already see my destination on the other side of a river, Google Maps saying ~25 minutes away. Suddenly it asks if I want to take an alternate to save 2 minutes. I look at the map and it looks like a pretty wild path to try to save 2 minutes over so I say no. About a minute later it asks again. I say no. This keeps repeating, with a different estimate between 1-4 minutes. I keep saying no. Finally I don't manage to hit the no button quick enough and it assumes I want to save the 2 minutes... so now every exit it starts saying "take the exit...". It was at about this point I thought to just turn the car volume off until I got over the bridge and turn it back on for the rest of the directions.
There was just something about how annoying it managed to be that set me off about it, it couldn't have been less helpful and more of a pain if it tried. Now whenever I hear that prompt that memory comes up. That and like you say the damn "you're on the fastest route". No shit, you'd go off your rocker if I wasn't why bother telling me.
Recently I was going through Chicago and a similar thing started happening during a heavy traffic period but this time rather than "there is a faster route" it was "stay on blah blah for the next <x> miles". Again constantly repeating. I got to thinking about it and I came to the conclusion Google Maps must have an issue where if you stay relatively still and there is any location drift when it snaps you back onto the road it considers it the same as if you had just went through an intersection and it should update you on what's next or going on. In the case of going over the bridge in Cincinnati that meant telling me about the ever so slightly shorter path I could use. In the case of going through Chicago that meant don't take any of the coming splits. Or at least that's the best logical reasoning I could come up with, either way I just muted my car again.
For some years I was using pebble smartwatch which would vibrate with the turn notification (and I could glance it quickly to verify if I wasn't wearing earpiece or couldn't hear it). In all of those described cases I can't interact with the phone. At some point Apple or Google decided to block the turn notifications from pinging over to my watch, so I had to exclusively wear earpiece to hear directions.
To tie in with the rest of the thread, Google Maps will automatically suggest whatever route it wants and since I cannot interact with the phone on this setup, it will just go with whatever it wants to do, which often leads me onto roads under construction and other potentially dangerous routes. No way to turn off this 'feature'.
This is an intended behavior to increase uptake of whatever project introduced alternate routes, and will be presented in the team's performance reviews as evidence of their success.
Finally, I didn't say it was "some crazy dangerous thing". You should mentally flag times when you are writing a reply and have to invent new, extreme, and non-representative language to characterize the position you are replying to. Likely, those will be times when, instead of actually replying, you are just babbling to no purpose. That said - taking your attention off of driving to interact with your phone is certainly sub-optimal from a safety point of view.
"you need to press a button in the next two minutes" isn't any more distracting than what you're already getting.
This way it doesn’t update the route with a ‘timesaving’ route or to an expensive toll route. It’s crazy I have to do this and far from ideal as I would like it to update if there really is a major timesaving route, eg if an accident occurs, but I don’t trust Google Maps now to not update now with a screen only navigation alert.
What it should do is alert me to this change with an audible alert and wait for me to actively approve this route change.
The absolutely blood boiling part about it is that Google will tell me that it's going to take me on an alternate route, unless I press "No" or "Cancel" or something on the phone within a few minutes. How am I supposed to get my phone and press cancel while driving? I realize some people may have their phone / Google Maps integrated with the car, or may use their phone while driving, but I don't. For me the phone is basically announcing "Hey, I'm gonna annoy you in a few minutes, okay?"