Gadgetory

here is another quick Maps comparison I'm Jules along with pocket now strap yourselves in it's Google Maps versus here Maps Google's mapping and listings have historically been stronger in North America well here has had much more of a grip in Europe and the same remains true in 2015 both here and Google Maps are on iOS and Android which we're using to test both apps on today here's the only strong Maps client on Windows Phone by the way around Metro Boston Google Maps definitely has more covered than here does whoa whoa whoa hold on hold on let's actually take a look at here and see where it needs to improve after all you the viewer demanded this sent we wouldn't want to let you down let's take a look at design Google Maps offers a less cluttered sparsely-populated but more meaningful view than here does at least in America it prioritizes bad roads and points of interest well here is still getting used to things it labels roads some of them at least by their long names and gives more weight to parks neighborhoods and transit areas text alignment search results and Road tracing are a little more janky on here as well let's focus on transits for the moment in see where Google has advantage again it has a layout that makes sense schedules are grouped by the lines of transit rather than by pure chronology what's more worrying for here is that my station it gave next departures only in the southbound direction in fact the routes get quite inaccurate with a quick survey of other stops in the downtown area misappropriated subway lines or bus lines two stations are pretty rapid it doesn't get much better at points of interest there are fewer and less accurate operating hours on here than on Google Maps there's also not much more information beyond reviews from TripAdvisor to give you I wanted to believe that at least it could give me good direction so I tried giving a couple test runs for both devices and here we finally see a bright spot for here one of the neat things about getting direct Sahn here is that you can exclude certain modes of transportation in fact you could get neil piggy with the driving parameters unfortunately here maps doesn't include biking directions unlike Google which is actually quite useful for me the first destination was from my home area to Cambridge City Hall now I live about a five-minute walk from the subway station so I was kind of surprised when here told me to wait for a bus to take me to the station you see it comes down to how map clients estimate walking pace here estimates walking pace at about 30 minutes mile whereas Google places it at 20 that discrepancy really makes a difference when it comes to planning things down to the minute allowing for transfers and for faults to happen sometimes but both get me there in short order at least there's that I decide to get trickier and move my destination to a southern suburban mall the mall is located in a region where a smaller transit agency provides coverage this time around both provide some interesting routes but they are technically possible I switched the departure time to later in the day here Maps makes that process one-tenth more the hassle but at least it can plan routes around custom time both apps allow for you to download maps for offline use in the case of Google the features more obscured and it's limited to approximately a 25 mile diameter on here downloading maps is permanently spotlighted as a crucial feature along with using the app in offline mode if you have the capacity you can store as many maps of as many states or countries as you would like I go forth and turn off data connections for each device Google Maps and here maps don't store satellite imaging data just roads and basic Pio I plotting you can also search for landmarks on here maps while offline Google Maps requires the internet to be any smart here delivered directions while Google balked at my request so we know that here maps is plenty strong enough to compete with Google if it has good data it's just that the data backbone here has collapses in front of Google and given the shaky ground Nokia's in right now we suggest that you really should wait if you're being underserved by here right now just consider giving it another chance I'm thanks to you for suggesting this piece to us if you have any other conclusions about here maps or Google Maps let us know in the comments below or on our Twitter Facebook and Google+ accounts just keep in mind that this is one testers experienced in one area of the earth be sure to follow us on pocket now as well as our YouTube page the subscription and like buttons are below my name is Jules Wong on Twitter at Green Point 0 thanks for being here more next