What are some "no brainer" inventions or features that just haven't made it to the consumer yet?

TehBamski@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 191 points –
262

You are viewing a single comment

Any maps app that, when you set a route, lets you decide "don't give me any directions until I get to X step" and/or "don't give any directions after X step". I dont like hearing the navigation when I don't need it, and that would save me from having to open or close the navigation while I'm still driving.

Hijacking this with my mini rant: GOOGLE if you provide me with three possible routes to my destination and I specifically select one... DON'T FUCKING CHANGE IT MID-DRIVE GODDAMMIT!

I feel this has become so much worse the past couple months. "There's an accident ahead reported 8 hours ago, I'm gonna reroute to the highway you asked me to avoid, you have 5 seconds to decline :) ". Cool, guess I'll need to pull over and fix it, again.

As implemented, it's beyond terrible. The only way I know of to disable it is to turn off mobile data (or disable mobile data for google services / maps). Maybe that's changed semi-recently, I dunno.

I can understand the utility of a feature that can dynamically adjust your directions so that you're always on the fastest route, but what Google has implemented has serious and dangerous flaws. The fact that the change in route is automatic and without my consent unless I interact with my phone in a set interval of time WHILE DRIVING is ridiculous, and once it switches over, there's no quick and easy way to undo that.

Additionally, it doesn't seem to understand that I don't care if the toll road will save me 3 minutes on this trip, I don't want to pay a toll or deal with the inevitable billing screw up. I don't care if making a dozen turns through unfamiliar urban/suburban side streets will questionably save me 5 minutes, I'd prefer the relative safety and predictability of a straight path down the interstate. I also don't want to drive down a winding, unlit rural highway after dark during deer season just because it's a few minutes faster than if I stayed on the well-lit road with a lot more vehicle activity.

And, that's just the start of my Google Maps rant.

I agree with you but there is a setting to turn off tolls and faries, etc.

Those work at the beginning, when you first set your route, but I don't think they necessarily work when the app re-routes you. At least, the no toll option doesn't seem to work around here in the past. Hopefully it's fixed now. I'm all for that.

Might have been a bug. I've set it to never take me through either and it never has. Might also be area dependant.

Or stop zooming in to the max, leaving me with zero information! The only choice left is to blindly drive into the river when instructed to do so.

I think this is a brilliant feature. I've never thought of it, but this would totally solve the issue I have with being told basically 15 times some version of "don't get off the highway at the junction" which is really annoying so I end up muting the directions the majority of the time, and that backfires pretty consequentially on occasion.

I get it but there is an easy toggle from spoken directions to alerts which I find easy to toggle.

At least on Apple and Google maps

Well yes we all know that, but the idea of the feature is that it saves you from messing up if you aren't focused on your technology at a critical moment.

4 more...