It is surprising to me that the author left out live traffic data, which is a major part of Google Maps Platform. In fact, with millions of Android devices moving around the globe, that is one of the biggest advances Google has over the other players. Any thoughts on how the other players could take a lead on this front?
Huh, that’s a good point. I don’t know why Apple can’t replicate that given the popularity of iPhones, or even Mapbox given how many devices are running apps with it under the hood. Worth exploring.
There are several players in this space with data that probably rivals Google's. OEMs and ADAS developers collect lots of traffic data and license it to mapping and routing companies.
Actually, Mapbox is already an important player in this field (telemetry data), and they are retrieving this data from the SDKs that get implemented in mobile apps that use a Mapbox map, whether Android or iPhones. So the more customers that use Mapbox SDKs in apps, the more telemetry data they get. https://www.mapbox.com/telemetry/
Traffic data is likely to come under strong anti-trust scrutiny. Google has been aggressively leveraging Android to expand it's location data. More recently they being doing the same to massively expand their businesses, events and review offerings. One could argue that since the data is being _crowd sourced_, that it belongs to the commons and should be freely accessible.
Tesla has stopped licensing traffic data. Every Tesla has the maps app running whenever it’s driving. The autopilot cameras also can measure all traffic density in 360 degrees for about a block. So one Tesla can more accurately measure traffic density than a few dozen android users. But it will be a while before Tesla sells enough vehicles even then since ownership density is still very uneven geographically. Great coverage in cities, poor coverage in rural areas.
Every single Apple mobile device has been tracking traffic data for years (since 2016??) unless turned off by the user (plot twist...it's not easy to find). Doesn't matter if you are using Maps or not...doesn't matter if you are in an Uber and the driver uses Android. Your iPhone is tracking the speed/traffic.
Great post Joe! It would be interesting to think through how Tesla fits into this picture. They are using the same open ecosystem. E.g I believe OSM and Valhalla for routing. They’ve got cameras all over the place and make no secret that they use that data for corporate benefit.
One of Google's biggest strengths with Maps is its mobile integration--especially when paired with Android Auto. The fact I can look up a spot at home, essentially pin it in the browser, then connect a different device--my phone--to the car and have that pin show up is almost magic. MApple might have that feature, but I don't use Apple's products. Is Apple's mobile user-base too small for its mapping alternative to gain traction generally? It would be interesting if Bing could use Android for its maps. Microsoft has done well with product development, such as Office for other platforms, so why not Bing Maps? Just some thoughts.
Your last piece about OSM was also a hit with my newsletter, and I’m excited to share this one too. The piece about imagining an open ‘globe’ app reminded me of a similar program in Snow Crash. We can hope!
As a software engineer and GIS professional, we have been migrating away from Google Maps services for years now one at a time. Google's Map API for just about everything from geocoding to tile requests is just no longer competitive from a price stand point. Across other aspects, such as developer experience, results quality, and performance perspectives, Google wins in only a few areas--such as Earth Engine data/scripting, street view, and local search. In my personal life, I just gave Apple Maps directions a try this year during the pandemic and after a couple months, I uninstalled Google Maps, a thought that would have been crazy to me a year or two ago.
I also started using Apple Maps personally this year, and it was part of the inspiration for writing this. I realized I was still associating them with a reputation they no longer deserve.
Fantastic read! Thoroughly enjoyed the deep dive into the evolving landscape of mapping technologies. Your insights on the competitive ebbs and flows between Google Maps and its challengers resonate deeply. It’s fascinating to observe the parallels between the proprietary vs. open ecosystem debate in mapping and data pipelines.
we've confronted a similar dynamic in the ETL/ELT space. Traditional, all-encompassing SaaS solutions and heavily engineered frameworks have long dominated the narrative. However, as we highlighted, neither truly meets the needs of the new generation of Python practitioners. This realization fueled our creation of dlt, a minimalist, open-source Python library designed to empower practitioners to create scalable, maintainable data pipelines autonomously—something previously only within the purview of specialized data engineers.
Much like your discussion about Google needing to embrace a more open approach, our work with dlt aims to commoditize data loading, fostering an ecosystem where data pipelines are as ubiquitous and user-friendly as Python libraries like pandas or NumPy. It’s all about striking that balance between autonomy for individual practitioners and robust, scalable infrastructure that can evolve with organizational growth.
Looking forward to your future posts and continued exploration of these transformative industry shifts! Keep up the fantastic work!
Terrific piece! As a former contractor for both Google Maps and Apple, I can confidently say both developers and consumers will benefit when the competitive field is a bit more level.
After eight years of working on OpenStreetMap, I finally had to realize that OpenStreetMap is not Wikipedia. Despite millions of own additions, apart from card tiles, little details do not reach people. So I have now finished with OpenStreetMap and am now working as a local guide on Google Maps. What I care about is that my involvement meets with immediate feedback from people in my environment. Google Maps is great, and OpenStreetMap Tiles can now be replaced better and more easily with up-to-date aerial imagery and building outlines generated by AI computing.
A detail added by a single user cannot match the plausibility of content that is inclined to smartphone telemetry. What several or many people confirm through repeated use is overwhelmingly plausible.
A good overview of the state of the location and mapping scene, is the Counterpoint annual report. It's a bit like the Gartner report. HERE is not as visible in the consumer space, but very highly rated. The US experience, which I believe is yours, is often much different from the rest of the world's, e.g. Google and Apple might shine in the US, and perhaps EU, but after that a very long thin tail kicks in. That's where, e.g. HERE and TomTom shine. HERE seems to want to be an open neutral platform for everything from logistics, fleet management, navigation, public transit to automated driving, AR/VR and local deliveries. The recent partnership with Amazon will surely only help
I believe Google leads in 3D and street level imaging, but they're rapidly accumulating enemies and anti-trust scrutiny by usurping and starving companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zomato, FourSquare, etc. They might find themselves shackled or facing a spin-out.
One other advantage that Google has for consumer mapping services is it’s smarter text search function. If I type “bike store” into Google Maps I know I’ll get a reliable and comprehensive list of local bike shops. For years, all of the other services would uselessly jump to a single bike shop halfway across the country that whose name happened to exactly match my search query. But lately the non-Google services have gotten less dumb about this, so the evaporation continues.
It is surprising to me that the author left out live traffic data, which is a major part of Google Maps Platform. In fact, with millions of Android devices moving around the globe, that is one of the biggest advances Google has over the other players. Any thoughts on how the other players could take a lead on this front?
Huh, that’s a good point. I don’t know why Apple can’t replicate that given the popularity of iPhones, or even Mapbox given how many devices are running apps with it under the hood. Worth exploring.
Apple Maps does have relatively accurate traffic data. They just don’t display green for “no traffic” so it looks less comprehensive.
There are several players in this space with data that probably rivals Google's. OEMs and ADAS developers collect lots of traffic data and license it to mapping and routing companies.
Actually, Mapbox is already an important player in this field (telemetry data), and they are retrieving this data from the SDKs that get implemented in mobile apps that use a Mapbox map, whether Android or iPhones. So the more customers that use Mapbox SDKs in apps, the more telemetry data they get. https://www.mapbox.com/telemetry/
Traffic data is likely to come under strong anti-trust scrutiny. Google has been aggressively leveraging Android to expand it's location data. More recently they being doing the same to massively expand their businesses, events and review offerings. One could argue that since the data is being _crowd sourced_, that it belongs to the commons and should be freely accessible.
Tesla has stopped licensing traffic data. Every Tesla has the maps app running whenever it’s driving. The autopilot cameras also can measure all traffic density in 360 degrees for about a block. So one Tesla can more accurately measure traffic density than a few dozen android users. But it will be a while before Tesla sells enough vehicles even then since ownership density is still very uneven geographically. Great coverage in cities, poor coverage in rural areas.
Every single Apple mobile device has been tracking traffic data for years (since 2016??) unless turned off by the user (plot twist...it's not easy to find). Doesn't matter if you are using Maps or not...doesn't matter if you are in an Uber and the driver uses Android. Your iPhone is tracking the speed/traffic.
Great post Joe! It would be interesting to think through how Tesla fits into this picture. They are using the same open ecosystem. E.g I believe OSM and Valhalla for routing. They’ve got cameras all over the place and make no secret that they use that data for corporate benefit.
One of Google's biggest strengths with Maps is its mobile integration--especially when paired with Android Auto. The fact I can look up a spot at home, essentially pin it in the browser, then connect a different device--my phone--to the car and have that pin show up is almost magic. MApple might have that feature, but I don't use Apple's products. Is Apple's mobile user-base too small for its mapping alternative to gain traction generally? It would be interesting if Bing could use Android for its maps. Microsoft has done well with product development, such as Office for other platforms, so why not Bing Maps? Just some thoughts.
Your last piece about OSM was also a hit with my newsletter, and I’m excited to share this one too. The piece about imagining an open ‘globe’ app reminded me of a similar program in Snow Crash. We can hope!
Thanks for sharing the love, Alex!
As a software engineer and GIS professional, we have been migrating away from Google Maps services for years now one at a time. Google's Map API for just about everything from geocoding to tile requests is just no longer competitive from a price stand point. Across other aspects, such as developer experience, results quality, and performance perspectives, Google wins in only a few areas--such as Earth Engine data/scripting, street view, and local search. In my personal life, I just gave Apple Maps directions a try this year during the pandemic and after a couple months, I uninstalled Google Maps, a thought that would have been crazy to me a year or two ago.
I also started using Apple Maps personally this year, and it was part of the inspiration for writing this. I realized I was still associating them with a reputation they no longer deserve.
Fantastic read! Thoroughly enjoyed the deep dive into the evolving landscape of mapping technologies. Your insights on the competitive ebbs and flows between Google Maps and its challengers resonate deeply. It’s fascinating to observe the parallels between the proprietary vs. open ecosystem debate in mapping and data pipelines.
In our own journey at dltHub :
https://dlthub.com/blog/dlthub-mission
we've confronted a similar dynamic in the ETL/ELT space. Traditional, all-encompassing SaaS solutions and heavily engineered frameworks have long dominated the narrative. However, as we highlighted, neither truly meets the needs of the new generation of Python practitioners. This realization fueled our creation of dlt, a minimalist, open-source Python library designed to empower practitioners to create scalable, maintainable data pipelines autonomously—something previously only within the purview of specialized data engineers.
Much like your discussion about Google needing to embrace a more open approach, our work with dlt aims to commoditize data loading, fostering an ecosystem where data pipelines are as ubiquitous and user-friendly as Python libraries like pandas or NumPy. It’s all about striking that balance between autonomy for individual practitioners and robust, scalable infrastructure that can evolve with organizational growth.
Looking forward to your future posts and continued exploration of these transformative industry shifts! Keep up the fantastic work!
Aman Gupta,
DLT Team
Terrific piece! As a former contractor for both Google Maps and Apple, I can confidently say both developers and consumers will benefit when the competitive field is a bit more level.
After eight years of working on OpenStreetMap, I finally had to realize that OpenStreetMap is not Wikipedia. Despite millions of own additions, apart from card tiles, little details do not reach people. So I have now finished with OpenStreetMap and am now working as a local guide on Google Maps. What I care about is that my involvement meets with immediate feedback from people in my environment. Google Maps is great, and OpenStreetMap Tiles can now be replaced better and more easily with up-to-date aerial imagery and building outlines generated by AI computing.
A detail added by a single user cannot match the plausibility of content that is inclined to smartphone telemetry. What several or many people confirm through repeated use is overwhelmingly plausible.
A good overview of the state of the location and mapping scene, is the Counterpoint annual report. It's a bit like the Gartner report. HERE is not as visible in the consumer space, but very highly rated. The US experience, which I believe is yours, is often much different from the rest of the world's, e.g. Google and Apple might shine in the US, and perhaps EU, but after that a very long thin tail kicks in. That's where, e.g. HERE and TomTom shine. HERE seems to want to be an open neutral platform for everything from logistics, fleet management, navigation, public transit to automated driving, AR/VR and local deliveries. The recent partnership with Amazon will surely only help
* https://www.counterpointresearch.com/here-google-tomtom-lead-location-platform-landscape/
I believe Google leads in 3D and street level imaging, but they're rapidly accumulating enemies and anti-trust scrutiny by usurping and starving companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zomato, FourSquare, etc. They might find themselves shackled or facing a spin-out.
One other advantage that Google has for consumer mapping services is it’s smarter text search function. If I type “bike store” into Google Maps I know I’ll get a reliable and comprehensive list of local bike shops. For years, all of the other services would uselessly jump to a single bike shop halfway across the country that whose name happened to exactly match my search query. But lately the non-Google services have gotten less dumb about this, so the evaporation continues.
Footnote 2: "Conspirators" => "competitors" ?
No, they’re conspirators! Sounded more fun than collaborators or allies.