I've been wishing for this too. Not fastest or most fuel efficient, but the easiest route. Really just as few turns as possible, but especially avoiding things like two way stops and uncontrolled left turns.
I would love this. Driving in Seattle is such a massive pain sometimes, and Google Maps just loves to make you take crazy turns across 3 lanes of traffic when there's a ramp or a light two blocks away. My partner who has lived here her whole life is always telling me that I'm taking bad turns when I'm following Google Maps haha
Same in the Bay Area. Google maps was always trying to get me to take crazy turns instead of the straightforward way. Save 30 seconds by going on the 101 for an eighth of a mile instead of just driving straight on el Camino. There were a bunch of places i thought were far away because of the crazy routes that turned out to be really convenient to get to once the crazy uncle shortcuts were left behind.
Apple Maps has this mode at least when picking a route. It usually gives a fastest and a fewer-turns option.
I’ve also found their turn by turn directions less stressful to follow than google maps because they announce like a human codriver not like you’re an AI. At least a few years ago it felt like Google Maps didn’t do the whole “go through this light then at the next one turn left”, which is easier than a last minute “turn left now!!”
I've gotten this sense as well, but have been trying to convince myself that it's just me thinking that the "grass is always greener". It's crazy to think that Apple maps might actually end up being what makes me finally ditch Android.
I've been leaving feedback in Google Maps with exactly this suggestion every time it takes me to one of those dangerous left turns. If presented with one on my route I always take a right and then do a u-turn.
Google maps has not been getting the hint at forbidden left turns :/
I'd guess that if you consistently avoid a left turn it could be because it's forbidden instead of because you miss it every single time. It's safe to assume that by now they take this kind of implicit feedback, but it either takes a long time to be processed or it's not happening on time-restricted left turns..
It's bizarre that TikTok can genuinely determine roughly what I am in the mood for within a few videos, but Google Maps can't learn my preferences based on how I travel. The former seems far, far harder - and Google has almost my entire location history recorded from the last 10ish years!
Because TikTok is built to be a personalized social media, but Google Maps is not built to be a personalized route finding service. I can imagine adding such personalization will make most of the caches in route finding unusable. I would instead argue Google has a much harder job than TikTok. TikTok getting your mood has no consequence; Google Maps getting your route wrong has consequences.
Google doesn't care. Maps is there to sell ad space to companies, you're the product, not the customer.
To highlight this, it is literally impossible to choose your own route. Google will randomly redirect you, will keep nagging, while you constantly have to click 'no'.
For example, let's say you are driving from New York to California. There are two main paths, dictated by the mountains.
Google knows this, and lets you pick the southern, or northern route.
The southern route is 5 hours longer, but gee, no snow! Google doesn't have "avoid snow", and 5 hours longer becomes much faster, if the northern route has a storm.
So you pick the southern route.
Congrats! For the next 50 hours of driving, google will happily exclaim "I found a faster route!" and switch you over, unless you click cancel.
This means that you are constantly, sometimes as often as every 5 minutes, forced to interact with maps while driving, or be forced to redirect as google wishes.
This 5 year old bug is well known, people complain about it everywhere, but google could care less.
If I was the product manager on maps, I'd keep it exactly as it is.
The worst thing is for maps to be "silent" when there's a route available that can save you half a day of driving. You don't want that but an average driver does.
You are basically a power user who knows better than the map which is fine, but then just add a waypoint that forces the Southern route and go on with your life.
For the average user, nagging them to get the 5 hour faster route is the right strategy.
For iOS, google maps is very often the only way google can geographically target you with accuracy for better ads, as users will deny location requests to the other google apps
> It's safe to assume that by now they take this kind of implicit feedback, but it either takes a long time to be processed or it's not happening on time-restricted left turns..
I wouldn't count on that. I've been exiting a Costco for years now where Google Maps tells you to take an impossible left turn due to a divided road. Google should have a mountain of data showing those directions are never, ever, taken. Street view shows it to be impossible too.
If they are actually looking at that type of data they aren't doing much with it.
