travelinmanS

I'm guessing that Moondog means that Baidu maps is superior for use in China. That's pretty much a given.

Everyone is free to make their own choices about what to use but refusing to use Baidu in China as some sort of political protest seems a bit like spitting into the wind. Do you consign yourself to only using Whats App as well?

moondog

In light of the fact that 99.99..% of baidu users can read Chinese, English interfaces aren't exactly a top priority.

Yes, Tencent has made attempts in this direction, but they clearly don't care much about English QQ and Wechat (e.g the QQ international mobile app is phone poison).

How well do the app developers in your country address the needs of Chinese speakers?

moondog

I'm posting to provide a walk through of map vocabulary, which shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to master.

1. Streets, roads, avenues
街
路
道
大道

2. The ring road concept
Many cities in China use ring roads, similar to the DC beltway
环 is the key character here
Learn these directional words:
内
中
外
东
南
西
北

3. Street names that contain city/province names
北京
上海
南京
成都
重庆
苏州
广东
济南
四川

This stuff is really easy, guys, and will get you 90% proficient on Baidu maps. I'm happy to provide a lesson #2 that will raise the bar to 96%.

STS-134

1. All Google does is simply load a new data set from a Chinese company. It's not very hard to do. It used to be AutoNavi, and if you zoomed in on China, you used to see a "Map data copyright AutoNavi" message at the bottom. Not sure who they're using now because I don't see the same message at the bottom, but they apparently can't load a new data set for Shanghai ever since line 11 was extended to Disney Resort, 2 months ago.

2. Continuing to use any product, even a superior one, if it's being given an unfair marketplace advantage, only reinforces the motivation of those in control of the internet to continue to behave this way. It serves as validation for their actions. If, on the other hand, every time they tried to block Google, everyone responded by boycotting Baidu, turning on their VPNs, and using only Google, they'd quickly learn that these moves are counterproductive to local companies.

I'm a real fan of buying Huawei network gear in the US as well, because I think the US government unfairly banned Huawei from bidding for government contracts, allegedly over spying concerns. This after NSA was suspected to have put backdoors into Cisco products. I don't think Huawei, whose revenue comes from customers who trust its products, would be stupid enough to deliberately put a backdoor into its products, but in any case, I'm all for punishing companies who do stuff like this, but punishment should be handed down after the fact, if they are found to be doing something bad, not because someone thinks they are capable of inserting malicious software into their devices (which Cisco is certainly capable of as well).

I refuse to use Whats App, because it absolutely refused to run on my phone without being given access to my entire Android contacts list. It would say it needs access to my contacts (which it does not, technologically speaking) in order to provide service; it SHOULD be capable of operating entirely manually, with me entering in the numbers of only the people I wish to contact. Since I cannot spoof a contacts list in Android Marshmallow, my response was to uninstall Whats App and go back to using Signal.

WeChat on the other hand, continues to run on my phone even after I denied it access to just about everything that matters. No camera, contacts, location, microphone, or SMS access. But if Tencent updates the app to require access to any of the above, I would not hesitate to delete it, until Google updates Android to allow the above to be spoofed.

My recognition of those is 100% for the directional words and 75% for the city names. But the biggest problem isn't recognition, it's actually typing in Chinese. Google Maps could not find the restaurant in Shanghai where I was supposed to meet a friend, until my GF IMed me its name in Chinese, which I then copied and pasted into the app.

moondog

@sts:

1. I have a great deal of respect for Google because it hasn't kowtowed to the PRC in same manner as Microsoft/Yahoo

2. But, Microsoft/Yahoo demonstrate that BAT does NOT enjoy an unfair advantage

3. Data security and privacy are top concerns for Tencent. Your issue seems semi serious; feel free to message me directly about it

moondog

Beijing is an interesting beast because street names and addresses are of marginal use. For example, 长安街 is comprised of ~15 "streets", which nobody seems to know the names of.

Landmarks are the way to go, for the most part.

On second ring, refer to the gates defined by the old city wall:
建国门
复兴门
朝阳门
Etc

On third ring, use the bridge names:
国贸桥
双井桥
亮马河桥
三元桥
Etc

Outside of 3rd ring, there aren't many useful conventions. That having been said, Beijing is extremely easy to navigate after you accept the fact that addresses like “大望路3号” are almost completely useless.

Apologies in advance for the fact that this post does not raise the bar to 96%.

anacapamalibu

30 minutes to master?

The most common street names in China:

http://www.zhihu.com/question/24334863

moondog

Just focus on the top ~20; 30 minutes is more than enough time.

Incidentally, Beijing coming in at 5th place was a bit of a shocker for me.

trueblu

Although offline navigation is not fantastic with google maps in BJ, it certainly _IS_ possible to download offline google map of BJ (and I'm presuming most of China). I use the offline maps when I'm in HK because I'm too cheap to pay for roaming and can't be bothered to spend time to get a new SIM.

Knowing where you are is half the battle. I'm presuming the casual visitor isn't going to be driving, so navigation is less important than location issues. Offset is less and less an issue with google maps: it used to be a worse problem 5+ years ago.

However, as mentioned above, many places cannot be found in google maps with their English/ pinyin names. You need the chinese name to input. That isn't that hard usually. We're not talking about major landmarks, which are labelled clearly in English. It's a restaurant or a mall, in which case, the purpose is usually a rendezvous...therefore it's usually possible to ask the other party to send the address in chinese to input. Do note, one sometimes needs to play around with the address e.g. cut out the building number, for google maps to recognise it.

I don't use Baidu maps (I also have an anti-Baidu bias) as such, but I do have the app on my phone. If it's somewhere I'm not sure about, I enter the address (in Chinese) on the baidu maps -- this is much better than google at dealing with full chinese addresses. I then do a visual 'cross-check' against google maps to make sure it's the same place.

tb

31570324

How to do it? You did it while you was outside of china, or inside with a VPN?

moondog

@tb: I am also curious wrt your current Google maps solution because, in the case of Shanghai, downloading maps is not possible... officially.

Insofar as baidu is concerned, I readily admit that they are a bit of a bully (same goes for A and T), but this has zero relevance to the quality of their maps. As an aside, they take very good care of their Beijing staff.... sleeping pods!

happyli

yeah, i like google maps but unfortunately it cant using in China , You might try "Gaode maps" or 'baidu maps' in China . There r both great in China ,but i prefer "Gaode maps".Its more professional than Baidu maps.

moondog

Surely you jest. I don't suppose there is any chance that you are affiliated with the service you are plugging.

31570324

If so, they should improve english service

JPDM

The latest versions of Google maps have a function allowing you to download pretty large areas for use later when offline. However not all countries are supported and China is NOT supported. All you can do in China is the old method of downloading an itinerary (while on VPN) then then traveling along this itinerary. Any requirement to recalculate the itinerary or to go to an area outside of what was downloaded, requires to connect to a data network and use the VPN.
I don't find this overly problematic s I have both a data SIM and VPN and find that Goole Maps' turn-by-turn vocal instructions to be quite precise for Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and the Gansu province where I drove using it.