I’m sure it’s amazing in California or the US. So often I think how much better products would be if the people responsible would have to use them for a week outside of the happy path.
Example: Taking the airport train instead of a private driver and realizing there’s no luggage racks, staying in a regular hotel room and realizing there’s no light in front of the mirror, only behind you. So many examples like that on a daily basis.
Another huge exemple : in most big cities in Europe you have special parking lots around big public transit hubs outside of the city where you can park for free as long as you continue your journey by public transit.
In a lot of cities, that’s either the fastest or the most comfortable way to go somewhere in the city when you come from the outside.
Not any single navigation app support this (tbf, the few European ones don’t support it either)
There was a Not Just Bikes video about how Google Maps is optimised for driving where it pretty much actively hides the biggest walking routes and promotes roads for driving by making them bigger. Useful in the USA for sure but actively harmful in Europe, given that you're more likely to plan a route by which roads you can see, and unless you know what to look for you're not going to find them easily.
Yes. Unfortunately transit between public transit is always walking. No options to take a first part by bike or car, or folding bikes for intermediate hops.
The long tail of user desires is loooong. For example "I want to take transit, but please exclude transit options where I cannot take my non-folding bicycle". Or "I don't have a raincoat, suggest only bus stops with a roof, oh and by the way I don't like the uncomfortable seats on the purple line but will take it if there is no other way".
I think LLM's with access to lots of personal data and the ability to scout the web might solve all these use cases in one fell swoop, rather than trying to design a user interface with buttons, algorithms and data sources for every obscure use case.
I think you mean country/region capitals, or countries like Germany.
I can assert than this isn't a thing in most Portuguese big cities, although it would be great to have it.
In Germany it's often not IN cities, but around. Example for Frankfurt:
The's a metro ("S-Bahn") going north up to Friedberg/Hessen. Friedberg is the capital of the country. But there's no free "Park & Ride" there. Two stations towards Frankfurt you are in village called Wöllstadt. And there you have a free Park & Ride. More south some other village, no P&R. But then again in Bad Vilbel you have one.
Is however P&R + public tansport the fastest way to Frankfurt? That depends.
First, the Wöllstadt P&R isn't easily accessible from the Autobahn, or not even from the B3, which goes around Wöllstadt. And even when it went through it some years ago, it was several turn-left turn-rights through small streets.
And then the S6 only drives every 30 minutes to Frankfurt. It's supposed to change once they double the train tracks, but that will change. On top of it: metro lines don't have precedence, the quick trains like ICE have. So the S-Bahn more often than not waits until a faster train passes.
If it isn't between 7-9 in the morning, you're actually faster by car in Frankfurt than by public transport ... So the P&R is quite helpful for people living in the neighboring villages: they go by car to Wöllstadt, park there for free, commute to Frankfurt by metro. And that traffic jam free ... but not necessarily fast. And since parking in Frankfurt usually comes with a price tag, it's also a bit cheaper.
So it's nice to have this, but it's no all roses.
Well at least on NRW, I can say that there are enough P&R around here.
However compared with European countries like Portugal, this is a complete different reality.
This was my main point, because there are these "in Europe public transport is so great" remarks, yes it is, provided one is lucky to be on the right parts of Europe, as you also kind of refer to by your no all roses scenario.
My favorite Apple example of this is that when the Apple Watch notices that you're walking/running/biking and asks if you want to start a workout, for some reason you cannot accept it with the double-tap-your-fingers gesture. Which is fine if it's warm outside...but when it's winter in Minnesota, if I want to activate it I have to take one of my gloves off, pull up my sleeves, and put the gloves back on, while bitching about how nobody designing the watch lives in a cold climate. (Especially when I'm on a bike. Riding no-hands in the snow is not a smart idea.)
Another example: When taking HOV and the map asks you if you want HOV enabled, there are no options I can force the navigation to take me to the nearest HOV lane.
If it happens to be there, it will say to use it, but I can't say "Route me to the nearest HOV entrance" because I prefer it even if it's 1 minute slower.
Staying in a holiday rental and there are no hooks on the walls!
I’ve started buying cheap self-adhesive hooks on AliExpress and placing them myself. Not sure if they last long but hopefully owners get the message.
> staying in a regular hotel room and realizing there’s no light in front of the mirror, only behind you.
I'll bite, what does this have to do with Apple Maps?