Google sweeps the world of maps with various devices. It has more than a billion and a half Android users as for Apple users, even with Apple Maps, but because it is considered impractical and not developed compared to Google Maps, according to the latest studies, the percentage of using Google Maps on iOS devices has reached 6 times. Although Apple seeks to develop its maps, but this is exclusive to Western countries, while Google sweeps the rest of the world, especially our Arab countries, because of the exclusive advantages it provides, the simplest of which is the state of traffic. And here is Google adding a new fatal feature in our markets to Apple, which is support for transportation and the start with Cairo.
Transportation or Transit tab Most often, if you live in Arab or African countries, you will find that it does not show any results if you make navigation and you have two options, which are either the car or the walk. And if your country has services such as "Uber and Careem", they will be added, but the transportation tab will remain empty, as in the following picture:
But in western countries, the matter is completely different, as you can move between anywhere by means of transportation and get to know their dates very accurately from the Maps application, whether Google or Apple.
During the previous months, Google began to support this feature in the Arab world, and according to the official website, it supports as follows:
◉ Cairo (metro lines support) - Ismailia (train support). Without navigation support for both.
◉ Algeria: EMA metro support. (Do not support navigation)
Morocco: ONCF train support. (Do not support navigation)
◉ Tunisia: Railways support (Sousse - Mahdia - Tunis)
◉ UAE: Dubai metro support RTA.
◉ Bahrain: Supporting the Ministry of Transport.
◉ Qatar: Supporting Mowasalat.
The above is the current support mentioned on the official Google website. And any other Arab country not mentioned, this means that Google does not support transportation there.
Cairo transportation experience
Cairo Governorate or the regional sector called Greater Cairo is considered one of the most difficult residential areas in Africa and the Middle East, with a population of approximately 25 million people, in addition to the lack of accurate electronic maps of transportation lines and the reliance of a large sector of them on people and not companies. So it was completely unlikely that we would see solutions from Google for this matter, but during my navigation experience today, I was surprised by the emergence of data that appears in the transportation field as follows:
Far from the fact that Google’s proposal is completely illogical, as the distance is approximately 22 kilometers and can be traveled by car in 24 minutes or by walking in 3 and a half hours, while Google suggests transportation in time periods of 10.5 hours and up to 23 hours, but in the end it is considered a great step.
The future of maps and transportation
In the beginning, and to clarify, the reason for this strange timing is due to the lack of support from companies. In short, the transportation company goes to Google and provides it with its own transportation dates, and then the application automatically draws a map to move you between these transfers; The more companies there are, therefore, he can guess and suggest more accurate transportation. It seems that the company currently supported in Cairo is the "Buseet" company as well as the "Nile Taxi" and therefore Google proposes to you based on them. For example, from the following picture it is suggested that you ride the first company bus and then get off and walk for a distance of 400 meters, then the river taxi and then walk for a period of time. 42 minutes (3.2 kilometers). Of course, this is illogical, but it is only the beginning.
It is expected that more companies will be added, such as "Swvl" and "Mwasalat Misr", and the latter has already signed a cooperation contract with Google several months ago.
last word
Of course, the article talks about the city of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, but the matter is greater than this as it shows that Google has begun to focus on improving and expanding its maps in our Arab world; Its support for Cairo is not mainly due to the fact that it loves Egypt in particular, of course, but because the cooperation started from companies there. Perhaps soon, we will find private or government companies in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, the Emirates and Kuwait cooperating with Google, and gradually if you think about moving to any place by public transportation and not your car or "Uber and Careem", you will depend on Google. Even if the day comes when Apple supports the same, it will not care because it is simply a habit when we use a service and get used to it, we will not think of changing it. Especially if it is from Google.
Have you tried the transportation feature in Google Maps in any country before? Do you expect to be well supported in our Arab country?
Source:
In the UAE, buses have long been supported, and the metro has been supported, even in Sharjah
The most important feature in Google Maps is that it gives you road updates first Powell (diversions, road closures and new roads) unlike other applications whose maps are overdue a year or two years ago, and Google will not be lost even in villages and remote areas. Only the famous cities and capitals only
What is the accuracy of Google Maps in the Arab countries
I mean, how much you give it in your opinion
I'm curious to know this
I live in Europe and have never tried Google Maps
Greatly very good and accurate. I am an almost daily user of Google Maps, and it helps me as a blind person.
I forgot to tell you that I am from Jordan.
No, 100%, let me bring you good tidings ... Once I was in the real estate registry in Cairo, specifically in Zaytoun, and I walked on Google and brought me to a dam street in the canal of the mountain, and I met young men standing who asked me with amazement: Who told you that there is a real estate month in here? !!! I told them nobody told me I was walking on Google, they told me someone walks on Google in Egypt and they preferred to laugh until I walked!
Google is always creative, its maps are impossible for Apple to compete with, for at least the next ten or at least five years.
I have not tried transportation in any other country, but I think that Google will develop this feature and generalize it in the entire Arab world,
Google, like Apple, doesn't do anything bad
We do not have public transportation in Saudi Arabia (or at least all regions except Riyadh, which is under construction) and this is the reason why Google does not support Saudi Arabia in transportation 😅
“If the day comes when Apple supports the same, it will not care because it is simply a habit when we use a service and get used to it, we will not think of changing it. Especially if it is from Google. In general ... to find an application that is better than Google applications in general is difficult👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Unfortunately, it seems that until now it has not supported Saudi Arabia in relation to what was mentioned in the article. Generally speaking, Google Maps is better than Apple Maps or other map applications, and I never dispense with the features of Google Maps, and I hope that its support will be close to the rest of the Arab countries
Thank you, brother bin Sami
Google Map supports Careem and Uber in their app
Is great 👍🏻
Do you suggest us to have an Android device with Elle 😂
Yes, I recommend Android for YouTube, its weight is light, and the screen colors are much more beautiful
In the Sultanate of Oman this service has been available for more than a year
The most used method in Cairo is the microbus, and Google can easily obtain its data from the users themselves by allowing the registration of the lines used by the user and their material value, and in this way they will have all kinds of transportation lines in Egypt
The transportation service needs timetables and a route for a specific destination, to which the details are referred ... The minibuses have no known dates, and there is also no actual "theoretically present" agency that organizes and adjusts the movements.
You mean the worst way in Egypt: If this happens, we will not meet Google after a period of writing on its application: Take a microbus (the shower and I miss me, but the weather is going on) from a thousand houses to cross ... Nor: you have to take a microbus (I was a bird that ate me I worked as a lion of my companions) to go To your destination in Tahrir Square, it would remain a misfortune if you wrote: In order to go to the engineers, you have to find a microbus (love is feelings that are not sensitized) and oh bye if we are disturbed by the pictures of drivers who are familiar with their body text with a cigarette, oh uncle, I feel that I will open Google Maps on Cairo. Oh Lord, they do not know that we have better tuk-tuks that they can do too:
I think that the maps are generally inaccurate in the Arab regions
Google is much more accurate than Apple in pointing to maps ... at least my personal experience in Cairo
We see it in Sudan
Unfortunately, it will wait for a long time because it is part of the US sanctions against our brothers in Sudan that American companies do not support them with services, and therefore Google abides by the laws in their country.
But not long ago the US government announced the lifting of sanctions, but we have not seen its effects to this day, we still download applications from the App Store and Google Play using VPN programs, I think that what was announced is nothing more than a piece of paper 👎