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Google must pay €4.1bn fine for using Android to 'block' rivals (www.bbc.co.uk)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 4 months ago (8 children)

I really want CoMaps to be a valid choice. Its maps look are absolutely great, like Ordnance Survey Maps. But I don't normally use it for the reason I experienced again just today. I use Android Auto in the car with my GrapheneOS phone, but my phone SIM reader failed the other day, so this phone has no internet. Google Maps refused to work without internet. So I just used CoMaps again today. This is in the UK, and lack of traffic info matters. It does routes down the little country roads that are technically 60mph, but you literally can not drive that fast down them. Even with a death wish. But it plans them in assuming that speed. This results in bad routes and inaccurate times. (Though I do enjoy country roads, when used well.)

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    On the plus side, it worked without internet!

    So you're saying that you can't drive this speed limit on those roads because of the amount of traffic, right? not because of some sort of geographic feature or shape of the roads?

    Yeah...hard to imagine much of a way to get traffic updates in comaps, or any OSM project honestly. It seems like it would have to be a separately maintained service. And either way, I'm guessing the number of users that would buy into something like that just wouldn't be enough to get meaningful data most of the time. Especially since it pretty much relies on tracking people's locations, which I feel like is counter to the purpose of most people's reason for getting into those services.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    Oh it's not traffic. They are often quite empty. British country roads are narrow and often stone wall lined, or tree lined, or embankment lined, or all three. They are winding and can be quite steep. Corners can be almost back on themselves. Often there are bits down to a single lane for both directions, with passing points for someone to wait for the other direction to pass. If you encounter someone who can't reverse, you might have to reverse quite a way.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I think they do mean that the layout of the road means you can't drive at the speed limit. In the UK we have quite a lot of rural roads that are technically legally 60mph limit roads, but they are in reality very narrow, windy roads that you couldn't safely drive on at 60mph. I guess CoMaps goes by speed limit for estimates so it measures these roads as if they are 60mph but in reality you may only be able to go 20mph without dying

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, this is a misunderstanding of speed limits by the app developer. In the UK, as far as I remember, these national speed limit roads have just never had a speed limit put on them. Things like accidents, petitions, zoning etc. is how everywhere else has gradually added speed limits.

    So although you could say “well, national speed limit on a single carriageway is 60mph” by default, that has almost nothing to do with how fast people are able drive on them. To work that out, you’d probably have to do some Waze-type stuff.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    I've very sympathetic to the developers. It's a stupidly hard problem to know what speed is likely, at what time of day, on these roads. Far far easier to just have the data of what people are actually doing on these roads. That's what Google do.

    Though if you can detect country road, you could safely assume half the speed advertised.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    It's also cultural. Country roads in my country are 90 km/h and unless it's dangerous, that's what you would do on them. Which means speed is lower than posted in tight spots and curves, but not normal roads.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    That's pretty much the UK really. Only you are very rarely able to get close to the 60mph limit at all, let alone safely.

    The are more dangerous by statistics. Some random links:

    I love these roads and the British countryside, but it is definitely an eyes wide open environment. Certainly can be a shortcut, but often SatNavs without traffic info, use them when they really shouldn't. You used to often see signs telling people to ignore their SatNavs and not take this road, but it's less of a thing now as everyone just uses Google Maps. Basically, I want that traffic info as public access for all SatNavs. Not locked away.

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