You know that Google Maps is better than Apple Maps: there's probably no one outside Apple itself who would deny that Google's service has far more and richer data, and in some countries is better at finding routes. So the fact that the new
Google Maps 4.11.0 release adds Apple Watch support is, in all ways, brilliant. Strike that: it's in all but one ways brilliant. As is so very often the case with Google, you have to switch on settings that you struggle to find -- in part because Google itself tells you the wrong place to look. There's an irony there in a map app by a search giant telling you the wrong place.
This is what you see first when you open Google Maps on your Apple Watch. It's not unreasonable that Google needs you to sign in to use the service, though it is a shame you can't just search for a place and go there, the way you can with Apple Maps (which doesn't require a sign-in at all -- not even your Apple ID).
What seems unreasonable, and just that tiny bit aggravating, is that when you do this, when you open the iPhone app and sign in, going back to your Watch gets you a slightly different message. "Open the Google Maps app on your phone and turn on Web & App Activity to search for home and your other personal places." It's the word "and" that added 10 minutes to our trying to get this to work. You read that sentence, and unthinkingly expect that there is something called Web & App Activity on your iPhone, and there is -- but you will never find it unaided.
We genuinely, literally, tried every setting in every section and could not find it. Eventually we got to it on our Macs instead: specifically because we -- with some chagrin -- used Google to search for how to find Web & App Activity.
As we got to it via a search, we're not all that confident of telling you exactly how to get to it. However, go online, sign in to your Google account if you have one, then hunt for Account History. That is, of course, where you will find something about how to use maps in the future. Of course it is.
However, your mileage may vary. After we had set this up on our account online, after we had used the iPhone app to plan one journey, and then used the buttons on the Watch to take us first Home then to Work, then the iPhone app popped up with some help. It recommended that we switch on the Web & App Activity feature, so that we could set up our home and work destinations that we'd already set up, because we'd already set up Web & App Activity. If you get this before having schlepped through the online version, tap on Get Started, and the iPhone app takes you to the online version.
All of this is to get two buttons working on Google Maps for Apple Watch: the default Home and Work buttons. While you're setting them up, you can use the app to get directions to anywhere you like -- if you search on the iPhone app first. Search on the iPhone app and get it running, giving you turn-by-turn directions, and then the same directions appear on the Watch, looking like this. It's actually a bit clearer than Apple Maps on the Watch: the color choice makes the next step stand out well.
When you've done a route, even without setting up the Home and Work, you do now get the option to quickly look at previous routes. Well, sort of. The Watch app has a line that says Recent Routes, plural, but it only lists the last one you went to, singular. Tap on that, and you get the list of directions from that previous route -- but that's it, just a list. You can't now say you want to go there again. Not on the Apple Watch.
If you're stuck somewhere, it is not possible, in our opinion, to download Google Maps, pop it onto your Watch and get home. You need to study the app first: it is a tea and three-biscuit studying job, and is probably worth your effort. If you've already slogged through Google Maps for iPhone, and prefer it to Apple Maps, the Watch version is a bonus, and the fiddling you have to do first is hopefully familiar.
We just can't help but compare this to lifting our wrist, saying "Hey, Siri, take us home" and seeing Apple Maps immediately give us the directions we need on both the Watch and iPhone together. There's no question that Google has the better map data, but there is every question why the design is so poor. Settings that are and aren't where Google tells you they are; settings you could not possibly fathom had anything to do with maps anyway. Instruction headings that are plurals when they only do singular things. A recent route display that you can't use to repeat that recent route. No way to search for a new route, no way to initiate a route from the Watch.
Google Maps 4.11.0 requires patience, and officially only requires iOS 7.0 or later, but to use the Apple Watch you surely need at least iOS 8.0. It's
free in the App Store.
Who is Google Maps 4.11.0 for:
Existing Google Maps fans, of whom there are many.
Who is Google Maps 4.11.0 not for:
Anyone else. You may well dislike Apple Maps but if you do, don't start with Google Maps on the Watch, use it on the iPhone first.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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