Never thought I'd consider switching from an iPhone. As a traveler for work and fun, I am completely embedded in the Apple ecosystem. I create 1 app grouping per city, and fill it up while planning for the trip. Used all the space on my 32gb iPhone 3GS and 4. I stayed up until 2:00am Texas time to order the iPhone 5 to make sure I could get it before December. I love my faster, lighter 64gb iPhone 5.
Heard the complaints about Apple maps but thought they were probably overblown.
I just realized that Apple's Maps will be unusable for me on my next trip, my first real vacation in 2 years.
Ex: For an upcoming trip to Prague, relying on Apple Maps will probably result in frustration, getting lost, and wasting a lot of time. It puts my hotel in the wrong location. Since it assumes driving directions, it would route me on a 15 minute journey when it should take 5 min.
No biggie, I thought, I'll just put a Google Maps icon on my main screen and use it like that, like Tim Cook suggested. However, I can't make it do simple navigational things that were easy in iOS 5.
Ex: I use maps.google.com, "My Places" to plan a trip. I put pushpins on top of my points of interest. Using my map of pushpins for a city, I can't figure out how to do these these 3 fundamental things:
1) How can I find directions from one pushpin to the next easily (from A to B)?
Can I get the address from the POI pushpin listing up into the Directions A, B white boxes without manually copying or typing it in?
Workaround: It looks like I now have to manually copy and paste each address up to the Directions white boxes.
2) There's no apparent way to easily call the phone number associated with a POI..
I used to be able to click on the pushpin I added and a phone picture would appear for calling the business.
Now, no phone picture. AND, much worse, the phone # from the google maps official listing doesn't even appear. Only the opening / closing notes I manually added into the box.
I have to go to the website and search for the POI's phone number again!!
When we are out roaming, this one is going to be a time waster, multiple times / day.
Workaround: I'll need to dictate the phone number while someone else calls. (In the US, I could probably remember the 10 digits phone number, leave the Google Maps app, then start the iOS phone app, then type in the 10 digits. When traveling across the pond and jet-lagged, it will be more difficult to do that. A lot more hassle in either case.
3) In the midst of trying different things for 1) and 2) sometimes the google maps satellite view disappears completely and I only see a grid of graph paper with the purple direction line on top - no street names or pictures.
There are many other annoyances.
Ex: No more "Add to Contacts" after searching on google maps anymore. I used this all the time. Then I could just use swipe right to use spotlight search and find the phone number out of all contacts.
I'd guess there's no possible workaround for this, but there might be for 1) and 2).
Question: Can I assume that any Android device will be tightly integrated with Google Maps and I wouldn't have the above problems 1) and 2) in using Google Maps with "My Places" POIs?
I never imagined that Apple could do something that would make me need to seriously consider Android. But if I can't solve the above problems I don't see a way around that.
Heard the complaints about Apple maps but thought they were probably overblown.
I just realized that Apple's Maps will be unusable for me on my next trip, my first real vacation in 2 years.
Ex: For an upcoming trip to Prague, relying on Apple Maps will probably result in frustration, getting lost, and wasting a lot of time. It puts my hotel in the wrong location. Since it assumes driving directions, it would route me on a 15 minute journey when it should take 5 min.
No biggie, I thought, I'll just put a Google Maps icon on my main screen and use it like that, like Tim Cook suggested. However, I can't make it do simple navigational things that were easy in iOS 5.
Ex: I use maps.google.com, "My Places" to plan a trip. I put pushpins on top of my points of interest. Using my map of pushpins for a city, I can't figure out how to do these these 3 fundamental things:
1) How can I find directions from one pushpin to the next easily (from A to B)?
Can I get the address from the POI pushpin listing up into the Directions A, B white boxes without manually copying or typing it in?
Workaround: It looks like I now have to manually copy and paste each address up to the Directions white boxes.
2) There's no apparent way to easily call the phone number associated with a POI..
I used to be able to click on the pushpin I added and a phone picture would appear for calling the business.
Now, no phone picture. AND, much worse, the phone # from the google maps official listing doesn't even appear. Only the opening / closing notes I manually added into the box.
I have to go to the website and search for the POI's phone number again!!
When we are out roaming, this one is going to be a time waster, multiple times / day.
Workaround: I'll need to dictate the phone number while someone else calls. (In the US, I could probably remember the 10 digits phone number, leave the Google Maps app, then start the iOS phone app, then type in the 10 digits. When traveling across the pond and jet-lagged, it will be more difficult to do that. A lot more hassle in either case.
3) In the midst of trying different things for 1) and 2) sometimes the google maps satellite view disappears completely and I only see a grid of graph paper with the purple direction line on top - no street names or pictures.
There are many other annoyances.
Ex: No more "Add to Contacts" after searching on google maps anymore. I used this all the time. Then I could just use swipe right to use spotlight search and find the phone number out of all contacts.
I'd guess there's no possible workaround for this, but there might be for 1) and 2).
Question: Can I assume that any Android device will be tightly integrated with Google Maps and I wouldn't have the above problems 1) and 2) in using Google Maps with "My Places" POIs?
I never imagined that Apple could do something that would make me need to seriously consider Android. But if I can't solve the above problems I don't see a way around that.
