Thanks, Apple

User: "Please give me the three fastest routes, with each answer weighted by different criteria"

Computer: "Okay, here you go."

User: "Two of these are slower than the third, you stupid piece of shit, I hate you."

Every time Picard asks Data a question.

This is Apple Maps.

Apple Maps doesn’t just recommend the fastest routes, it also appears to push the most popular routes as alternatives.

Here is the San Francisco area to LA in iOS 18. The longer route might seem insane if you’re not familiar with the drive, but that longer route is much prettier, and a lot of people intentionally drive in the coastal road for the views.

Edit: Weird. Lemmy isn’t loading the picture for me. All in all, this is a map of I5 to LA vs the Hyw 101 to LA. I5 is 2 hours faster, but it’s a long brown valley, it smells like cow shit, and you’re bombarded with homemade MAGA signs for several hours. It’s a drive of hate, farts, and truck stop food. 101 longer, but it’s recommended for redwoods forests and cute little beach towns.

California is ridiculous. I'm from San Francisco, was visiting LA and someone asked me where I lived. I pointed to 101 and said, turn left on that road and keep going for 8 hours.

Edit: sorry, "the 101". When in Rome, etc
- CA’s a long boi
Yes, you correct. My mistake, sorry about that. I fixed it.

Fewer turns but one more Bend.

Why is the title "Thanks, Google"? Isn't that Apple Maps?

Because thanks Obama!
- also bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe I hAvE aN iNfOrMeD oPiNiOn!
It is. Apple Maps recommends a combo of the fastest and most popular routes. Sometimes the popular routes are shown as options because they’re nicer.

This goes through Bend Oregon, home of the last Blockbuster on Earth. That’s a solid recommendation IMHO.
- I spent a month in Bend and never knew about the blockbuster, I mean I learned about it a year later 🫤
You are indeed correct. My mistake, sorry about that. I fixed it.

Can they add an option to show roads with more twist for us riding a motorbike? I'd love to road trip without having to look too closely at the map for nice roads.

If you use Waze instead, they actually have a setting you can toggle for roads that are more twisty. In my experience it works great!
- I had no idea. That's so great!
Might wanna ask them about that directly. I certainly won’t be able to answer that question.
- Why not OP? I'm not paying you to slack off!
Kurviger is what you're looking for

https://kurviger.de/en

There's a bunch of motorcycle specific apps for people who want to use their phone to navigate (I recommend using an old phone if you plan to mount it to your motorcycle, vibration can kill the camera)

I love that one as well, can be used as a launcher on Android, IIRC you can even use it with two devices so you don't have to take the SIM out of your good phone.

https://www.drivemodedashboard.com/
And loop de loops
- Finally, my life-sized hotwheels car can have a suitable route.

What I want is specifically "no left turns." Because that could actually save me time. "Fewer 🚦s" and "no dangerous instructions" would also be good.

lol you want new and useful features in the last 10 years? Here's where you can find Popeyes on the way.
Afaik this is already included in the calculation for the fastest route.
- How come it tried to send me to make a left onto a major thoroughfare from a tiny side street rather than the major one with a controlled left arrow (a blessed rarity in my city) a few blocks away? Yeah maybe someone did it and scraped a few seconds off their time because they got lucky with the cross traffic, but someone who doesn't know the area is gonna get tboned.
- I don't want fastest. I want least stressful. No left turns without a traffic light. No really short merges. And if it could find a way to route all the chaotic idiots along some other road, that would be perfect.
Oh man, I'd love the 'no dangerous interactions ' one. Just today, the map tried to have me cross a busy 4 lane street at an uncontrolled intersection. Thankfully construction rerouted me and I was able turn into the parking lot much easier than crossing

They always seem to force alternative routes regardless whether there are any.

I regularly see "alternatives" which are just taking a turn, doing a 180 in a roundabout and reentering the same route as before. Because why wouldn't I just waste 10 mins just for fun?

Except they never display the real alternatives when they DO exist! Often I'll be driving in an area I know well, and there will be a crash or roadwork or something and Google will say "welp, better just add 30 minutes to your 30 minute commute" and I'm like "nah fam there's a whole other road"

I dunno how they can consistently fuck up that bad.
- I think a bunch of municipalities got butt hurt at them for routing traffic through their cities. It definitely used to offer way better and more alternatives. Now it's absolute shit and I have to eyeball it all the time to see if there's a better route.
The best alternatives are the ones you find zooming into the map. The software knows it can’t recommend anybody take them because they’ll immediately become slower than the main routes.

Also never seen the roundabout 180
- I've never had the roundabout one either. But I do often get ones where I'm on a rural highway and it will give an alternative route to exit the highway, take this long twisting road that dumps me back on the highway ahead of me, adding a needless 40 minutes. Haha.
- Also never seen the roundabout 180
  
  Actually had it a couple of times. It has to be a bug but it's been happening for a while now...
imagine the poor person who does this for you losing their job to ai 😔
I have the opposite problem where I know there are better alternative routes but google refuses to acknowledge them.
I miss the good old days where u could click and drag the line to a route that looked better and see if it actually would work.

Is that a regional setting? Never saw "fewer turns" as an option in my app. Only saw "most environmental" when it takes a shorter router even though it's slower

I've never seen "most environmental" or "fewer turns". We get "fewer toll roads" and sometimes "avoids traffic" during rush hour

I would avoid Redding if I could as well

A couple weeks ago I had to travel for work and I picked the longer one because I got paid for more miles and it meant I would get back right at the end of the day so I wouldn't have to do anything else that afternoon. Also on that 2 hour drive I think I saw 5-6 cars for the first 3/4 of it which was pretty great.

I'm surprised that works. At my job they make us put in the origin and destination and will only pay the mileage for the shortest route.
- I'm guessing they have a job like mine, where a driving trip is a relatively rare occurrence and micromanaging the travel isn't worth it to mitigate the risk of paying out a little more.

Fewer turns? I am almost positive there are two sections of switchbacks across two mountain passes in that 'alternate' route.

Turns as in intersections where you need to turn I guess.

catering to the racing demo

Idk are races not meant to go the fastest?

Tell me you're not on a motorcycle without telling me you're not on a motorcycle

In my experience many recreational motorcyclists specifically seek out curvey roads as they are fun. Am I missing something?
- OPs post says they hate turning. Hence my comment