I’d love to be able to swear off Google Maps and Apple Maps forever. I periodically re-download a handful of open source alternatives based on OpenStreetMaps to kick the tires and see if they have matured to the point of being viable products, but so far I haven’t had much luck.
With the recent releases of CoMaps I decided it was time to try again. I installed it to my iPhone, fired up CarPlay, and set out to test whether or not it could be relied upon to get me to my destinations while driving in a car.
Although CoMaps (and similar apps) are perfectly capable for walking and biking directions in the limited tests I have done, I still find them too lacking to be used in the car for navigation purposes.
Before I start bashing my experience with it, it’s worth flagging some of the positive aspects. My favorite feature is that it downloads offline maps. It can be really easy to find yourself in a dead spot with no access to a network, and with the other cloud-based navigation tools, it can be a real nerve-wracking situation. Without a signal you basically have to trust your instincts and head out in the direction you feel is right, and then wait for it to connect back to the network and adjust your route as necessary. By having the maps offline, however, you’ll never get caught in a spot without knowing where to go, even if your network completely craps out.
It’s also worth saying that technically, it can get you from point A to point B. It’s just not always a straightforward or pleasant user experience, and can lead you astray if you’re not careful.
When I’m driving in a car, other than just knowing which roads to take, there are a few options that are particularly helpful. The one that comes to mind first is lane assist. With most GPS systems, whenever you’re traveling down an interstate road and you need to make an exit, it will tell you exactly which exit number you need to take, and which lanes you should be in to successfully make the exit. Most systems can even peek ahead and figure out your next move, and further clarify the best lane on that (for example, you have an exit to your right, but then after that you’ll need to turn left at a red light, so make sure when you exit you’re in the left-most lane).
There are other features that just aren’t available to these products, due to the privacy preserving features and the overall lack of availability to information needed to determine. One example is getting an accurate estimate for how long it will take to get somewhere. A few weeks ago I traveled from Asheville to home, and Apple Maps told me it would be one hour and four minutes. After plugging the same route into CoMaps, it reported one hour and sixteen minutes. Clearly, there was a discrepancy, and just from the experience of having made this trip many times, I knew the Apple Maps estimate was much closer to reality (if not dead on). CoMaps isn’t tracking real-time location for millions of users, so it can’t accurately account for traffic or other factors that affect the time. All it can do is assume you’re traveling at the speed limit with normal traffic, and give you the best guess it can come up.
You also lose the traffic / hazard / speed check warnings in CoMaps that are so useful in other places like Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps. It isn’t able to find accidents further down the road and re-route you to save time. It isn’t able to alert you when a state trooper is parked beside the road and on the hunt for speeders.
I desperately want to be able to switch to CoMaps, but the fact is that I find driving stressful, especially in areas for which I am unfamiliar. Until CoMaps can pinpoint which exits to take, which lanes to be in, and warn me of speed traps, there’s just no way I’m going to be able to use it for navigation in my car.