Is Google Maps getting worse?

Makes sense. Google has been replacing skilled engineers with tail-eating AI regurgitation engines, which are getting progressively worse as they eat their own shit.

But I've been told those regurgitation engines are about to get really smart and replace all skilled labor.

So maybe it'll be fine.

Or maybe, as we've already started to see, more and more useful stuff will only be available via the Internet wayback machine, until they kill it.

Google/Waze will volunteer users to take alternative routes to scout out ways around congestion. It can be a better route, but you are the guinea pig, so you can get the short end of the stick.

There also is learned driving habits that may inform routing choices.

Yeah, twice this month. It's taken me through a dirt road (where we got stuck in the mud) and a closed road. Its also told me to turn at places where I cannot or where I must not. I've also checked that the car directions are selected and not "bike" or something else.

I was in New Mexico recently and Google Maps gave me a route from Bandelier National Monument to Santa Fe that included a “shortcut” through the Los Alamos National Laboratory campus. I got to meet a security guard.

So, yes. I would say I have experienced this.

Am from Malaysia and since the road and street is named using local language(bahasa malaysia), google now read out the full road name in terrible accent and pronunciation it took 3 or 4 times longer to finish an instruction readout, which in some case you will miss your turn. The instruction sometime couldn't even fit on the UI because the road name is just so long. It also read out which lane you should take just for turning. Before the change i can easily navigate the confusing city of Kuala Lumpur because the instruction is clear and concise, now i have to fight with the instruction because 3rd quarter of the time it's a language i can't recognise due to the terrible pronunciation.

Ohh did i mention the ads? They found a way to sneak ads into navigation. Now if you want to turn left 500m ahead, instead of telling you "turn left" , they will tell you to turn left after "xyz shop". Now you will be looking for that shop instead of turn left. The app is maintained by techbros that never drive

Yes, it is. I use it every day to visit multiple locations. My personal pet peeve is when it displays "In 1.5 miles, continue straight". On a road where there's no changes in that distance. That's not part of the directions, that's just continuing. Not only is it unhelpful because I can't not do this "step", but I can't see the next, actual step, which could be "In 200 ft, turn left" and won't know which lane to be in.

I can't prove it, but I think at some point they applied an automatic algorithm that added intermediate steps to all their routing (for when a road curves a certain way, etc), but it was too aggressive and not human-reviewed.

There's an option to prefer fuel saving routes, which are worse most of the time. This was a kinda recent chance and it is enabled by default, try to disable it and see if it helps

This isn’t a new thing but I hate anytime it asks me a question. I’ll be driving through an accident scene trying to work out where the cop directing traffic wants me to go and if I’ll need to go a different way because the turn I was gonna make is blocked off and at that precise moment google maps decides it’s a great idea to cover the bottom half of the screen with a “is tHeRe sTiLl An aCcIdEnT hErE?”

If it’s illegal to use your phone while driving it should be illegal for navigation apps to suddenly require interaction in the middle of navigating.

It's definitely been getting worse. The written directions aren't always accurate. Exits sometimes have the wrong label. Lanes are missing on the highways when they merge and separate.

I've also seen a similar thing with routes not always showing up or giving bad directions. It attempted to take me through a school bus barn and even through someone's yard once.

Yep. Multiple times I have had Google maps direct me to back employee only entrances instead of the regular entrances. Sometimes it seems like Google doesn't even recognize that the front entrance even exists.

It coincides with their switch to more and more "AI" black box models. Whereas before they would use a hand-tuned heuristic model to describe whether you are turning, merging, or continuing on a road, they just use a less correct but automagic model where they still inevitably have to tune it a whole lot but it is "AI" so it has the approval of the petty lords of management.

Incorrect entrances and closed roads are another example. They're just using satellite and street level imagery and tossing it at some models that spit out things like "door 99% confidence" and "road 98% confidence" while neglecting the question of, "are you actually allowed/able to use this?"

PS under basically every correct answer in this category is a team of poorly-paid "labelers" whose answers directly turn into the data in the map. Your door-that-is-not-an-entrance was marked entrance because someone making $8/hr only had 10 seconds to review before moving to the next question.

Organic Maps and OsmAnd is better.

I'd like to recommend 'Magic Earth' to everyone, who wants a privacy respecting Maps alternative with trafic data. I used it on several >500km trips and it only misguided me once. It uses OSM maps and can navigate offline.

Personally, I’ve been seeing way more markers when you zoom in for bigger businesses meaning they are probably going heavy on pay to show.

They switched from giving you the fastest route by default to giving you the one that uses the least gas.
They also now offer alternative routes that take you past businesses which paid money to Google.

Yes. I'm not the only one! Maps drives me crazy. As pedestrian it's borderline unusable especially in European old Cities where there are .... actual pedestrian only pathways.

Organic Maps is a game changer here!

I just took a trip and the estimated arrival time assumed I would drive 15mph over the limit without stopping the whole way.

Yes.

They will often display prompts while driving that are on a timer "suggesting" route changes or alternates and auto selecting yes.

To abbreviate massively and not dox myself, this caused me serious financial harm as a road trip rerouted onto roads unsafe for my vehicle.

I loathe Google and many tech companies for their sheer and ardent refusal to have proper customer service, or any method of customer feedback. A/B testing will never tell you that the top navigation directions should focus on the major high numbers and road names, not what road segment you are on. I need to know what lane to be in for my next turn in 5 miles, not how many times I will fade merge between segements only to have you finally tell me the lane when I'm a quarter mile away.

Google Maps is fucking awful in so many ways that are inexcusable, and worst of all they were allowed to fucking buy more of their competitors. Right now Magic Earth is a distant also ran in this field, and due to Google's massive proprietary features always will be without support.

And I haven't even mentioned how my map results are plastered with promoted ads and locations. Which is just useless and infuriating when I am searching for a specific placename.

Time to switch Gmaps to Organic Maps or Osmand. Both free and with offline navigation.

Mine is fine, but somehow my wife's gives her the worst possible routes that are counter intuitive. We checked all settings about avoiding / not avoiding tolls, ferries, etc. She just some gets crap directions.

All of Google's products have been getting progressively worse under their current CEO. He's the direct driver of their enshitification. I have had Google home speakers since they were released, along with a few other of their "smart" products; every single one of them has declined in performance. They get confused, don't respond, can't connect, give the totally wrong answer, glitch out, etc.

I used to be able to run my roomba by voice command without any problems. Nowadays half the time Google responds to the command, confirms it is doing the command, and then does nothing. Last night I used it to turn off the tv, which it did, but then it spontaneously turned back on after 5 seconds.

CEO/MBA malakas are (one of the reasons) why we can't have nice things.

It has gotten way worse for me in the past couple of months to the point that organic maps, even without traffic information is the clear winner.

One of the things I hate the most now is that the driving mode (you see a route and you're represented by a little arrow) is really zoomed out and does not rotate with you, making it a worse version of a paper map

Yes. I know this is like.. Cliche but I do want to say that I've heard of, and downloaded a new map app called Organic Maps(Play Store). BUT I haven't used it for navigation yet.

About two days after I found it, play store deleted it but I can link it, so it must be back up. If you just open it, it looks beautiful and immediately you notice that stores are not paying money to be prioritized. You can see ALL the businesses equally and I love it.

Just like their search engine, making you scroll down further and potentially not even wanting you to leave their page, maps is trying to send you into the vicinity of more

<insert big brand name who paid the most for ad space>

I don't think the above is true. At this point I'm just trying to give them ideas on how to enshittify it more.

I know it's not new, but I've been seeing a lot more "suggested" (read: sponsored) places along my routes these days. Either businesses are just now discovering the feature, or they lowered the barrier for entry. Either way, it's annoying as fuck to have ads pop up that I have to avoid when moving the map around to navigate

The biggest complaint I've had lately is that it will randomly alter my route without letting me know when or why. More than one it has told me to turn when the route it showed me before I hit "start" did not have a turn at that point.

Google is doing a lot of A and B testing right now. Some days I habe to use Bing or duckduckgo, no matter what, or else I get shit results.

Yes. I don't recall which community posted it and when, but Google is adifying their Maps. They literally have sponsored routes planned that will go out of their way to promote paying businesses.

In my experience, google maps is really bad at finding parking. OSM-data is just better in this regard

Yeah, about 2 months ago I noticed it no longer recommending a slightly alternate route on my way to work that lets me bypass a potentially 20-minute red light (bad light timing)

If I turn and do it myself it goes "oh shit you right" and gives me an updated ETA and shows the route, but it WONT show the expected slowdown anymore and WONT even suggest the alternate route

I'd say yes. Earlier this week, it navigated me, and I assume a metric ton of people through road construction. Took me over an hour to get to My destination. There's no chance that was actually the fastest route. 0 chance road construction and stalled cars was faster than literally anything else

Apparently everyone ITT has had 100 times more trouble with Google maps than I ever have had. Seriously entire categories of problems I've never experienced. Google maps has never tried to make me drive through a yard or field for example. Been using it since before it was a smartphone app.

Yes. It's hard to make out the map with all the pinned ads sometimes, and I've had multiple times this year where it has taken me to the wrong place. Every time that happens, I boot up Organic Maps and get right to my destination.

I haven't had any issues with Google maps recently, occasionally it'll try to take me on a more "fuel efficient" route. Recently my wife used apple maps and it took us to the wrong location, it kept trying to take us to Washington township when the address we entered was in Washington heights.

In the last six months, yes. It suggests short cuts that can create long delays. Shorter by miles, but often worse in the end.

I think it seems that way because it's trying to promote alternative routes. whether it's routing around slowdowns, taking a more fuel efficient route, or whatever.

however this could also be due to the user having different expectations for different trips and not changing the settings.

Just go osm.org and help spread the word

Here's some "high quality" (heh heh) anecdata for you: I navigated from my house in Somerville to a restaurant in the Seaport district of Boston last night, in the POURING rain using public transit and walking.

Google maps literally was leading me around in circles downtown once I got off the train, so I switched to Apple Maps and it was straight shooting from there on in.

I think GMaps is more susceptible to the tall buildings fouling the GPS. Not sure why?

I don't use gmap for navigation but to check locations. I had to get some cash so looked up atm and found few nearby. When I went there it was just apartments so looked up another one which turned out to just homes and small shops. Ended up getting off and asked someone working in the shop for directions and got everything I could have wanted.

The search results are inconsistent and they started including advertising on the map but I haven't noticed a decline in route finding. Perhaps there were accidents or traffic jams being routed around?

I've been getting weird walking instructions. Like 6 min walk is +30 to avoid some invisible barrier.

Absolutely. Not only does it show ads now, it's so busy that it's distracting and hard to keep track of your route.

Yeah I feel like it's become bloated and slow tbh.

It's been wonky lately. Maybe it's just drunk?

It’s been broken on Fx Android for the last few weeks. I mostly use it to cross-reference information lacking on OpenStreetMap (or if I need to see photos). It sucks since locally, the only maps businesses bother with is Google.

I've actually been having more trouble with Apple Maps lately.

My last trip was to perform at a country fair type thing and it couldn't locate the venue. So I thought maybe if I put on the satellite view, I could spot it and drop a pin? But the whole area was behind a cloud. Wow.

Then later, when we were returning, it tried to send me on a shortcut through a mall parking into an overgrown field.

Google has sent me through toll roads multiple times with avoid toll roads enabled.

I have a cheap iphone just for apple maps which hasn't fucked me over ... yet

I use google maps every day. Wouldn't say it's been getting worse.

Its gotten very slow and laggy and crashes often.

In my experience, ever since the layoffs, most google apps have had a negative experience.

Gmail layout shifts when selecting now. Maps crashes or displays the PIP ui by mistake. Too Many extra clicks added to maps as well. It's more confusing to navigate.

YouTube... The ad nonsense. One could go on

Google consistently routes people to make a right turn across an unsignalised dual carriageway near me. (Australia, we drive on the left).

This right turn is so prone to crashes that every single weekday morning and afternoon there will be multiple tow trucks just waiting for a crash.

To avoid this intersection and turn right on to the dual carriageway at a location with traffic lights is only a matter of driving less than 1km in either direction on a parallel side street. Yet Google tells people to go past the traffic lights to make this turn. Idiocy.

Do you see a leaf next to the directions, that means it's taking the most fuel efficient route not the fastest, it's the default I believe. I don't think it's very effective.

Gmaps is still definitely getting worse over time regardless.