Why I Use Apple Maps

For over 3 years now, since I moved to USA, I have primarily relied on Apple Maps for all of my travel and mapping needs. And the reasons for it, in more or less my order of priority, are pretty simple:

• Apple Maps has all the places and locations I have ever wanted to go to. There hasn’t been a single place that I have tried to go to and not found it on it.
• Ever since I started using it in 2016, it has never got me to a wrong place or put me on an incorrect route.
• It has eerily accurate travel time predictions, and others agree. Waze may estimate the shortest times, but they are rarely ever accurate. Google Maps is better, but still has variability. Apple, on the other hand, usually predicts the exact time or slightly over. For me, that translates ETAs into TAs ;).
• Privacy. This is a big, recurring and extremely important topic for me. I do not want one company to have all my data, use it for profiling me, follow me around the web and sell that data to target me with ads.
• It is fast. Blazing fast. While Google Maps has continued to get more bloated over the years, Apple Maps has gotten faster. Vector maps do that, you know? That also means I haven’t really needed to ‘download maps for offline use’ (which Apple Maps does not offer). The cache is pretty reasonable so just routing to a place or exploring it has added the maps for to my device.
• Speaking of offline use: It reroutes successfully even when I am offline and make a wrong turn or miss a turn!
• The timing and space between Apple Maps notifications for upcoming turns matches the prep time I need to make a turn or take an exit.
• While it doesn’t have the bells and whistles of Google Maps, it does maps right and that’s all I usually care about.
• I have found Apple Maps’ lane guidance to be much more accurate.
• With iOS 13, Apple Maps has added an incredible new amount of features that includes locations of signals and stop signs and included that for even better guidance (’turn right at the next light’!).