iPhone Google Maps lags Android version

The Android version also allows you to set a final destination and search for places along your route, while Google's iPhone app doesn't.

Apple lets me do this by using the Siri voice assistant on my iPhone. By hitting the home button and saying ``Starbucks,'' I got the closest locations.

That's what we did a few hours into Pennsylvania when our caffeine withdrawal headaches started to kick in and our daughter was getting antsy.

To my surprise, both Siri and the Android phones located a Starbucks in a small town just a few miles (kilometers) off the freeway. We easily got there, but found it was on the campus of Bloomsburg University, which appeared closed for the holidays.

So, we got back on the highway and headed to the next location, in Williamsport. Unfortunately, we never made it to that Starbucks either. Apple and Google both took us to a residential section of a small town, with no Starbucks in sight.

I still don't know if I did something wrong or if there was an error in the mapping software. Considering that both sent me to a store whose existence I later verified, I'm more inclined to blame my caffeine-deprived brain than the phones.

We never did find a Starbucks before leaving Pennsylvania or a cute mom-and-pop restaurant to eat at. But when we finally caved to our daughter's demands and decided to stop at the next exit, I did use the restaurants layer on one of the Android phones to locate an Arby's. Not exactly haute cuisine, but it's a guilty pleasure from childhood of mine, and all three of us got the break we needed.

I also used the feature on the trip back to New York to find a Mexican restaurant that we had eaten at a few years ago outside of Youngstown, Ohio. Unfortunately, it had yet to open for the day, so I used the software to locate and read online reviews about another Mexican place down the road. We ended up having a nice meal there.

... contd.

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