YORK TOWNSHIP, Pa -- Hitting the road for holiday travel isn't always a joy.
Many GPS apps for smartphones claim to get you to your destination without any hassle, but is that true?
FOX43 tested out three of the most popular apps: Apple maps, Google maps and Waze.
Each app is a little different however, they do all give turn by turn navigation.
Apple maps and Google maps wouldn't reveal their secrets or their resources on how each app times things out and gets you to your destination.
Waze did give some insight into how the app works saying it uses "community reports."
If you see things like police activity or construction projects, you can report that to the app itself.
That allows other drivers to know what's going on in the area.
So, FOX43 hopped in the car and hit the road.
First, we wanted to test the accuracy of the arrival time.
We headed to Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County from our studios in York County for a nighttime drive with minimal traffic.
We took three different routes with different estimated arrivals times from all the apps.
On the way there each arrival time was off just a bit.
Apple maps arrived at Elizabethtown within the most accurate time frame.
However, Google maps did let you know there was a faster route during the drive, but we didn't take it just to make sure we were testing the accuracy of the original estimated time.
Waze let the driver know what conditions they were facing.
Then, the three vehicles drove back to York County.
This time each driver used the same app, but we wanted to see which app would get us there first.
All three had slight differences mostly at the beginning of the ride but eventually, the apps took the drivers on the same route and everyone got back within a minute of each other.
Here are the differences time wise in each app: Apple maps estimated arrived at 7:52 and actually pulled in at 7:54, same for Google maps and Waze estimated arriving at 7:50 but ended up getting there at 7:55.
So, after our results for our night time test were too close to call for which app was most accurate and took the best route we tested it again.
This time during the day at a time that typically sees more traffic.
Again, we left from our FOX43 studios in York Township.
Using the same three apps we all picked the fastest route our app chose.
It worked out well in the beginning with all three drivers taking a similar route.
Then, as we got closer to Elizabethtown college, things changed.
The drivers using Apple maps and Waze got stuck in a construction zone.
Waze did let the driver know there was construction ahead but didn't offer an alternative route.
Google maps did.
That driver went around the traffic and got to the destination first.
Here are the breakdowns of arrival times: Apple maps estimated at 10:44 and arrived at 10:59, Google said the driver would get to Elizabethtown at 10:47 and showed up three minutes after that, and Waze had the fastest estimated time at 10:43, but didn't arrive until 10:56.
so in our FOX43 test, which app came out on top for accuracy and fastest route?
The winner of our FOX43 Finds Out test is Google maps.