Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Which navigation app is best?
Google Maps vs. Apple tree Maps: Which navigation app is best?
Choosing between Google Maps and Apple Maps is something every iPhone owner has to do at some signal or another. The two competing navigation apps take been at odds for nigh a decade, with each i reaching hundreds of millions of people all across the world.
But when it comes downward to it, the number of users y'all have isn't worth much. It's the kind of service you offer that counts most - just ask Waze. Google Maps and Apple Maps offer a lot of the same things these days, but which one is actually better? To answer that question nosotros're pitting Google Maps vs Apple tree Maps to help you figure out which app is right for yous.
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Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Availability
Similar most Apple services, Apple Maps is exclusive to the company'south own line of products. They don't phone call it a walled garden for nothing. That means anyone non using an iPhone, Mac, or some other Apple-made device has zero way of accessing information technology.
Google Maps is the complete opposite, and is available in some form on just about every device out at that place. Android, Windows, iPhone, Mac, even Apple's CarPlay. Should you ever find yourself with a new device and in need of directions, your existing familiarity with Google Maps is going to serve you well. Logging in with your Google business relationship also automatically syncs all your data, including journey history and favorite locations.
While Apple does have a lot of devices, all of which have some form of Apple Maps available, it's not enough to beat Google's near-universal availability.
Winner: Google Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Interface
After several years of refinement, Apple tree Maps and Google Maps both offer a very focused interface that'due south easy to utilise. That said, the fashion they nowadays that information is quite different.
Apple Maps takes a very elementary approach to this, with an interface that keeps pretty much everything in i place for ease of utilize. Recent search history, saved locations, and information nearly businesses and places can exist found when yous aggrandize the search bar.
Crucially, that search bar stays where information technology is until you click on a place, and if you want to become rid of information technology all you accept to exercise is tap the 10 push button in the corner.
Google on the other hand, has buttons and toolbars all over the place. At the top of your telephone screen is the search bar, which likewise houses account information and sits above dedicated buttons for finding local amenities. If you're ever needing to notice a restaurant or gas station fast, that's likely to be very useful.
Too at the bottom of the screen is a bill of fare giving you access to the Explore and Commute features, saved locations, local news, and the choice to contribute to Google'due south mapping database. All of these things will vanish if you lot tap the centre of the screen, and so you tin run into a pure uncluttered map, but it's all the same all a fleck much.
Winner: Apple Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Map Design
Similar its interface, Apple Maps has opted for a more minimalist approach to its map design. While information technology has a lot of information at its disposal, Apple Maps doesn't actually show you very much unless you lot zoom all the fashion in. Similarly, Google shows y'all more information when you zoom further in, but it does showtime showing a lot of that information much sooner than Apple Maps does.
That said, both of them always testify the essentials no matter how you're viewing the map. Roads, locations, landmarks, it's all at that place. The just existent difference is how much surplus information is on display, including businesses, smaller road names, and then on. Likewise both of them employ a dark fashion that makes it easier on your eyes during any belatedly-dark driving you need to be doing.
Google Maps had likewise started rolling out more than superfluous, but still useful details, like terminate signs, crosswalks, and so on. As of iOS 15 Apple has also started calculation this data, with turn lanes, autobus and taxi lanes, and crosswalks. It likewise has information for circuitous highway interchanges, something Google Maps has included for some fourth dimension.
Both apps accept the information you need, but Apple Maps' less-is-more approach makes it much easier on the optics. Google Maps' excess information can be distracting sometimes, and that's the last thing you need if you're lost and struggling to orient yourself.
Winner: Apple tree Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple tree Maps: Navigation
There's very petty difference in how Apple Maps and Google Maps actually gets you places. Both services follow your progress as you travel, including travel time and journeying altitude, your electric current ETA, and the almost relevant instruction at that point in fourth dimension. So if yous need to stay on the throughway for some other x miles, that'southward what it'll say. But as soon as yous accept a turn coming up information technology'll alter and let you know.
Both services are capable of telling you what current conditions are like on your route, including traffic, road closures, and and so on. Both apps will besides propose alternate routes if the one you lot're on is particularly congested, though neither of them are as aggressive as the Google-endemic Waze.
It doesn't matter how you intend to travel either, since Apple Maps and Google Maps tin generate directions for drivers, walkers, cyclists, and those travelling by public transport.
As far as navigation goes, the differences between Google Maps and Apple Maps can be almost identical, or they can be as dissimilar as any route between two points can get.
For instance, driving from my business firm to our London office generated identical 51 mile routes and an ETA of one hr and thirteen minutes. Going by train is a trivial different: Google Maps thought I'd go at that place in 58 minutes, versus 57 minutes on Apple.
Neither app gave me much choice to change the routes. Apple tree Maps skipped the price road, even when I'd set it to allow tolls, and wouldn't give me the option of taking information technology. Likewise Google didn't accept any suggestions that involved leaving the thruway 1 exit afterwards. Instead the only alternate routes on offer were and then wildly different that all 3 routes diverged near as soon as I left domicile.
It's a flake strange that both apps offering primary routes that are similar, merely the alternates were so wildly different.
Regardless of which one yous have, you can exist sure that the optimal route will get you to your destination in roughly the aforementioned corporeality of time.
However, Google Maps has the added advantage of letting you add multiple stops to your road ahead of time. Apple Maps does allow y'all to add together pit stops mid-route, just that's but really to let you get gas, or have something to eat. It's not for, say, setting up a route to your Mom's business firm to pick her upwardly, and and so conveying on to your grandparents without starting a brand new route.
Google Maps is as well updating the manner it calculates its routes, with the aim of prioritizing safety and optimizing fuel consumption. So information technology's going to use a number of factors, including real-time traffic data, to notice you a route that uses less fuel and is less likely to crusade an blow, but without affecting your final ETA too much.
So Google very narrowly clinches the win thanks to the added convenience of journeying planning.
Winner: Google Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple tree Maps: Traffic
Both Google Maps and Apple Maps have admission to real-time traffic data, and can allow y'all know if you lot're going to face any problems along your route. Whether it'due south road closures, heavy traffic, or something else entirely, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Naturally both apps allow you report problems on the road, be they accidents, speed cameras, or general hazards that may affect travel times.
Google does accept an edge here, thanks to the presence of its "Commute" feature. Once yous've ready your work and domicile locations in the settings, borer commute shows yous what sort of journey you tin expect. Information technology'll tell you how long the journey volition take, what major roads you'll be taking, and how busy those roads are. If that route isn't to your liking then y'all tin can option 1 of a number of dissimilar options.
Google Maps will also permit you accommodate your departure or arrival time in the app itself, something Apple tree Maps does non exercise. The apple tree Calendar has a "travel time" feature that can do much the aforementioned matter, but that relies on y'all setting upward a agenda upshot with the Travel Fourth dimension characteristic turned on. User-friendly in some contexts, sure, but information technology's also a convoluted process that definitely could practice with some streamlining.
Apple tree Maps lets y'all save your work and habitation addresses every bit well, among other locations. It makes it faster to generate directions for places you go to regularly, only it requires a few actress steps that Google Maps' Commute skips out. Google also has the advantage of all that extra historical and existent-fourth dimension information.
Winner: Google Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple tree Maps: Public transportation
If travelling by car isn't your thing, both Google Maps and Apple Maps can include public transportation information in their directions. In both apps it's equally simple as picking a destination and then hitting the "public transport" option at the tiptop of the screen.
Both services include data from multiple transit authorities, timetables, ride-sharing services, and status updates, simply Google however has the reward. Because it has data on where Google Maps users are, plus a mix of historical and crowdsourced data, Google can estimate only how decorated the public send organization is at any given fourth dimension.
Google Maps is even expanding this feature to show yous how crowded particular areas or neighbourhoods are later this yr. Like the Commute feature, all of this means you tin can see exactly what to expect and change your road accordingly.
Merely Apple Maps has started communicable upwardly in iOS 15. Apple Maps now prominently displays station data at the pinnacle of the screen and lets y'all pivot your favorite transit route for piece of cake access. The update besides prompts users when they're approaching their end, and so they make sure to go off at the right time.
Both services are able to offer real-time transit data, including live departure times, schedules, outages and delays. Apple Maps can also tell you lot the location of a passenger vehicle or train that's en-route, so you know just how far away it is.
However Apple tree Maps still doesn't feature information on how busy a item service is, which puts it at a disadvantage. It was hinted at in the iOS fourteen.5 beta, it hasn't happened all the same. Nonetheless the system seemed to piece of work by having the Apple Maps app send bearding and encrypted data to oversupply-source how busy a identify is.
That'due south similar to Google's method, and public transport congestion works the same manner. And then at that place'due south no reason why Apple Maps couldn't exercise the verbal same affair in the virtually future.
Winner: Google Maps, for now
Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Discovery
At that place'due south more to navigation apps than finding directions from point A to B. Both Google Maps and Apple tree Maps have features that lets you encounter what'south effectually, helping you find restaurants, gas stations, parking lots, and whatsoever other businesses or points of interest for those times yous don't know where you're going.
Google Maps puts this in plain view, with buttons underneath the search bar and a larger list of categories if you scroll to the terminate. There's a push for pretty much anything you'd need, while the Explore tab at the bottom of the screen gives you a more generalized overview of the area.
Upcoming changes to this characteristic volition also see Google offer more specific recommendations when you lot're looking for things. For example searching for restaurants in the morning volition exist more likely to evidence upward coffee shops and places serving breakfast, rather than locations only open for dejeuner and dinner.
Apple tree Maps does something similar, which you'll come across if you lot tap and aggrandize the search bar. "Discover Nearby" works in exactly the aforementioned way, letting you selection a category that's relevant to the area y'all're looking at. Sadly there's no full list like Google has, and you'll only meet a handful of options which will alter depending on which specific expanse yous're looking at. Apple Maps also has something called "Guides" which imports relevant editorial content that should aid familiarize y'all with whatsoever given area.
Google Maps' Explore results can capitalize on a wealth of Google's information, which is collected first manus and through crowdsourcing. Contact information, opening hours, whether business is limited thanks to the pandemic, it's all there. Google knowing where people are at whatever given time likewise means it tin can estimate how busy a place is. And then if a eating house or a supermarket is particularly congested, you'll be able to encounter that ahead of fourth dimension.
Google also has future plans to expand this feature by letting you lot run across how busy the foot traffic is in certain neighbourhoods or locations. Plus you'll exist able to see this from the map itself, rather than a business organization's page.
Apple Maps has a lot of that information cheers to partnerships with third party services like Yelp, Square, and TripAdvisor, but non equally much as Google Maps does. It doesn't offer live updates on how busy a business concern is, just co-ordinate to the iOS xiv.5 beta at that place may be a crowd-sourced version of this characteristic coming in the very almost time to come. Encrypted and anonymized, naturally.
Apple too offers a 'Curated Guides' option as part of iOS fifteen, which offers recommendations on places to go when yous're in a specific metropolis. These guides tin can be saved and update automatically, so you're always up to date. Alternatively yous can cull to create your own personal guide to share with friends and family unit
Apple Maps' less-is-more arroyo does ensure a much cleaner interface, notwithstanding. Whereas Google's insistence on including every bit much as possible means things can feel a little cluttered at times.
Despite the potential for information overload, Google still comes out on top in this instance. able to put its data collection to skilful use by ensuring you know if y'all're heading somewhere at the wrong time. The fact the app doesn't pick and choose Explore categories for yous is besides a win, and something Apple Maps definitely needs to copy. Merely Apple Maps appears to exist catching up, and Google's dominance may not exist so sure for much longer.
Winner: Google Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Hands-free control
Hands-free control is important if yous're driving, because you can't exist constantly tapping your telephone to get things done. Apple Maps and Google Maps both accept hands-gratis command, though they practise work differently.
Apple Maps is connected to Siri, which is installed on every iPhone by default. That ways you can get everything ready right away, without any unnecessary extra steps. Siri does work with Google Maps now, just y'all take to specify where you desire to ship the command, otherwise Siri will default to Apple Maps. So you'll accept to say "Hey Siri, get me directions to work with Google Maps" considering simply request for directions to piece of work will open up up Apple Maps instead. Alternatively yous can download and gear up-upwardly Google Assistant, or toggle voice commands by tapping the microphone push button on screen.
Over on Android both Google Maps and Google Assistant are pre-installed, significant y'all tin can set up hands-free commands right away. Manifestly Apple Maps isn't available there, though again you do have the pick to skip the assistant and toggle voice commands with an on-screen push button.
Obviously tapping the screen everytime yous desire to tell Maps to do something isn't the best scenario, because you're supposed to exist concentrating on the route. It doesn't matter which device you're using.
Apple tree Maps has the edge if you utilize an iPhone, considering everything is interconnected and you don't demand to deal with the hassle of downloading a new assistant or specifying which service you want to utilize every fourth dimension. Obviously Google Maps has the edge on Android, just that's primarily down to the fact Apple Maps isn't bachelor.
Winner: Necktie
Google Maps vs. Apple tree Maps: Street view
If you need a different way of looking at the earth, so Street View is a very helpful tool as it shows a location from your own point of view, rather than a map'south standard peak-down perspective. It'south particularly helpful for orienting yourself in a strange location.
Google'south Street View has been around since 2007, and over the past 14 years information technology'due south expanded across the globe. Not everywhere, and you'll notice large portions of countries like Germany and South Korea don't take Street View coverage, nor does mainland People's republic of china. However it's in a lot of places.
Accessing information technology is piece of cake, and all you have to practice is change the map type to the Street View pick, and click an surface area highlighted in blue. You then have the choice to either navigate in a divide-screen mode that relies on you tapping locations on the map to get around, or by borer and swiping within Street View itself.
There's also the added advantage of Live View directions, which uses AR to overlay directions on what your telephone tin can run across - helping yous navigate more effectively. Live View is besides set to become an upgrade in the near hereafter, which adds business name and information to this way. And that includes how decorated they are at whatsoever given fourth dimension, merely in instance there isn't a window yous tin can peak though.
Yet Alive View relies on there being Street View coverage. Which is fine in a lot of public places, cheers to Street View's extensive coverage. But if you observe yourself not covered, AR directions won't exist available.
Apple Maps' equivalent is called "Await Around," and since it just launched in late 2019, it'southward nowhere well-nigh equally extensive. Yous'll only notice Look Around spots in major cities in the U.Southward., U.K., Nihon, Ireland, and Canada correct at present. Accessing and navigating this mode is a little dissimilar too.
You accept to physically select a spot on the map and select the Look Around option start. Navigating, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be available in full-screen mode, and you'll need to admission the dissever-screen style and tap/scroll around the map to see what dissimilar locations look similar.
iOS fifteen as well saw the launch of AR directions, with Apple users able to heighten their iPhones to scan nearby buildings to work out exactly where you lot are — and show you where to go in a real globe context. It's pretty much identical to how Google Maps does it, if yous're already familiar with Google's equivalent.
So because of the sheer amount of coverage, and having a better choice of navigational choices, means Google comes out on top. Yet, Apple is fast catching up and Google Maps may not be in the meridian spot for long.
Winner: Google Maps
Google Maps vs. Apple Maps: Privacy
Apple has gone all in with privacy over the past few years, and Apple tree Maps is no exception. While privacy and live navigation seem pretty incompatible, Apple has developed a procedure called "fuzzing" that ensures anonymity.
Rather than requesting a route from A to B, Apple Maps sends off multiple requests with multiple identifiers that masks where you're trying to go. The app too converts your precise location to a less-exact i after 24 hours, and Apple tree itself doesn't store whatever information almost where you've been or what y'all've been searching for. Plus none of the data that reaches an external server is associated with your Apple tree ID.
Any personalized data Apple Maps does accept is stored on your device, rather than a server where information technology's out of your command. That means you lot can go into the settings and delete it at any time, prophylactic in the knowledge that it is gone for adept.
Data can still exist backed-up and synced across multiple devices, via your personal iCloud storage, but this doesn't happen automatically. Because uploading that data to a server, no affair how secure, is riskier than keeping information technology on your device, yous have to deliberately opt in start.
Google Maps does none of that. Instead pretty much everything you do gets routed through Google's servers, and the information gleaned from your travels and searches can exist used to better personalize Google'south ads. Considering that'south how the company makes its money, and the more relevant the ads are to you the more valuable they become.
Measures are taken to ensure advertisers don't learn too much about you lot equally an individual, but it'south not entirely anonymized in the same manner Apple Maps' navigation requests are.
Google Maps does accept an Incognito Style, only like the Chrome browser, which limits the amount of data that is saved. Notwithstanding that doesn't terminate the fact everything has to get through Google servers first, so the only way to actively avoid Google Maps from keeping tabs on yous is to stop using it and delete the app.
Winner: Apple Maps
| Google Maps | Apple Maps | |
| Availability | x | |
| Interface | x | |
| Map Blueprint | x | |
| Navigation | x | |
| Traffic | x | |
| Public Transportation | x | |
| Discovery | x | |
| Hands-gratuitous control | x | 10 |
| Street View | ten | |
| Privacy | x | |
| Full | 7 | 4 |
Google Maps vs. Apple tree Maps: Bottom Line
Google's practice of data collection is key to making Google Maps a superior service to Apple Maps. Or that's one fashion of looking at it. Since Apple tree Maps is run with a focus on user privacy, Apple can't utilize data to brand improvements. So Google can offer real time updates showing how decorated a store or train might be, that'south always going to be well out of Apple's reach.
But at the same time using Google Maps means knowing everything y'all practise, and everything you search for, is being collected and analyzed for Google'southward own benefit. When it comes to GPS and your bodily location, that's going to be too much for the more privacy-witting.
Discovering new places is piece of cake on Google Maps, simply only simply. Apple tree just needs to offer a full list of categories, rather than just giving you what information technology thinks is the near relevant. Similarly Google Street View is more widespread, merely it likewise had a 12-year head start that puts Apple tree's Look Around at a clear disadvantage. Apple tree Maps does offer a cleaner design and simpler interface, which is much more appealing than Google Maps' relatively chaotic approach.
Most of these comparisons are arbitrary in the long run. Google Maps may well have won more categories than Apple Maps, but numbers don't tell us everything. The most important thing to consider is the actual navigation, and it turns out there isn't really a wrong answer here.
Google Maps' and Apple Maps' navigation performances were basically identical, and it means whichever ane you pick you'll be well served. It's only upwardly to you to decide which is right for yous and what sort of journeys you plan to take.
If you value privacy above all else, or are happy with the default Mapping app on your iPhone, go with Apple Maps. Still if yous prefer a service that offers more than information and puts your data to work improving what yous see, then become for Google Maps. Information technology's all up to you.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/google-maps-vs-apple-maps
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