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Google Maps tests new pop-up ads that give you an unnecessary detour (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by flop_leash_973@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Jesus, that is a gross way to inject advertising into turn-by-turn navigation.

Edit/update from 9to5google so this post does not spread what is apparently inaccurate information: https://9to5google.com/2024/07/08/google-maps-pop-up-quick-detour-ad/

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[–] mlg@lemmy.world 54 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

Gmaps has been actual hot trash for way the hell too long now.

GraphHopper, OSRM, and Valhalla all blow Google's shitty routing algorithm out of the water.

OSMAnd really the only mobile app competitor worthy of putting gmaps out of its misery. The only problem is it still uses a renderer from the stone age and has lackluster address data despite the fact that said data is available for free online from several open source mapping projects (there's some nice github scripts that can import ir for you).

Garmin forgot to invest in mobile technology. Sygic went to crap. Waze is just Gmaps+. Maps.me died even harder than Sygic.

It's 2024 and yet some of the best navigation tech I've seen is from 15+ year old devices.

Edit: Also Android Auto can go to hell.

[–] manmachine@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The old maps.me is reborn and active as Organic Maps now.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

+1 for Organic Maps though I feel it's lacking in some basic features.

Still renders much better and smoother than OSMAnd.

[–] manmachine@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah. OsmAnd (at least for me) suffers from the rather typical opensource thing that it can do lots of things and can be configured in a myriad of specific ways, and to use it you have to dive into it to configure them; Organic Maps, on the other hand, does less, but much slicker and simpler.

[–] hogmomma@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I've been using Gmaps since forever and can say I've never had any problem with it. I mean, it took me to the business office instead of the main entrance to a theme park once, but I can hardly fault it for that. Calling it actual hot trash just seems so out of nowhere to me. It's a fine product that I've had great experience with.

[–] zippythezigzag@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago

Give it time. This shit gets worse every year.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. It was great for me on vacation. Searching for nearby restaurants or tourist attractions worked well.

[–] hogmomma@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

It's great on road trips! About a decade ago, my wife and I loaded up the car and just sorta started heading south. We were on the road for about four weeks using nothing but Yelp and Gmaps. It was great!

[–] MintyAnt@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is there an alternative to android auto?

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Practically speaking, a dedicated head unit that runs its own software or a head unit that simply mirrors the output from a phone.

Both exist but the former has become rare in terms of quality UI and Navigation

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Any links for the OS data street-number scripts?

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation?tab=readme-ov-file

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

This is an excellent resource!

2D and 3D map render took a hit, which may be why it is not added to the mainline maps.

I'll keep the street number map deactivated, and enable when needed.