Never thought I'd say that but I ignored Prius Nav's directions and went with Google Maps and Google steered me to a "Closed for the Winter" road which Prius Nav picked up and tried to navigate me around. I went with Googles 2 hour routing vs. Prius Nav 3 hour and ended up not getting to the destination at all. Once I got to the closed road, it was another two hours to back track. Real winner was Apple Maps which showed both routes but noted the shortest route "Roads might be closed for winter".
Sounds like you're using these navigation apps in remote locations far from the big city... In winter it's wise to get as many sources of info as possible, especially "local knowledge," which most apps can't provide. Your experience is an interesting one even though just one test is not really a good way to judge which one works better for everyone. In general Apple has the least number of employees working on maps, which means they depend on scraping computer data from other sources, which means it's the least reliable. They've also not been working on their maps for much time so they'll usually have the most errors. Whereas Google maps has nearly 10,000 employees that spend all day everyday driving around the world fact checking maps both by hand, and via street view cameras for almost 10 years now! Google has invested more than all their other competitors combined to map the world, so if you only could choose one, they'd be the most reliable. Here's the details of why: Here’s What Goes Into Making Google Maps, Will Apple Be Able To Recalculate? | TechCrunch The Toyota GPS is something I don't know enough about but I assume it's based on a partnership with a leading GPS map provider. Any good navigator will plan their route based on all available resources rather than picking just one. I've spent most of my life working in forestry and the very best maps for that type of travel is infra-red stereoscopic with a USGS overlay and preferably the study of the same area to be traveled in looks at all aerial photos from the 1940's to the present to define the age of the road / vegetation as well as how often its been "maintained." Of course not even Google has been able to liberate this data, which is still mostly in basements of university libraries and state governments around the country.
I can believe it. Google Maps has quite a few errors just in my area alone. Roads that aren't actually roads, wrong POI information, wrong road geometries... In the end it's best to compare multiple sources since they pick up new data at different intervals.
There goes that theory out the window. Specifics vs. generalities. Apple Maps offer two routes with the warning about the winter closure. Prius Nav just uses the open in winter route. Google Maps just offers the closed (wrong) route.
So what's your point? I'm not clear on what you're trying to say? Are you one of those Apple fanatics that trolls the web defending them as though you were defending your own identity or are you trying to make a specific point with just one experience/example?
That Prius Nav beat Google maps for navigation. Neither of which involve Apple which seems to be your personal demon.
Help them fix the errors. They are very responsive. Near the lower left corner there is a "Report a problem" link.
Back in the 70's I drove an ambulance in Los Angeles, you only had a mapbook and a sense of understanding address's and how LA sets them up. You knew 2600 west # street was near Crenshaw Blvd or so, so you had a head start. Then there were the dark roads and no lights, that you got there without remembering how you did that, then get to the hospital. You learn alot in a short time.
Learn to drive a horse and buggy. Memorizing city maps is right up there with memoriziing phone books in case I might call a person or business some day. But...hey...we have cool fun technology that puts that all at our fingertips and cool apps that lets use use that info easily.
I have more than 200 maps, the kind you fold out and read, you remember them. About half are USA the others are mostly Europe. Its sad but they are about to go into the trash unless someone has a better idea.
