Since arriving in Ireland in 2005, it has become the go-to app for finding our way and a lifeline for rural businesses, but concerns over data collection have never been far away
Trade-off between convenience and control: a Google Maps Street View car mapping Dublin. Photo: Mark Condren
In the frozen dark of a winter evening, Sean O’Reilly was walking through Bohernabreena Cemetery in Co Dublin to visit his father’s grave when his phone, guided faithfully by Google Maps, broke the silence. “I was halfway through the cemetery when my phone suddenly announced, ‘You have arrived’,” he says.
It’s a moment that captures what makes Google Maps so strange and essential: its uncanny precision, its indifference to context and its growing presence in life’s most private moments.
#Google #Maps #watching #convenience #wed #lost
