Until build 19, a 20-minute drive with iseeido asked Google for a route about 60 times. A 20-minute walk asked about 28 times. Each new route replaced the one on the screen, whether you had left it or not.
Nothing was broken. A rule was doing exactly what it said.
A brake built for walking
While you walk, the phone reports where you are several times a second. iseeido can’t ask Google for a route each time, so the street leg had a brake: ask again only once you have moved 60 metres from where the last route was asked for, and never sooner than 20 seconds after it.
On foot, the brake that mattered was the distance. In a car at 50 km/h, 60 metres goes by in about four seconds, so the brake that mattered was the clock. Every 20 seconds, for the whole drive, a new route was asked for.
Each of those is a separate request to Google’s Routes API, and Google bills route requests one by one. Each one also carries your location. The privacy page lists what goes in it: your location, the door you are heading for, how you are travelling, and your language and units.
Asking only when the answer can change
Since build 19, iseeido first checks whether the route on the screen still needs replacing.
While you are on the route, the route Google gave you is still the way to the door. So on foot, while you stay on it, iseeido doesn’t ask again. It asks when you leave the route, which means you are more than 60 metres from the line Google drew.
A drive has one more reason to ask: traffic. Driving routes are requested with Google’s traffic-aware setting, and the traffic ahead changes while you drive. So on a drive, iseeido also asks every five minutes, even when you are on the route.
The old brake is still underneath. Off the route, or five minutes into a drive, it still waits until you have moved 60 metres and 20 seconds have passed since the last request. And within the circle around the door it doesn’t ask at all, since a route from there has nothing useful to add.
Two requests where there were sixteen
The change was checked on a simulated drive of five and a half minutes. The old rule made about 16 route requests. The new one made 2, which is what it allows on a drive that stays on its route: one to start, and one for the traffic five minutes in.
- 20 show often a drive used to ask for a route, once it had moved 60 metres
- 5 minhow often a drive on its route asks now, for the traffic
- 2route requests on a simulated 5.5-minute drive, where the old rule made about 16
When Google says no
Some requests will still be turned away: a limit has been reached, access is off, or Google’s service is down. All three look the same from the pavement, so iseeido now gives them one plain answer: “Street directions are unavailable right now. Try again later, or open them in Google Maps.” Under Try again, a second button opens directions to the same door in Google Maps, for the way you chose to travel.
A request that fails in the middle of a journey doesn’t throw away the route you already have. Only a failure with no route to show becomes an error on the screen.
Everything that makes iseeido ask for a route
- Starting a journey.
- Choosing another way to travel while a journey is running.
- Going back to the street map from the approach screen, or from inside.
- Tapping Try again after directions couldn’t load.
- Leaving the route: more than 60 metres from its line, once you have moved 60 metres and 20 seconds have passed since the last request.
- On a drive, staying on the route: five minutes since the last request, and again you must have moved 60 metres.
- None of these asks while you are within the circle around the door.
What it means with the phone in your hand
On foot, a journey that stays on its route now asks Google for one route, at the start, unless you change how you are travelling. A drive asks once at the start and then for the traffic every five minutes. Leave the route, and a new one is still found from where you are.
Your location still goes to Google with each request, as the privacy page sets out. Google’s map also collects data of its own. But on a journey that stays on its route, far fewer requests now carry it.