Another (short) thought about mapping apps

2024/11/30 #uiux

I have written about my experience with using different mapping apps before. When I travelled to South Korea last year, I had to switch to using KakaoMap for a week because Google Maps is not really available in South Korea. Let's just say it didn't go well...

Since then I've sticked to GoogleMaps as my main mapping app of choice and had no reason to switch since. That was until last weekend, when I had to switch to yet another app when I travelled to mainland China (you guessed it, GoogleMaps is also not really worth using there either). This time I chose Apple‘s Maps and my hopes were high. But to cut straight to the chase: I was disappointed yet again and could not wait to get back to my good old GoogleMaps.

I could fill endless lines of this blog post complaining about little things that annoyed me about Apple's Maps but I want to keep it short and concise today (it's nice outside and I'd much rather spend this Saturday enjoying the dry air and clear sky). The thing that became so apparent to me on this trip was actually a much more general point. The reason I did not like using Apple's Maps app was really not any of the many little things that could be designed in a better way about it. Instead, it was the fact that my expectation of how a mapping app should function is at this point so heavily influenced by the choices GoogleMaps has made that the switching costs of changing to any other app making any other choices are greater than any benefit those different choices could potentially come with.

I guess that's what you call user inertia.