On Monday, PC Mag’s Glenn Rubenstein and his friends from TWiT had a simple task of reaching Apple’s campus at 1, Infinity Loop. As a real world experiment they wanted to test out how well Apple Maps directions will fare against Google Maps and Waze. The testers were Leo LaPorte from TWiT who was using the Waze app, John C. Dvorak who had Google Maps and finally Glenn Rubenstein who had Apple Maps. Surprisingly the much bashed and hated Apple Maps won the test. Though this is not a professional test of all kinds Apple maps seems to be not that bad afterall.
Waze seems to have performed very poor of the lot as Leo after being misdirected in between had to reach last of the three but Apple Maps and Google Maps seemed to have fared equally well for most part of the journey. But after certain period Glenn seemed to have driven into the Freeway as suggested by Apple maps which had much lesser traffic and a better scenic view but John who was using Google Maps was directed through the streets of the city with numerous spot lights and traffic jams. In the end Glenn seemed to have reached the destination first well ahead by five minutes from John.
Apple maps seems to be improving rapidly since its launch last year, with iOS 7 expected to be announced in Summer 2013 we can expect Apple to set its focus on Maps once again.
The funniest part of the journey was when John reached Apple campus, Google Maps gave a notification that he reached the destination along with an image of Apple Campus. But guess what, Google has shown few trash cans behind Apple head quarters. Neat trick Google!
