There was a time when I couldn’t make head or tail of Delhi’s radial roads (roads should be at right angles, radial roads are just wrong). Then came Google maps and I was a happy camper. But the Google maps app has its limitations. It is also possible to fool Google maps, as we saw recently.
You know how we dread seeing that red (vis-à-vis the blue) colour on the route? Well someone thought it would be hilarious to trick Google. Artist Simon Weckert gathered together a cartload of smartphones – 99 to be precise – with their navigation turned on.
As the images show, the road is empty save this guy with his little wagon, but the road representation on the map app turns red. The app senses the density of smartphones on a given road to assess traffic congestion.
So when there is a traffic jam right in front of my eyes but the map app shows the road as clear, that is simply because there are fewer people around using navigation on their phones.
“Go west,” says the polite voice on Google Maps. Some of us couldn’t identify west even if the sun were setting! So yes, it can get confusing at times.
Where earlier I could trust my sense of direction to get me from A to B, now I take no chances. I ask Google to guide me – and panic if my battery dies.
…Not the best route. The result can be harrowing: taking the car into impossibly narrow and crowded streets, winding lanes that you never saw before – and never want to see again.
In India, what used to be a street is now dug up, what used to be a road is now a flyover --- so it is not inconceivable that this happened because Google said ‘continue straight’.
…at all! But Google maps insists there is! The road is getting progressively worse, but Google tells you to keep going. Perhaps there was a road there once, but clearly, there isn't one now.
There are times when Google will confess that there is “No way there” if you ask for a route from, say Mumbai Central to Zanzibar. At times though it gives directions such as these: maybe Google Maps has a sense of humour? That would be a good thing, because there are a lot of things that Google gets wrong.
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