Thanks! Given this was CBC, my jaw hit the floor when I saw London. I live 20 mins from London, Ontario and 70k thefts in a year would be _insane_. Then I realized it was about London, U.K. and my jaw only hit the table. 70k is still insane, though.

Why bother stealing iPhones? Is it just for the scrap/recycle->repair value?

>an official app to report incidents of phone theft

I can't be the only person to see the irony here. Do they also have a drive-thru to report car theft?

Interesting point. The article linked in a sibling comment (about 2025 thefts) suggests that they are being resold. Which makes sense if it's a $2000 product that's so stealable. But I do recall there being a lot of difficulty resetting a phone that isn't yours. Do you feel the is article wrong? Are there ways around it? Is "pretty immune to reselling-theft" a newer feature than 2025?

Bonus security on iPhone - if you long-press on any app, you can click "Require Face ID" and it will make thieves need your face again to open bank or sensitive apps. I did this for all my financial apps amd also email so they can't reset passwords. It isna minor inconvenience but would hopefully prevent an unlocked phone from being stolen and having bank accounts emptied.

Glitterbombs would be a fun solution except the guys doing would probably get pissed and do bodily harm...

Eh, it certainly gets a lot of _attention_, and London is very, very big, so the absolute numbers are impressive-looking. The chances of it actually happening to any given person are extremely low, though.

This is in Ireland. I’ve also noticed it doing very silly things in Germany and the UK.

It’s fine for pure walking directions, but it gets unhappy about the idea of someone using public transport walking.

I remember the time when roundabouts were round in Google Maps.

Google isn't making arbitrary decisions here - it's reflecting social norms. Americans aren't big on walking. I've seen pictures of beautiful leafy suburbs that don't even have sidewalks.

It's not exactly what you asked for, but the public transit and multimodal focused apps are generally much better at this stuff. I like CityMapper and Transit.

Neither is good for turn-by-turn directions, but both are good for "what are all the different ways to get there"

Not to mention “public transit but with a waypoint” which is too advanced for all mobile apps

I wish I could add certain streets and routes to some sort of block list.

There are certain roads I would be willing to spend an extra 10-30 minutes driving to avoid. (And certainly would not get on them on a bike!)

The public transport app in my city almost does this well, it even affords cycling. But it isn’t quite as nuanced as one would like.

Here's a tip if you use google maps: if you want to get from A to B but can walk a bit, just pick a point C between them then look up directions to and from point C separately. Works great

Depending on where you live there is Transitous: https://transitous.org/

It's a FOSS public transport routing engine. In the options you can select what type and how much time you want to spend on the first and last "mile" (even something like bike/scooter sharing).

It uses open data or data connectors for the routing. And being FOSS, if there is no data connector yet for you region, it may be interesting to contribute one if there is a sane way to query the data from the local transport compan(y|ies).

Yeah, this is the thing you can ask an LLM and get a confident and verbose wrong answer.

Google Maps has an “Ask Maps” feature powered by Gemini, and I asked it for a route excluding two of the most direct roads.

Note: I have disabled Smart Features and there is no sharing into Gemini from Gmail, Drive, Docs, etc.

Ask Maps summarized my prompt, gave a correct answer, and displayed a graphic of the route as well.

While we're asking for navigation features, I desperately want a "chill" toggle.

I drive around the NY metropolitan area a lot. No, I don't want to take the route that saves a few minutes if it involves merging onto I95 at rush hour with 300 feet to cross 4 lanes of traffic for the next exit.

I wish I could specify that I walk faster than most people.

Transit (transitapp.com) supports setting your walking speed, which is essentially this by proxy, and it's a great app.

I don't think they give a flying fart a about their users anymore, but yes.

I was thinking to myself “… doesn’t it have that?” then I remembered I was thinking of the Public Transport Victoria journey planner.

This already exists: in "Trip options", you can toggle between "Best route", "Fewer transfers", and "Less walking", as well as allow/block "Ride services" like Uber as a transport option.

How well these options work is another question, but "Fewer transfers" does seem to allow more walking. And of course you can straight up ask for walking directions instead.

This is especially bad in Northern Virginia, where there is a $4 toll road that saves 20 minutes pretty reliably, and also variable priced express lanes that will save time, but can cost up to $50. I want tolls on so it directs me on the Dulles toll road, but I also want tolls off for the $50 express lanes. I wish I could set a dollar threshold.

> It would also be nice to have a configurable transportation choice for the time to leave notice.

If you set a location, you can tap on “Travel Time” and select whether you want to go by car, public transport, bicycle, or walk.

They have big offices in San Francisco, and also in New York, Dublin, Zurich, London, and various other cities where this stuff matters, though, these days (their Dublin office is right beside the train station that it insists I shouldn't go to, because walking!). You'd think it would've gotten fixed at some point.

Oddly, it seems to be okay at that in Dublin at least.

Yeah, I frequently wish you could get directions from your current point on a train/bus line.

Also speaking of trains, I can't zoom out and look at intercity train lines. I can only see highways. If I'm in Japan without a car, planning a sightseeing trip and wondering where I can easily visit by train, I can't do that with Google maps. The highways obscure everything and can't be turned off.

Can’t you disable ferries same as toll roads?

Yeah at this point Google Maps has 20 years of data to work with it should work flawlessly in big cities.

It does this same thing when you're trying to use a road that parallels the main highway. Sometimes I don't want to go 70, I want to go 45 on a nice quiet side road. Well even after I programmed a specific route, it keeps trying to take me back to the main highway because it found a faster route. Fuck, I don't always want the fastest route. I basically don't use any turn by turn navigation stuff anymore. I check routes before leaving, take a few notes on a piece of paper, and memorize it. Not only do you learn the route much better, you have much less chance of getting lost, and you're not constantly distracted by your navigation app.

Shortest-Path (Djikstra's) is in P :)

> Why would you take your phone with you when you run?

So you can listen to music? And most people don't have a smart watch.

It's fairly common to see people running with a phone strapped to their arm.

> Why would you take your phone with you when you run?

Well, how would I get my phone back after I ran to the place I intended to run to otherwise?

found the product manager

> Why would you take your phone with you when you run?

Music, being able to tell what time it is, navigation¹, emergency calls², non-emergency calls/communication. Or, … the use case in TFA.

> If you really need to be reachable or to be able to pay for something in emergencies, that’s what smart watches are for.

… not everyone has the means to drop $400+/y³ on a watch & plan. Smart phone & plan prices are high enough already.

(¹perhaps more useful when I'm biking than running)

(²I've literally witnessed accidents while out on such a run. Having a phone is handy.)

(³we have to restrict ourselves to "the set of smart watches that are capable of making a call independent of a phone, here, too. If the watch requires the phone to make the call … well, that'd defeat the point. This is approximately the per-warranted-year price of a Samsung Galaxy Watch with LTE support.)

I'm not paying more money plus an extra monthly subscription for a cellular smart watch when my phone does the job perfectly well.

I'm outside the US and I regularly get directions with 15-20 min walking.

You might be on to something.

> This might just be realistic about the median American's tolerance for walking.

This might be unrealistic about the number and relevance of Median-Americans. Turns out more than a few Americans that are outside of the median own telephones.

> This might just be realistic about the median American's tolerance for walking.

It's also realistic about crimes in certain cities.

It sounds like they want the shortest time, even if that means mixing public transit with walking together

The parent isn’t looking for pure walking, they’re looking for transit directions that include a higher amount of walking in order to save time overall.

Transit directions includes walking on both ends. Because the train doesn't start and end precisely as your destination (this is called a "taxi cab").

> If I select public transport yes, it will suggest public transport ways to get there. I can't see how this is a bug in any way

It will suggest completely nonsensical public transport routes, apparently in an attempt to minimise walking.

At least not every case world-wide. I do, however, appreciate how good it is for a completely free (I know, I'm the product) tool, though.

Four hours and 15 minutes of "vigorous" sexual activity!?

  Impetuous! Homeric! -- Michaeleen Flynn, The Quiet Man, 1952

> So why are Fitbit users’ profiles able to be searchable in Google? It’s not really Fitbit’s fault. When you create a profile, the default privacy setting allows profiles to be found in search results (Google, Bing, etc).

That sounds like it's Fitbit’s fault to me, although I guess some blame has to go to people who bug themselves with a device that tells a third party about every moment they're having sex in the first place. Fitbit having that data isn't much better than Google or anyone else who isn't intimately involved.

Following a route through a tunnel (less than a mile long), Google Maps on iOS zooms forward on the route many stops and many miles (5+ miles) in the tunnel. I had assumes Apple Maps was worse, but to my surprise it's quite good and doesn't have this bug.

Not the OP but I used to do that - problem is phones are becoming so damn large even the elasticated belt doesnt work that great anymore. Too much bounce.

I found a "belt" thats much wider and doesnt have a clip (has to be sized just right) that does work better. But a bit of a pain to wear sometimes.

For years I just literally ran with the phone in my hand (got used to switching hands and positions for comfort) so I could still do music and tracking. Not that bad when you get used to it. Eventually got a Garmin watch (cheapest with maps and music) which works great.

I wear leggings that have elastic pockets down the sides for my phone. Perfectly comfy. Not sure what the men's equivalent would be.

Pfft, police. Have you read Watchbird (1953) by Robert Sheckley? That's pretty much exactly where we're heading right now.

I just checked and it looks like Cross Country Skiing is an option now.

But yeah I think Garmin and other smart watches are definitely preferred by serious athletes (and people who don't like charging their watch daily). Whereas I mostly just use my Apple Watch as a way to get notifications and as a glorified step tracker.