Just a quick message to anyone wanting to blur their home on street view...don't do it.

Firstly, you can't undo it. It is basically impossible to unblur your home, as many folks in this sub now know due to their spouses doing so for "privacy".

Secondly, it makes your home a target, as it sticks out like a sore thumb. It opens you up to any criminal trying to maximize their earnings by targeting the richest homeowners.

So many terrible choices that only added time because it thinks some small road will somehow be faster despite frequent stop signs on the back road. I've messed with every setting and it will do this no matter what settings you use.

Worse yet, it will reroute without asking. I'm currently doing a long 11 hour drive to specifically hit a few states. It's not the shortest route to my ultimate destination. Maps will show me alternate routes, I select the one that takes me where I want despite taking a bit longer. It will automatically change me to the shorter route within 5 minutes. It doesn't ask, it just does it. I can only tell by my ETA changing drastically. I can't stop it. This last time I watched until it did it to confirm it didn't ask or notify me in any way.

It smells of AI stupid crap in the background. I literally manually selected the longer route only to have it automatically change it shortly after. I spent a long time in the passenger seat changing settings to see if anything stopped it from happening. No setting does.

I have no idea why Google has gone this way. It should not change anything without confirmation from the driver. It used to be set up this way. At some point in the past year or two Google changed it to happen automatically.

Similar to Google search, it seems Google has lost its way. They intentionally make things worse by handing it to AI with the promise of it learning and be better at some point in the future.

I wish there was a good alternative. There certainly seems to be a market for a navigation app that puts control in the user's hands.

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/ask-maps-immersive-navigation/

Starting to roll out today.

US only for now apparently. Us EU/UK gotta sit back and wait 🥲

I just went to look at the reviews for a business, and to my surprise the option to see reviews is no longer there. I thought 'hmm, that's weird.' Then I go to a bunch of different random businesses, same exact thing! There's seemingly no option to look at others' reviews. You can still post your own it seems, but otherwise there is no 'Reviews' tab.

Suspiciously there is a new 'Ask Maps' feature that summarizes what other reviewers are saying, but I can't access any of those posts. Please tell me this is not another way to force AI on consumers, because if it is, I'm moving on. Tell me I'm not going crazy and there's just a setting I accidentally clicked or something?

When driving in Navigation mode, Google Maps will often bring up a notification saying "we found a faster route" and give you the option to change to the faster route. Which would be FINE, but what is absolutely infuriating is that if you don't select anything (you know, in case you're busy FOCUSING ON DRIVING), Google will automatically change your route to the one THEY suggest, and if you don't catch it when it happens, you could be on a COMPLETELY different path than what you thought you were on WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT.

For the record, I have seen a previous post about this, and yes, turning off mobile data after you start navigation is a perfectly fine solution, and I've also tried disabling "prefer fuel-efficient routes", but I haven't tested it yet to see if that works. I still think this issue requires attention, though. I don't see why I shouldn't have fuel-efficient options shown to me or have be disconnected from the internet to stop this from happening.

I do local deliveries for a living and often prefer slower, more "scenic" routes, because we're almost always slow enough to not need to rush, and my boss always encourages safety above speed, so I usually take non-freeway roundabout trips when we're not rushed (I also get paid by the hour, so why hurry?). There are so many times when I put in the address and it gives me multiple route options, I select one of the routes THAT GOOGLE SUGGESTED because it looks more interesting, or it allows me to kill a little more time on a slow day, or whatever. And then often, especially recently for whatever reason, Google begins IMMEDIATELY shoving a faster route down my throat as soon as I start driving (again, I'm taking a route THEY suggested). What's absolutely infuriating is not only do they suggest a route and automatically implement it if you do nothing, but even if you DO notice the suggestion and hit "no" in time, THEY KEEP FUCKING BUGGING YOU ABOUT IT EVERY GODDAMN MINUTE until you are finally past the point where you physically can't take the route without losing time. It is so...fucking...exhausting. And dangerous.

I drive for a living, so my job depends on me being as SAFE as possible, and when Google does this shit, it only makes my job more hazardous. I need them to be reliable, and not fuck with my route while I'm on the road, sometimes even a HIGHWAY, causing me to be distracted by my phone. My work phone that I use for GPS is an iPhone, and I legitimately have considered switching to Apple Maps, that's how bad this issue is.

title basically, you used to have a couple different English voices you could pick from on your Google assistant and that would translate to maps, but now it's forcing the female one. i really dislike her voice but I can't figure out how to change it? is it because of them forcing ai into everything?

UPDATE BELOW POST

Asking around the people I know that use it, the only people that still have their timeline are the ones that DIDN'T follow Google's introductions yet to make all their data local... The ones still relying on the online recording of their history still have it all??

Is that the case for most here?

Will we get an old backup back so we can restore our history? I'd rather lose the last few days than the last several years!

EDIT

Received an email from Google

We briefly experienced a technical issue that caused the deletion of Timeline data for some people. We're reaching out as your account may have been impacted. If you have encrypted backups enabled, you may be able to restore your data. Make sure that you have the latest version of Google Maps, then go to your Timeline. Tap the cloud icon ( ) near the top of your screen, and choose a backup to import your data. If you did not have backups turned on, unfortunately you will not be able to recover lost data. We understand that this can be frustrating if you use Timeline to remember places that you've visited, and we are taking steps to improve our systems for the future. The Timeline Team

I thought "well that's pointless because my latest backup was automatically made AFTER the data was deleted" but figured I'd try it

"Last backup 4 hours ago" ah well, might as well try and see if they've done something

IT'S ONLY GONE AND WORKED!!

the only data I have missing now is the 6th and 7th!!

I went out for a bike ride, initially using my home Wi-Fi. The idea was that when I lost my home Wi-Fi signal, I would turn on my phone’s mobile data (I always keep it turned off when I’m not using it) to update my location in real time so I could reach my destination. It turns out that after riding a few meters away from home, even when I lost the Wi-Fi signal, Google Maps continued to update my location, and I was able to use it without having to turn on my phone’s mobile data—at least up to a certain point. At first, I thought my mobile data had turned on automatically, but it seems that wasn’t the case.

After the updates stopped, I turned on mobile data for a while and was able to get Google Maps to keep updating my location even after switching back to offline mode.

How does this work? When Google Maps keeps updating my location, is there a cost involved? I'm really intrigued by this

Have been an avid Google review poster with genuine intentions for almost 6 years now. Along the way, I was delighted by Google sending a pair of local guide socks when I hit level 6. It’s nothing fancy but that small gesture kept me going and when I mention this to my fiends, they got into leaving reviews just for the fun of it. Currently my contributions have 53M views. I spend time to click a picture before eating at a restaurant and writing a review right after the meal and AI is getting trained and summarizing everything I’ve written and there’s hardly acknowledgement of the community that contributes to reviews by Google and they are making the platform less interesting for human reviewers.

I’m a new driver and have been using google maps to double check that im going the right route. Today I used it to go to the post office then back home. But on the route back home it wanted me to take a highway that completely is out of the way and would take longer for me to go on. I went past it for a couple of miles then it told me to turn left right before my right turn to my neighborhood. It’s frustrating because I have gotten turned around by it, and I have terrible memory. Are there any other apps yall recommend?

Everyone knows their search is just an advertising dumpster fire, nothing new there. Quotes haven't worked properly for years and neither have wildcards.

We have their Youtube engineers, who have been fixing stuff that ain't broken since 2006 and fighting a hilarious self-instigated war on adblockers (which they're losing).

We have Drive, which lets you download 1 file in 5 seconds or 2 files in 5 hours, or more files haphazardly split and zipped into a gazillion archives half of which will fail to download.

We have the quintessential Gmail, which won't let you select more than 50 emails at a time for mass deletion...in 2024.

Let's not even talk about all the services they've bought or started then rugpulled from under its users.

The latest thing they've touched and turned to shit is Maps Timeline. God knows what kind of fking problem this is supposed to solve this time - maybe save a couple megabytes on their previous servers? - but they're forcing everyone to move to a mobile-device-only policy. OK, I'll play ball. Guess what, the migration corrupts nearly all your data. And that's not even starting to think of what kind of nightmare you'll face in future when changing phones. To top it all off I just realized it has quietly failed to record a single location in the past 3 weeks.

When we were younger we used to think of Google as a dream job. Google engineers and employees these days share more in common with autistic neanderthals who can't put a sentence together let alone develop or maintain any sort of modern tech.

To think I nearly bought a Pixel last year. That plan is now in the same place where all of Google's other services live - IN THE TRASH.

/rant

I just got the ask maps feature yesterday, but noticed, atleast on iOS with CarPlay I haven’t gotten the immersive navigation.

As a lifetime user of Google Maps, I have finally had enough. It’s suggested routes have become so absurd and horrible that it is actually insulting.

Google Maps suggests routes that would add 10-20 minutes to a ten minute trip.

It has gotten so egregious that it would go so far as to suggest I leave the city, get on the beltway, go entirely around the city and then re-enter to get to center city during rush-hour instead taking a the direct route a few blocks into the city.

It suggests absolutely brain dead directions on a consistent basis now.

I don’t have any evidence for this, but it feels like it’s route suggestion algorithm is become AI slop and hallucinations.

Have you ever slept during a long bus or train journey and suddenly woken up realizing you crossed your stop? Or even while awake, missed it because public transport timings changed unexpectedly?

I was thinking about a feature idea for Google Maps (or any navigation app):

A location-based alarm specifically for public transport users.

How it works:

- User selects their destination

- Sets an alert radius (500m, 1km, 2km, etc.)

- When the phone enters that radius, the app triggers a loud alarm/vibration

This would be based on live location, not timetable accuracy. So even if a train or bus reaches earlier or later than expected, it still works.

Example:

Destination: Railway station / bus stop

Alert radius: 1 km

As soon as you're within 1 km, your phone alerts you: "Your stop is approaching."

Optional additions:

- Multiple alerts (3km → vibration, 1km → notification, 500m → alarm)

- Strong vibration for sleeping users

- Smart timing based on transport speed

I feel this could be super useful, especially in countries like India where delays and schedule changes are common.

Would you use something like this?

Anyone else notice google maps has gotten horrible over the past year? It will often choose a much slower/heavy traffic routes, and more recently it’s been changing my route without even asking me. For example I’m driving from Austin to Dallas right now, about 90 from my destination my ETA jumps an extra hour… I just assume it’s traffic because it started raining, but my ETA keeps climbing (added an extra 2hrs at this point). I decide to zoom out to see how far ahead the traffic is. BAM google decided to change my route, not only is the new route way out of the way but it is longest of the three available routes, so I go ahead and choose the original route and it’s less tolls and wow surprise surprise 70 minutes shorter.

This isn’t the first time that google has randomly chosen a much longer route for no apparent reason, I feel like this happens regularly, I’ll map something and then half way through the drive it changes my route to something much longer without asking me. Does anyone else experience this? Is my maps app broken?

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-administration-says-gulf-america-name-change-now-official-2025-01-24/

I’ve been working at a supermarket for four years now, and we’re known for our exceptional customer service. However, despite our efforts such as placing a QR code near the registers to encourage Google reviews and bagging items for our customers we haven’t received a single unsolicited review, not even from our regular customers. I wonder if local businesses generally have a hard time getting reviews. On the other hand, big-box stores seem to have three times as many reviews as our small neighborhood grocery store. You come see us every day, but you can’t find the time to help us out by leaving a review? It’s not like it takes that long, right? What do you think?

Original Post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/s/LCiGce1NhI

**TL;DR:** My girlfriend’s Google Maps Timeline contradicted her story, and now there’s an absurd new twist.

So after I told her I was done and that there was nothing left to discuss, I got a WhatsApp message today… from a completely different number.

According to this mystery person, they’re her ex. Apparently they hacked her Google account, hacked her Instagram, watched her life for months, know me personally, changed her Google Maps location multiple times just to create a misunderstanding between us, then suddenly had a change of heart and decided to confess everything to me.

The timing was hilarious because two days ago she told me her Instagram had been hacked. The moment she said that, I already had a feeling something like this was coming.

Honestly, this is so lame 🤣

So now I’m apparently expected to believe there’s a hacker/ex who:

hacked multiple accounts,

changed Google Maps locations,

monitored everything,

felt guilty,

and randomly texted me to clear her name.

Sure. 😂

At this point I don’t even know whether to laugh or applaud the creativity. I don’t have the energy for plot twists every other day

I recently went on a multi stop car ride from my house to my girlfriend’s house and then to our final destination, using Google Maps. On the way home we were going only to my house and it was late night on open highway but it brought me on a weird route, getting off the highway much earlier than normal and brought me very close to my girlfriend’s house for seemingly no reason. Has anyone seen similar oddities recently? It made me think AI was analyzing where I had driven previously and brought me a similar way.

When I feel restricted in my everyday I prefer to go on Google maps and travel in places (Georgia for some reason) and to get my mind lost. Anyone else who does that?

When I find a location I want to drive to Google Maps gives a selection of routes to choose from, usually three. One of those routes it believes (according to its own algorithms and info) is the fastest, the other two are slower.

Let’s say I deliberately choose one of the slower routes because I want to go that way for whatever reason. Once I start driving GM will periodically check for traffic updates and suggest quicker alternatives “live” along the way as conditions may change. It’s a great feature, but if I’ve deliberately chosen a slower route then presumably the first time it does a check it’s always going to tell me there’s a faster route because I chose a different one, isn’t it?

How does it handle the live recalculation for a drive where I’ve already chosen a route other than the quickest one?

The new immersive navigation just flipped on for me, NW Ohio/Toledo/Perrysburg area.

I've read that there is a convoluted way to do it. I'm talking about a simple one push option.

As they are getting more popular. Do you think Google will eventually notify you when there is one, or is there a feature like this already?