Google Maps Ratings and Reviews

In the recent past if I wanted to go to a specific location all I had to do was open up my browser, hit the directions button, and the Google Maps app would open and take me right there. Now when I go through that same process an alternative screen comes up, but you can’t see all of the options when you’re driving so you pull over and you’re still fumbling your way through the process with extended steps to maneuver through it and ultimately wants you to open up the Google Maps app, but by the time you get there the address is completely gone and won’t transfer over to the app. This app is completely useless because it will not allow you to navigate anywhere with directions now. I’ve done all of the updates, but to no avail does this app work. I’m sure I’m not the only person to complain about this, but at this point, I’m going to have to completely delete the Google Maps app and go with an alternative solution. Google Maps has one job to do. Why did you have to mess up what was already working? Now your app is non-functional.

Map doesn’t display on screen when I’m using step by step navigation but it does when you’re driving. So you can’t see where you’re going…you get notifications on your screen for each direction instead, something you have to try to read and pedal and steer simultaneously, unless you enjoy stopping to see what your next direction is after every single one you complete. That’s the other thing, it gives you directions literally the moment you need them. When you drive, if it says go left, you turn left and it tells you your next street and turn to look for and the distance before you reach it. In cycling mode, in the same scenario, it would say turn left as you reached the street and continue to say turn left until you reach your next turn. So you have no idea at all what to look for, can’t anticipate anything, and you’re basically riding blind between each step. And if you miss a step, it automatically re routes you, so I rode about three miles uphill needlessly in the rain yesterday because I couldn’t hear my phone over the road and rain noise, nor had any idea what turn to look for, when to look for it, or how to rectify all of those failures in real time, I was pretty much being led astray in the pouring rain by an app that doesn’t have any of these problems in driving mode…

Drove home from New York to Indianapolis and this app increased our trip by 2 hours. Leaving the Bronx should’ve taken 10 minutes because there is an on ramp to I-95 right by the house we were in. We knew how to get to the highway without using the map but we didn’t even bat an eye that we were using the app from the get go because one would think it would just take you on the quickest route. Nah. This app took us 40 minutes through the Bronx and made us sit through morning traffic. Once we crossed the George Washington Bridge, it asked it we wanted to take I-70 instead of I-80 because it’s 3 minutes faster. I clicked no be cause 70 is littered with tolls on the PA Turnpike and 2 minutes later it asks the same question. I said no again. Then I realized an hour later we are still in New Jersey when we should’ve been out of it by now. I thought it was strange we were still on 95. Sure enough I checked the map and saw that we were on I-95 south and headed for 70 after saying no TWICE. The voice never even told us to exit on to I-80 which happens almost immediately after getting off the GW bridge. This app is 5 stars in sending you to the most inconvenient routes and not communicating properly. I would give it no stars if possible. Spent over $100 in tolls when they should’ve been avoided because I should’ve been on I-80. Tired of having my money and time wasted because of this app.

The changes that Google has made to their maps seems to be in favor of traffic CONTROL rather than the best routes for the individual user, less options for personal control and a stronger push towards getting you to go through state toll roads when no toll roads (that are a faster option to boot) are available. I'm a longtime user of Google maps and Keen to their tactics of late. I've been wanting to get a couple of old Rand McNally road maps for a while,we're going to need them! An app should be a tool of assistance and yes,convenience,but when an app is trying to control you,it's time to boot it. This may sound crazy to some of you,but pay attention,especially to the so called "better route available" options that pop up,watch your estimated times,this option is being used to herd you like cattle for reasons other than your travel benefits and more for clearing roadways and such. And even crazier,it sure seems like a social experiment to see what kind of "order follower" you are. I've seen this with my own eyes and ears, so call me crazy,but for those of you who are intuitive and catch on to patterns quickly,see for yourself,this is the world we live in now? With all the A.I. And apps on your phone,what was a tool is using you as a tool,or so it sure seems. I think the cost of convenience has become a bit too high for me.

Recently I added a new Braum’s ice cream store. Every location (at least in my city) of Braum’s is known as “Braum’s Ice Cream & Dairy Store”, but I accidentally typed the word “and” instead of the ampersand (&). However, after I submitted that minor minor change from “and” to “&” it said that my change wasn’t applied. Excuse me.
But that’s not the only one. There is literally a CVS (drug store) that Google apparently shows literally right on a major intersection. It shows no address, it just says (Street name) & (Street name). There are zero photos, zero reviews, no website, no hours, no anything. Anyone working at Google Maps can clearly tell that this place is obviously fake, especially given the fact that there’s literally another real CVS a mile west. Long story short, I marked this place as non-existent, Google gave me the bonker. I always wonder how Google accepted the person who even added this place.
My last complaint I’m going to share is that Google takes FOREVER, if not NEVER, to verify road related edits, such as added road, road shape, etc. I’ve submitted several edits regarding road changes, with the first one being submitted on Aug 5, and as of Aug 24, it says they all are STILL PENDING! It cannot take three weeks just to make a little fix on a road.
Google Map’s poor service is making me want to go back to Apple Maps.

Every time I click on directions from Google, it asks me, do I want smarter and better and faster maps? Of course I do. So I can click a button and go straight to Google maps, an app I already have. Every time I click this tho, it does not bring me to Google maps. I click open maps, and I am brought to the App Store maps. Even tho I have the app. Then I open maps from the App Store and it has erased the directions I need so I have to go back to Google and then just type it in to Google maps myself. I might as well just use the maps app that comes with the phone bc instead of a short cut it takes me here every time. So every time I click for directions Google brings me to the App Store instead of pulling up the directions in the Google maps app. And then when opening the maps app from here it does not have any addresses saved from the google search I started with. Just not as convenient as the maps app already in my phone honestly. It’s actually wildly inconvenient when I’m running late and forget that the short cut will actually slow me down! Maybe this is more an issue with the directions button on Google not working (since it doesn’t take me to the actual Google maps app), but it brought me here so I’m leaving my review here. Every time it brings me here I leave one star.

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!

I will choose google maps over Apple Maps anytime!!!! But recently google maps been acting up. The app will not only crash itself but it will crash my entire phone and it’s extremely scary trying to restart it and retype your destination in while you are driving and getting lost.
Another that has really gotten on my nerves and has me almost leaving the app is that it will stop me either in the middle of the road or a random destination and then tell me to walk across a field or another road to get to my destination. For example I looked up a brokerage office, google maps sent me past my location to a trailer park and told me to walk a quarter mile back (the way I just came) to my location. I had to drive another mile to turn around and drive into the CORRECT destination without the help of google maps. (It’s funny bc it will never ask me to rate those drives). Another instance is that I was looking for a location amongst a lot of other businesses, instead of getting me close it said my destination was in the middle of highway then told me to walk across another road to get to the parking lot.
I love google maps but they really need to fix it or I’m getting a different one.

In my city, Concord, NH, there are way too many incorrectly placed address markers. It is like someone took the map and shook it like crazy and all of the versions of the addresses with abbreviated street suffixes were scattered to random places in the city and the versions with the fully written out street suffixes stayed in the right place. If you search my city and zoom in until you can see the numbers on houses and drag around the different neighbourhoods, you will find countless houses with 2 different numbers on them (one of them will be correct and the other one will list information for a street that isn’t anywhere close to where it showing, which you can find the correct location for if you type in the fully written out street suffix). You can also find other ones in random places where there is no house. When you use the “fix an address” tool in the app and it gets approved, in your contributions section it labels it as “new address added” and the incorrect address marker still remains where it was, causing the same problem. They need to add a tool to report bad address markers that just need to be removed, so us volunteer contributors can fix the map for the people that don’t already know how to get where they are going without the navigation system.

I’ve relied on GoogleMaps for years but my recent experience (Oct ‘22) was horrible. After I carefully crafted a route that took me along small county roads, Google kept telling me there was a faster way and would reroute me to that. Presumably I should have been able to opt out of that new route but that button never appeared on my screen. When I selected to see my route in written steps, the screen often froze and wouldn’t let me return to the map view. A pop up window kept appearing to ask permission to access my contacts (no!) and there was no way to exit or escape that screen. I pulled over 6-7 times during a 3 hour drive to clear the map and start over, including one time when I deleted then reloaded the app entirely in hopes of getting it to behave, but still had to fiddle with it too much while driving. With all those problems, I was never confident the instructions it was speaking was the route I wanted, but if I exited from spoken instructions (when that wasn’t frozen) to verify my location on the map, I risked forgetting to restart the spoken step by step and wasn’t corrected when I missed a turn. I’ve never been this annoyed by or had less confidence in a map app. I think Google made changes that have eroded the usefulness of this as a driving aid. Next trip I’ll use my Garmin.