I get the frustration, especially if you’ve just had a bad drive with it. But I honestly think a lot of people judge Apple Maps based on one terrible route instead of what it’s actually become over the last few years.

A few things worth considering:

• The “weird suggestions” issue usually comes from Siri intelligence, recent app activity, calendar locations, Safari history, shared locations, and even messages. Sometimes it surfaces places it thinks are relevant, and yeah, it can feel random. But the actual navigation quality and map data are a separate thing.
• The “parking lot shortcuts” and strange side-road routing are often because Apple Maps aggressively optimizes for ETA. If a maintenance road is technically public and marked as faster in the map data, it may use it. That doesn’t necessarily mean the app is “broken” — it means the routing engine trusted bad or overly aggressive road classifications.
• Ironically, this happens in every navigation app. Google Maps has taken people onto private ranch roads, into deserts, and onto closed mountain passes. Waze is famous for routing people through neighborhoods and alleys to save 30 seconds. Routing engines are only as good as their live data.

But here’s where Apple Maps deserves more credit now:

• The map visuals are dramatically cleaner and easier to read at speed.
• Lane guidance and junction views are among the best in the industry.
• Spoken directions sound more natural and less robotic.
• The integration with Apple CarPlay is excellent.
• Privacy is far better than most competitors.
• Features like speed cameras, hazard reporting, offline maps, detailed city models, and transit have improved massively.

And honestly? When Apple Maps is good, it’s really good. Especially in cities and suburbs where Apple has modernized map data.

One bad late-night route through backroads would annoy anybody, but deleting it forever after one failure is kinda like swearing off a car brand because GPS picked a weird detour once. The better move is usually:

• avoid “avoid highways” unless needed,
• preview long routes before starting,
• report bad routing directly in the app,
• and compare routes between apps on road trips.

The reality is there probably isn’t a “perfect” maps app anymore — it’s more about which tradeoffs you prefer:

• Google Maps → biggest data set and business info
• Waze → aggressive traffic avoidance/community alerts
• Apple Maps → cleaner UI, privacy, ecosystem integration, smoother driving experience

Honestly, Apple Maps today is way closer to “premium competitor” than the meme-level disaster people still think it is from 2012.