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Former Uber employee ranks Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze, prompting map app debate

Do you agree?

Google Maps/Apple Maps

Which map app is the best for what uses?

Those of us of a certain age remember asking for directions and keeping two-inch thick road atlases in our cars to find our way around. Then with the internet came the miracle of Mapquest, followed by the how-did-we-ever-live-without-this GPS systems you could attach to your dashboard.

Then smartphones kicked the road trip game up a notch with map apps that not only give up step-by-step directions but also real-time traffic conditions and the ability to find a gas station or restaurant with gluten-free options along your route. Even those of us who grew up with paper maps struggle to recall how we ever got anywhere before Google Maps.

Now we're so deep into the map app era that we're past the wow stage and into the nit-picky stage. It's no longer good enough to have a handheld computer tell us how to get someplace in real time. Now we have expectations, preferences, opinions and complaints. We also have data and anecdotes with which to compare different apps and discuss which ones do what best.

And hoo boy do people have thoughts on that front.

Former Uber employee Flo Crivello shared some info on X about the analysis they did with three of the most popular map apps—Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze—using a dataset with millions of trips.

The big winner? Apple Maps.

— (@)

Google came in second, and Waze was a distant third (worst "by far").

"The research also included which apps people *thought* was worse, and the order came in the exact opposite order," Crivello shared. "We understood why Apple Maps got a bad rap given how bad it was at launch — it rapidly got better, but the brand stuck. Waze was more of a mystery, and we ended up realizing that people thought its routes were best because it was exposing them to so much info on traffic, construction, police presence etc… Everyone thinks they want a minimalist UI, but in practice, when they see all this info, they subconsciously conclude 'wow, these guys really have their sh*t together' — even when the routes were actually the worst ones."

Crivello said the results "may be shocking," presumably because Apple Maps started with the worst reputation. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook famously apologized for Apple Maps in 2012 and recommended people use Google Maps instead.

However, in the years since, Apple Maps has redeemed itself while Google Maps has lost a bit of its initial luster. Then Waze came along, which people in cities with variable traffic touted as more accurate for timing and real-time updates, becoming some people's favorite. But according to his data eight years ago, Apple was the winner.

Do those results still hold? Some people in the replies said Google Maps was the best, hands down, while other said they preferred Apple or Waze.

It might depend on where you live and what you look for in a map app (and whether you even have access to Apple Maps). Discussions about these apps abound, with some common threads throughout. Many people agree that the U.S. is where Apple Maps shines, but Google Maps works better abroad. Apple Maps offers more natural navigation directions, such as "Not at this stop sign, but at the next one, turn right," instead of Google Maps' assumption that everyone knows how far 300 feet is. Google maps has great searchability and is easier to check reviews of places compared to Apple Maps. So opinions might vary on "best" depending on what you're using it for.

Waze has loyal users and people who love to joke about where it reroutes you when there's traffic.

— (@)

These are not the only three map apps available, either. People who travel internationally and use public transportation seem partial to the CityMapper app, which makes finding train and bus routes simple with a user-friendly interface, so again, a lot depends on why you're using the app in the first place.

As far as popularity goes, Google Maps boasts a whopping 1 billion monthly users. While Apple Maps usage doesn't have any hard numbers, there is data that shows younger generations are partial to iPhones, on which Apple Maps is a native app, so its usage may be growing.

What's your experience? Which map app do you prefer?

This article originally appeared on 5.30.24

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Heroes

This official map pinpoints which cities will probably get a white Christmas.

Want to know whether your city's going to have a snowy Christmas?

Maybe hoping for some post-present snowball fights? Or just snowball fights in general?

This man's absolute snow brutality welcomes all religions. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

If you're in the Rockies or Minnesota, we've got some good news. If you're in Texas ... well, you might just have to keep your fingers crossed for this month's surprise snowfall to repeat itself.

How do we know? It's thanks to the National Centers for Environmental Information's very cool (if you'll pardon the pun) white Christmas map. It shows the probability that any particular place in the lower 48 states will have at least an inch of snow on the ground (I mean, you try making a snowman with 1/16th of an inch) on December 25.

If you're in Hawaii or Alaska, well, you probably already know what your predictions are.

The map is painted in swaths of color, from dark gray (less than 10% chance) to white (more than 90%). Check it out.

[rebelmouse-image 19533240 dam="1" original_size="750x589" caption="Check out the difference between the Rockies' massive white inkblot and the thin little line of the Appalachians running down from New York. Image from the National Centers of Environmental Information." expand=1]Check out the difference between the Rockies' massive white inkblot and the thin little line of the Appalachians running down from New York. Image from the National Centers of Environmental Information.

If you want even more detail, there's an interactive version on climate.gov that will let you zoom in on specific cities and states.

The NCEI based their map on climate data from 1981 to 2010, collected thanks to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 9,800 weather stations all across the country.

Future maps might look different. We know that, thanks to climate change, white Christmases may be more rare today compared to the early 20th century. And when we do get big snowstorms, they might be more extreme.

A woman makes a snowman in Times Square after New York City was rocked by heavy snowfall in January 2016. Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images.

But for now, this is what we've got. So those of you in Maine or Michigan, it might be time to stock up on some cocoa. And to all y'all Floridians, well, maybe it's time to visit some northern relatives for the holidays.

This map will let you look at the world a little differently — and a lot more accurately.

Here's a map of the Earth.

Photo via Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance Narukawa Laboratory.

It might look weird, but it's actually one of the most accurate world maps ever created.

Every continent, country, and ocean on this map is drawn to be proportionally accurate. It's as close as possible, size-wise, to the real thing.

The map was designed by Japanese architect and artist Hajime Narukawa, who just won a Good Design Award — one of the most prestigious design awards on the planet.

Speaking of the planet...

This map addresses a problem cartographers have been scratching their heads over for centuries: How exactly do you make an accurate map of the world?

You see, despite what some conspiracy theorists on YouTube think, the Earth is definitely a sphere. So unfolding it and printing it on a flat piece of paper is inherently difficult. It's a geometrical conundrum that will inevitably lead to inaccuracies.

It's like trying to make a square donut. You can pull it off, but it's going to look a little weird.

For hundreds of years, the answer has been this:

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

It's known as the "Mercator Projection." You may recognize it from your fourth grade classroom. Since it's invention in the 1500s, it's been the go-to standard for navigators, educators, diner placemat makers, and map enthusiasts.

It works pretty well for navigation but it's not without its problems. For example, Greenland looks to be a lot bigger than the United States when, in reality, you could comfortably fit Greenland into the U.S. about four times.

This cool interactive map shows the same "real size" effect for other countries around the world.

Narukawa's map takes a new approach. It unfolds the globe in a way that more accurately represents each landmass.

To do it, he divided the Earth into 96 regions. Then he mapped those regions onto a pyramid or tetrahedron. Unfold the tetrahedron and you get a flat rectangle that maintains (as close as possible) all the appropriate size and distance ratios.

Math! Photo via AuthaGraph, Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance Narukawa Laboratory.

There's even a version you can print out and re-fold into a spherical globe.

Photo via Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance Narukawa Laboratory.

It's not perfect, but it's a beautiful design that gives us a fresh, new, and more accurate perspective of our planet. And aside from eating a square donut, how often do you get to look at the world in an entirely new way?

A 2016 take on a century-old map shows changes in travel over time.

True

In 1914, it could take over 40 days to travel to remote places in the world.

That year, John G. Bartholomew — Great Britain’s royal cartographer at the time — published an isochronic map showing travel times from London to various places around the globe. "Isochronic" simply means that lines (isochrones) are drawn on the map between locations that could be reached in the same amount of time. Trips range from “within 5 days journey” to “over 40 days.”

Even at first glance, it’s stunning.

Map by John G. Bartholomew, 1914.

This map tells a story of the evolution of travel in the early 20th century.

Look closely at what happens when a route reaches a land mass.

In North America, the pink range (five to 10 days) extends from New York to Winnipeg.

But in South America, the yellow segment (10 to 20 days) only reaches a hundred miles or so inland before giving way to green, light blue, and soon dark blue (over 40 days).

The difference between these areas lies in railroads, which in 1914 were fairly common in the eastern United States but significantly harder to come by in South America. An article in The Economist quotes geographer L.W. Lyde as writing, “isochronic distances ... change with every additional mile of railway brought into use.”

But the very year that Bartholomew released his map, another form of travel entered the scene: airplanes.

On Jan. 1, 1914, the first scheduled commercial airline flight took place. It lasted just 23 minutes, and its single passenger spent $400 for the ticket (equivalent to over $9,600 today) at an auction, eager to go down in history as the world's first commercial flight passenger.

A Benoist XIV floatplane in 1914, the type used for the first commercial flight. Image from the Florida Photographic Collection/Wikimedia Commons.

By the 1950s, commercial air travel was booming. Passenger flights were expensive and about five times as dangerous as they are today, but rapid innovation and competition among airlines continued to make flights increasingly accessible. From 1954 to 2014, the number of flight passengers in the U.S. grew by by a factor of 21.

Travel on the ground was rapidly changing as well: 1914 was the time of the Ford Model T, a car often credited with bringing affordable travel to middle-class Americans.

A Ford Model T in 1923, nine years after the creation of Bartholomew's map. Via Conrad Poirier/Wikimedia Commons.

In 1956, President Eisenhower authorized the construction of 41,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System. The Interstate was declared complete in 1992 — at which point the project was about $91 billion over its initial budget and about 23 years overdue.

A century after the original, an updated version of Bartholomew’s map shows how much travel has changed.

In 2016, travel search platform Rome2rio updated Bartholomew’s map to show modern travel times from London around the world. The new map calculates journeys by plane, train, car, bus, ferry, and more.

As Rome2rio wrote on their blog, “What we uncovered was fascinating.”

Map by Rome2rio, 2016. To purchase this map, visit Wellingtons Travel Co. Used with permission.

Note that the legend on this map shows a new time scale. No longer do the dark pink areas represent travel “within 5 days,” but instead, “Within ½ day.” On the other end of the spectrum, in blue, what used to show “over 40 days” now shows “over 1½ days.”

Significant changes in the updated map can be seen in Asia, Africa, and parts of South America. In 1914, a traveler from London could reach any part of India in 10 to 20 days. In 2016, the entire country can be reached within ¾ of a day — with many major cities accessible in less than that.

In the coming years, the isochronic map will undoubtedly continue to change as modes of travel evolve across the globe.

How would a high-speed rail system in the U.S. change the map — not to mention your daily life? Will more of South America become pink in the next couple of decades?

However the map changes in the coming years, one thing is certain: Travel today is faster, safer, and cheaper than it's ever been.

Which begs the question: What part of the globe are you planning to explore next?

Heroes

These 5 bafflingly weird old maps of the Arctic show why it's worth preserving.

The North Pole was once one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.

Robert Peary's 1908 expedition to the Arctic. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Ships trying to sail anywhere near it risked getting permanently frozen in its vast, icy prison.

Fridtjof Nansen's ship, stuck in ice. Photo from Fridtjof Nansen/Wikimedia Commons.

Going on an expedition meant being at sea for at least a few months (maybe even years) and battling horrible cold, wind, snow, and ice, not to mention starvation. Not everyone who set out made it home again; whole expeditions sometimes just ... disappeared.

The crossing was so intense that humans actually reached the South Pole first. It really says a lot when Antarctica is the easier of your two options.

The first verified expedition to the North Pole didn't happen until 1926.

Though U.S. Navy engineer Robert Peary claimed to have made it to the pole in 1909, the first verified, undisputed claim to that achievement didn't happen until Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen flew over it in an airship in 1926.

Roald Amundsen. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Amundsen's team had also been the first to reach the South Pole, which I'm pretty sure means he owns the Earth now.

Before Mr. Roald "Fur Coat" Amundsen, however, mapmakers had been trying to guess what the Arctic looked like for centuries.

See the stone thing in the center and the four islands surrounding the North Pole in this map from 1595?

The red, green, and yellow blobs around the edges are Canada, Europe, and Asia, respectively. The blobs in the middle are ... Mordor? Image from Gerardus Mercator/Wikimedia Commons.

Those are there because mapmaker Gerardus Mercator seemed to think there might be some sort of lost world up there.

By the late 1600s, mapmakers had a better idea of what the pole looked like, but Greenland and Canada still seemed to cause some conundrums.

1680 map by Moses Pitt. Original image from Moses Pitt/Toronto Public Library/Wikimedia Commons.

Like, I'm pretty sure Greenland and Canada don't actually connect to each other.

Original image from Moses Pitt/Wikimedia Commons.

And this mapmaker in 1720 seems to have admitted ignorance, shrugged his shoulders, and just stopped drawing.

C. G. Zorgdrager's 1720 map of the North Pole. Original image from National Library of Norway/Wikimedia Commons.

Some maps, like this one from 1762, made some ... interesting guesses at what the North Pole looks like.

Jean Javier's 1762 map of North America. Image from Jean Lattre/Wikimedia Commons

Interesting guesses like "Maybe future-Alaska isn't a thing."

Image from Jean Lattre/Wikimedia Commons.

And "What if I put a big ol' sea here in the middle of what will one day be Seattle and British Columbia?"

I'm pretty sure I'd remember if Seattle were in the middle of a giant bay. Image from Jean Lattre/Wikimedia Commons.

Even years later, in 1776, Alaska was still proving troublesome to mapmakers.

1776 map. Image from Zatta/Wikimedia Commons.

I mean REALLY.

?!?!?!!!!! Image from Zatta/Wikimedia Commons.

By the 1880s, at least, we knew more or less what was at the North Pole (nothing but water and ice).

Although this map still has a few blank places at the very top of Greenland and Canada.

Those Aleutian Islands look a little short, too. An 1882 map. Image from the New York Public Library.

Good job, 1880s.

Thanks to those explorers and technology, we now know that the Arctic looks like this:

Image from Uwe Dedering/Wikimedia Commons.

But — would those explorers of a century ago, the ones who spent months and years traversing its icy waters, even recognize the place if they saw it today?

In a recent interview, oceanographer Peter Wadhams told The Independent that the Arctic may be on track to be ice-free for the first time in 100,000 years.

Climate change has been consistently reducing the sea ice around the Arctic Ocean for decades, to the extent that the same passages and channels that once baffled and trapped early explorers are now so ice-free that they're being considered for use as shipping lanes.

In late 2015, the Russian icebreaker Vaygach completed a trip along the north coast of Siberia in just seven and a half days. Image from Dudinka_Apu/Wikimedia Commons.

Our maps may be a lot better now, but that doesn't mean we should abandon the Arctic's air of mystery and adventure.

After all, it's still home to seals that look like something out of a Tim Burton film...

Yup, that's definitely the seal version of Beetlejuice. Image from Michael Cameron/Wikimedia Commons.

...not to mention weird methane that seeps from deep in the seabed and these fire-breathing lakes. So even though we now know where we're going when it comes to the North Pole, there's still plenty up there left to discover.

Last year, 174 countries pledged to help fight climate change at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris. Individual people can help, too, by reducing their energy consumption and not only voting for politicians who don't think climate change is a hoax, but making sure they stick to their agreements after they're in office.

If we can accomplish that, we can keep the Arctic cold — and help preserve for future generations the air of mystery and adventure that those old (admittedly faulty) maps embody.

Family

How subtle, clever architectural decisions can help people living with dementia.

Sit down, close your eyes, and try to remember how you got to where you are.

How easy is it for you to visualize the path you took today? How did you remember where to go? Maybe you know to always turn at an important landmark — the tree your mom planted, for example. Maybe there was a sign telling you the right direction.

Photo from iStock.

For people living with dementia, these navigational clues can be hard to read.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, about 5 million Americans live with some form of dementia. Dementia isn't a single disease — rather, it's a broad category of cognitive and neurological symptoms. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease, but there are many others, including strokes or Parkinson's disease.

Dementia can interfere with many of the brain's mental processes, including spatial memory — the part of the brain that deals with navigation. This is why many people living with dementia may sometimes find it hard to get around, even in familiar places.

Part of our ability to navigate lies in the hippocampus; dementia can interfere with processes in this region. Image from Henry Gray/Wikimedia Commons.

Getting lost can be especially dangerous for people who live with advanced forms of dementia — it can mean forgetting how to get home and being exposed to the cold or rain or running into dangerous situations like wandering across a highway.

A possible solution for this problem lies in the designs of the very buildings we live in.

Woodside Place is an assisted-living community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that was built by Presbyterian SeniorCare in 1991.

Photo by Presbyterian SeniorCare, used with permission.

Though not as common today, in the 1980s, many facilities used physical or chemical restraints to prevent their residents from moving around.

Woodside, on the other hand, was specifically built and decorated to accommodate the natural wandering tendencies of people living with dementia.

Clever design decisions — like the use of color — help reinforce and strengthen the residents' spatial memory.

Many care spaces are designed like hospitals, fairly sterile and visually repetitive, white hallway after white hallway. By making the space more colorful, Woodside provides a quick intuitive reminder for residents to identify where they are.

Photo by Presbyterian SeniorCare, used with permission.

At Woodside, even the staff's uniforms are color-coded based on which wing they work in.

"[Patients] may not remember my name, but they remember she's green, she belongs to me," Carrie Chiusano, executive director of Presbyterian SeniorCare's dementia care center, explained.

Staff uniforms are color-coded. Photo by Presbyterian SeniorCare, used with permission.

Another strategy Woodside uses is to have decorations and signs that are meaningful and packed with emotional relevance.

Outside Woodside's green treehouse-themed wing is a large tree decoration. These cueing devices are more than just props; they serve as subtle visual reminders and landmarks for residents.

Woodside has also invested in signs and decorations that have personal significance to the residents. For example, many residents have decorated their doors and living spaces with photographs of themselves, family, and friends, so that they can more easily identify which room is theirs.

This can apply to more than just personal pictures; it can apply to meaningful symbols as well. Mary O'Malley, a Ph.D. student at Bournemouth University in England, told Upworthy of a care facility she visited where one area was decorated with generic pictures of water lilies and another was decorated with a painting of the city's history.

Water lilies vs. New York City. Which means more to you? Images from iStock.

Though the lilies were very pretty, O'Malley said the residents' emotional connection with their home city ultimately seemed to be a more useful navigation tool.

Researchers like O'Malley are constantly looking for ways to design living spaces specifically for people living with dementia.

Along with her supervisors, O'Malley is studying how people learn and remember routes and directions. She's taking a multidisciplinary approach, using psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and perhaps most importantly, direct conversations and feedback from people living with dementia.

Mary O'Malley conducting research at Bournemouth University. Photo from Philip Hartley/Bournemouth University.

O'Malley is interested in what type of spatial memory is most susceptible to memory loss.

For instance, we know that most older adults seem to work better with landmarks ("head toward the church") rather than plain directions ("turn right at the church"). O'Malley wants to see if this pattern holds true in people living with dementia as well. She's also studying the way our brains read maps to see if maps can be more user-friendly.

As we learn more about these designs, we can incorporate them not just into care facilities and hospitals, but into community spaces too.

While care facilities can be designed for residents with specific needs, it's estimated that about 60% of people living with Alzheimer's live within the larger community, rather than in assisted-living facilities.

"If you want to support people so that they remain in the community, then you should be making these changes to the community," O'Malley said.

These design decisions, such as the use of visual reinforcement and meaningful decoration, could be easily incorporated into the spaces we see around us every day. Next time you find yourself stuck trying to navigate, think about all the little visual cues you take for granted and how easy it would be to make them better for everyone.

This is roughly 200 years of American history in one mesmerizing GIF.

There's a ton of juicy stuff in this incredible map. Couple of takeaways for me:

1. How about that neutral territory between Oklahoma and Texas that went away around 1890? Trying to get mail there must've been a real bummer.

2. Maybe all this crowing about securing our borders is missing about 200 years of rich context about just how flexible these borders have been.

What caught your eye about this map, Internet? Or am I just nerding out by myself over here?

If this whole show is moving a little too quickly for you, here it is broken down frame-by-frame.

Clarification: This map takes on history from the lens of how America became 50 states. There are other rich, painful, and bloody perspectives on that history that get lost in a GIF like this. The intention was to show how the borders of the USA that we now recognize as ironclad and immovable are really anything but, and that we should give that more consideration in our public discussion of issues like immigration and who we consider American.

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