TL;DWR: I found a way of using Apple Maps with Google Maps to avoid their annoying (to me) “Know Before You Go” AI-powered feature.
Go here if you want to skip the preaching and go straight to the solve.
Last November (or so), Google added this to Maps:
and, for the first time in my life, had me considering buying a crisp set of Rand McNally maps for my travel pack. I already daily a hip pack, so I’m basically halfway there.
I mean, the feature itself is fine. I can’t be mad at an app telling me that parking might be difficult at a spot within the heart of “famously-always-in-traffic” Chicago, and it doesn’t take a large leap to see how others might appreciate knowing a restaurant’s top-selling item without having to trudge through handfuls of reviews complaining about parking.
It’s the “shoving down your throat”-ness about this feature that had me mad enough to potentially buy a nice pocket compass.
(Before you continue, you should know that I have socioethical concerns with the AI industry in its current state, though I’m not completely refusing to use what’s on offer. Take that how you will.)
I use Maps through my personal Google Workspace account. I went through what I’d call unreasonable lengths to disable Gemini in my tenant, despite me being forced into paying more as a result of the “uncontestable value” that the disabled service hypothetically brings into my life. Yet, “Know Before You Go” is featured right beneath the business name…and it can’t be disabled.
New features are great. Forcing me to use new features that I do not not want and have never asked for is inconsiderate and disrespectful, especially when I’m paying for the ability to explicitly disable this functionality.
You can’t turn off AI Overviews in Google Search either without URL hacks, which is just as roiling, but I’ve long since switched to Kagi for web search that doesn’t “airplane the AI into your mouth” despite expending significant effort into productizing the technology with local LLMs. While Apple Maps exists and works well enough, with saved lists, reviews, menus, pictures and the like, switching away from Google Maps is nowhere nearly as easy. That Google knows this makes this all the more frustrating.
But Apple Maps does work well, and I’m already locked all the way into the iOS ecosystem. I’ve long been impressed with its significantly stronger navigation UX, but its continued partnership with Yelp (who have mastered anti-consumer choice and engagement dark patterns) has sullied my desire to use it full time.
What if I could use both, though? Google Maps doesn’t (yet) show AI suggestions in Safari, so maybe I could search for places in the mobile version and have Apple Maps do the navigating. Could that work?
Maze
Does exactly that.
Maze routes links to locations in mapping services to other mapping services. You share a URL to a place in Google Maps with Maze, and it gives you the ability to start navigating to it in Apple Maps.
That’s all it does, and it does it well.
It even uses the old pre-iPhoneOS 7.x skeumorphic fever dream design that looks a bit comical on my huge iPhone Air screen but is a million times better than the alternative that we were also one-way opted-into.
Other Alternatives
So that I’m not accused of shilling, you can also do something like this with an iOS shortcut or Mapper, a Safari extension that I couldn’t get working in the few minutes I tried it due, surely, to user error.
But Google gets the last laugh
Because when you visit Google Maps on Safari, it takes you straight to the app in the App Store, even when you tap “Stay on web”. I mean, how else will Google protect their ~$4T valuation?
There are extensions that neuter this dark pattern, so it’s not worth getting all ruffled about.