> Sometimes it's much easier to follow than a street name anyway!

I think that is entirely the point. Apple Maps added something similar around a year ago, where it now says "After this light, ___" or "Take the next ____", which is much easier to understand than giving a street name that you have never heard of. It gets you to look at the road more than at the map which is a bonus for safety.

Just want to confirm that this is exactly why they mention it. It isn't ads so much as POIs (Points of Interest) are useful to use when navigating (sometimes more useful than streets).

I've been suspecting ads because it's very limited in what businesses it will call out. Like, less than 5% of the time, I'd estimate.

Maybe I’m being too charitable, but I suspect it’s down to a few requirements: instantly/universally recognizable to drivers, easily visible from the street, located on corners, and always pronounced correctly by the maps voice.

Fast food restaurants and other major chains fit that bill reliably enough that you could automate adding them to directions. Telling drivers to take a right at, say, a local restaurant that may not have an obvious sign could easily be worse than relying on street signs.

Where I live this is the way we give directions (e.g. 2 blocks past McDonald's take a right), so to me it feels more natural than looking for a street name.

Next level will be detecting if you’re local to the area and using descriptions of landmarks that used to be there but aren’t present anymore.

  Turn left where the Tastee-Freeze used to be.

With apologies to Laurie Anderson:

  Hey Siri! How do I get to town from here?

  And she said:
  Well just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall
  Go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway
  Take a left at what's going to be the new sports center
  And keep going until you hit the place where
  They're thinking of building that drive-in bank
  You can't miss it.

  And I said: This must be the place

you never know, with GANs and transformer models, DALL-E type models, and stuff, Siri just might be able to come up with that in the near future

You know, the one where you tripped and chipped your tooth in the fourth grade…

You missed it last time don't do that again :)

Landmarks are great, especially something like a Clock Tower, Water Tower, etc., but things like Starbucks, and others come and go out of business. MacDonalds is an exception in that they own their real estate and are unlikely to move. But many others can lose their lease and become something new.

... at what point I end up saying sh*t, I didn't see a Wendy's there, was this the right road? and having to interact with the app _again_ to determine if what I just did was correct. :/

It does still show you the name of the street at the top directions card. This is part of the audio directions