Good app
by Chaotik_lord
This app does an above-average job at assisting in navigation. I like that it apparently integrates user movement over time; for example, when I moved to my house, it ignored a pedestrian footpath to the other half of my street, but it now no longer routes me two miles away when I’m going to the bus. The reason I don’t give it five stars is its integration with Lyft/Uber, because my pocket would open the links and sometimes nearly summon a car (I had to delete them to avoid being charged), and because of transit system shortcomings. GMaps doesn’t offer enough different choices for routes, sometimes missing obvious bus lines or transfers, sometimes only giving one option it thinks best, though I might know more info and want to prompt more choices, which isn’t possible. I a forced to enter fake destination or origin information to force other routes to display. One bus may be very crowded at certain times, one route may have a steep hill. It needs to offer a way to expand route choices. Also, I still need to use OneBusAway to check on arrival times, as GMaps is not always current, especially with detours and alterations. As for driving, it’s fine, except the way it ignores neighborhood shortcuts and alternatives. Overall, a good tool to assist you, but you need your own knowledge to make it truly effective. Therefore, 3.5 stars, which I weighted up to 4.
Best Navigation App and Its Still Frustrating
by gd google
Google maps is one of the best of the big navigation apps along with Apple Maps and Waze (owned by Google also I think). I've been using since about 2014 and its always a headache if I missed a turn in a city. It will redirect to the next best turn, but by the time it loads the new route and narrates the instructions I've missed that turn as well. This continues indefinitely, until I stop moving or just take the next turn on faith. Its extremely frustrating after missing several turns because I cant inch along waiting for the maps to catch up. I'd rather it give me a turn further ahead so I actually have a chance to react from about 40 mph. This is something that seems totally fixable.
More recently, its been stopping narration unannounced. Either never starts or just decides that a certain direction is the last one to be narrated. Exiting the app and reloading helps occasionally but not enough to consider it a solution. I use the maps when I'm driving to an area I dont know, so thats obviously a big issue. Updating the app and my operating system hasnt done anything to help. This happened today and added 20 minutes to a 25 minute commute. I've tried Apple Maps and a little of Waze, Google Maps usually works the best but even still its irritating when you plan a trip I cant rely on Google Maps to do the only to do the only thing its made to do.
Progressively getting worse
by Geordie Buckley stan
As someone else mentioned, the directions do not keep up with your physical movement. The GPS dot moves all over the place even if you are standing in one spot making it extremely difficult to get your bearings in an unfamiliar place. I may not know where I am, but I do know where I am not (...unless the men's fragrance section of Macy's has been moved outdoors and a block over). Adding to the challenge, the street names can be difficult to find. You may have to zoom out a significant amount for the one you are looking for to appear. God forbid you want to zoom out and look for something in another area. Every time I have tried recently, it just brings me back to the area I'm currently in.
Using the transit directions prove to be equally obnoxious. There will be directions to "Walk" but no explanation of where to (no "turn left on X Street") so you have to rely on their map and faulty GPS. The public transit are very confusing and counterintuitive (perhaps they're sufficient for people used to using public transit?). I couldn't always clearly tell when a bus/train was arriving.
Not sure what happened with the last few updates, as I have used Google Maps reliably on a number of past trips. I already hated to give my data over to Google but the frustration with this app on this trip makes it easy to try something new. I imagine orienteering would be easier than using this app!
Disregard earlier review
by Monstevr
This app is garbage. It’s been out for years and they don’t fix basic algorithm mistakes like how it arbitrarily decides to omit immediate-next turns (and then you drive to the wrong borough and you’re twenty minutes later than you would be if you were using something other than garbage), or it tells you to be in any number of lanes to make a turn or an exit when there is really only one acceptable lane to be in to not kill everyone trying to drive around you, or it doesn’t tell you that the highway you’re on drops a lane, or it wastes time telling you that the next thing you need to do is merge when the only thing in the world you could physically ever do at that juncture IS merge (or just dunk your car in a ditch and be done with driving altogether).
Just make your app make sense if you want any stars in my review of it! You’ve had years to make it minimally useable and you’ve been doing what this whole time? Adding features nobody asked for? Stop that.
UPDATE: I’m very generously giving these bozos an extra star for streamlining the alternate route button. It’s cute and convenient and I’m proud of you guys. Now invest this star miraculously because you’re still days from driving me into the arms of AN ACTUAL FLIP PHONE so that I can go back to VZ Navigator if I can’t honestly give Google Maps a five-star review. I’m dead serious about all of this.
Great, but flawed
by Norway772
So without question google maps is one of my most used apps. Very early on I decided it was far better than Apple’s maps app (maybe I should go back and try that because I haven’t used it for years). Anyway, the pluses are many, but there is one thing that drives me so insane that I rank this app a 3 instead of a 5, that one thing is extremely untimely short freeze ups. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a situation where I need the app the run normally in order to get the info I need in time to make a correct turn and the app will pause/freeze for a few seconds. It’s almost is if it knows what’s going on and is playing a cruel trick on me. Just today I had put in my destination, had the route, and was on my way. A while later I saw an exit sign and thought that could be my exit. I pulled the app back up to check and.......... my blue GPS marker had me about 2 miles off the highway in the middle of no where just sitting still. So I wait, I’m getting closer and closer to the exit, I wait and wait, slow down a little, and wait, and there goes the exit, and finally it shows yes that was the exit. Almost broke my new iPhone X. And that exact thing has happened on multiple occasions with multiple phones. I’m going to see if any other ratings mention this.
Worse over time
by sarwalmac
Let’s get one thing straight: I love google. I use Google Chrome over safari, Google Calendar over the one that comes with iPhone, and for a long time, I used Google Maps over Apple Maps. Google Maps a year ago was amazing. It always knew right where I was, the voice notifications were brief and prompt, and the app overall was just easy to use. Fast forward to today. Maps only communicates in NSEW directions “Head East” (Who knows that?), the voice notification system is mediocre at best, and to say that Google Maps is glitchy is an understatement. I just went to a new city and drove my car around, and more often than not I was slinging my car across four lanes of traffic trying to make an exit that Google didn’t let me know I needed to take, or saying that I was on the wrong side of the road, going the wrong way or off the road entirely into the bushes (all the while I had at least 3 bars of LTE on Verizon. Coverage and carrier were not the issue). That was the final straw. This app that used to be more helpful was now potentially putting my life (and the life of my grandmother and friend) at risk. I still refuse to use Apple Maps, and have joined Waze. If the glitches can be fixed I may use again, but overall I am very disappointed!
Thanks to Google Maps I found the love of my life.
by JASC2244
On July 26th of 2014, I was on my way to a bicycle store that is in my mother’s town. That morning, I decided to use Google Maps to find the fastest route to the bicycle store. I noticed it marked a different route than usual but it was way faster, so I decided to go for it. On my way, I see a woman walking whom (fortunately for me) dropped her briefcase full of clothes. I decided to stop and give her a hand. Her name was (and is) Martha, and I’m so grateful I met her thanks to Google Maps. After helping her I decided to ask her out; she said no. I got disappointed so I hopped in my car and decided to continue my trip. Once I arrived to the store, they told me they had just received a new bicycle minutes before I arrived and they showed it to me; the bicycle was amazingly beautiful and I’m so grateful the alternative route from Google Maps made me go through a street where the lady which turned me down dropped her suitcase and made me stop to arrive just after the new bike had arrived. 5 stars; me and Lana (my bike) couldn’t be more grateful.
Reliability Gone Bad
by Redrum Dog
Since introduction of this app, it used to be a reliable, accurate, and just plain awesome! The past 8-10 months I have noticed how this app now like to loop you in directions that lead to paying tolls twice and directs you to areas where there are police traps set up. This does not happen just in my home state, but all over the country where I drive. While in Boston, the app was just plain unusable.
At first I thought I was being a paranoid Freak, but I have used this while comparing this to other apps. Waze, uses the same maps, shows different routes and works as advertised, but the ads are getting annoying.
A no frills map that just works and does not have the ads or doing the stuff Google does with looping through extra tools and stuff is Inrix. This has become my application of choice for reliability and no nonsense. This is important when you are transporting sensitive medical stuff like blood, organs, and supplies. Disappointed how harvesting info for profit or my experience of taking routes that are longer because they direct you through extra tools/police stings. On the flipside, downloading maps and using them with internet brings the reliability back on par with where it used to be and in line with Inrix!
Failed me
by Dmas111527
It took me to streets that were closed! My kids had a field trip, and the 101 fwy was closed in Santa Barbara. I already knew this, so I wanted to make sure I leave early enough to take whatever detours I had to take. Google maps said I would make it in 2.5 hours, and showed that I'd be using side streets where the fwy was closed. I checked Waze (another GPS app) and that said it would take me 3.5 hours, taking me the 5 fwy route. So I opted for Google Maps, the faster one, the so-called "trusted" GPS app, that would get me there 1 hour sooner than Waze's route. We left early, and when we reached the part where the fwy was closed, it detoured me to streets that were closed off! Tried other streets, all closed!! I then used Waze, to see if there was another way, and Waze said I would have to go all the way around, through the 5 fwy. That would take me 4 hours from where I was! We obviously didn't make it to our field trip and ended up just going to a park in Santa Barbara, then headed back home. I should have used Waze from the beginning. Google Maps fail!
I've had prior issues with Google Maps before, like, it routing me in loops and circles, but never thought too much about it. It is the most used GPS app, so I thought it was the best. Nope. This time it pushed my buttons. Deleted the app.
Use Waze everyone! It's real time, with real users!
Not very good or accurate
by Royal Montgomery
Google Maps is helpful, probably, when one is driving. It's not helpful for someone who has to take transit or walk. Transit often has changes/transfers - there are no actual walking directions available that are helpful. If you're walking the wrong way, the app doesn't stop you, just tells you to walk to {location}. Also, some bus stops are very near/across the street from one another and Google Maps has a hard time pinpointing that. That's the difference between going the wrong way in a strange place or arriving at your destination.
I commute to work but Google Maps only shows one route instead of any route, no matter how I change the settings, so I never know when the bus comes. I know when the trolley comes, but it only runs twice an hour when I am out of work and being able to see any kind of alternate route would be nice. I've also noticed that we have a trolley line that runs all the way to South Hills Village, but Google Maps just tells you to get off the stop before that and walk for sixteen minutes. I know better, but a person new to the area may not. I just don't find it very helpful as someone who doesn't drive.
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