My phone detects going on a run as “someone snatching my phone and running off”

I drive around the NY metropolitan area a lot. No, I don't want to take the route that saves a few minutes if it involves merging onto I95 at rush hour with 300 feet to cross 4 lanes of traffic for the next exit.

How well these options work is another question, but "Fewer transfers" does seem to allow more walking. And of course you can straight up ask for walking directions instead.

It's a FOSS public transport routing engine. In the options you can select what type and how much time you want to spend on the first and last "mile" (even something like bike/scooter sharing).

It uses open data or data connectors for the routing. And being FOSS, if there is no data connector yet for you region, it may be interesting to contribute one if there is a sane way to query the data from the local transport compan(y|ies).

Neither is good for turn-by-turn directions, but both are good for "what are all the different ways to get there"

There are certain roads I would be willing to spend an extra 10-30 minutes driving to avoid. (And certainly would not get on them on a bike!)

Note: I have disabled Smart Features and there is no sharing into Gemini from Gmail, Drive, Docs, etc.

Ask Maps summarized my prompt, gave a correct answer, and displayed a graphic of the route as well.

You might be on to something.

This might be unrealistic about the number and relevance of Median-Americans. Turns out more than a few Americans that are outside of the median own telephones.

It's also realistic about crimes in certain cities.

That sounds like it's Fitbit’s fault to me, although I guess some blame has to go to people who bug themselves with a device that tells a third party about every moment they're having sex in the first place. Fitbit having that data isn't much better than Google or anyone else who isn't intimately involved.

  Impetuous! Homeric! -- Michaeleen Flynn, The Quiet Man, 1952

If you set a location, you can tap on “Travel Time” and select whether you want to go by car, public transport, bicycle, or walk.

It’s fine for pure walking directions, but it gets unhappy about the idea of someone using public transport walking.

Music, being able to tell what time it is, navigation¹, emergency calls², non-emergency calls/communication. Or, … the use case in TFA.

> If you really need to be reachable or to be able to pay for something in emergencies, that’s what smart watches are for.

… not everyone has the means to drop $400+/y³ on a watch & plan. Smart phone & plan prices are high enough already.

(¹perhaps more useful when I'm biking than running)

(²I've literally witnessed accidents while out on such a run. Having a phone is handy.)

(³we have to restrict ourselves to "the set of smart watches that are capable of making a call independent of a phone, here, too. If the watch requires the phone to make the call … well, that'd defeat the point. This is approximately the per-warranted-year price of a Samsung Galaxy Watch with LTE support.)

Well, how would I get my phone back after I ran to the place I intended to run to otherwise?

So you can listen to music? And most people don't have a smart watch.

It's fairly common to see people running with a phone strapped to their arm.

It will suggest completely nonsensical public transport routes, apparently in an attempt to minimise walking.

I can't be the only person to see the irony here. Do they also have a drive-thru to report car theft?

I found a "belt" thats much wider and doesnt have a clip (has to be sized just right) that does work better. But a bit of a pain to wear sometimes.

For years I just literally ran with the phone in my hand (got used to switching hands and positions for comfort) so I could still do music and tracking. Not that bad when you get used to it. Eventually got a Garmin watch (cheapest with maps and music) which works great.

But yeah I think Garmin and other smart watches are definitely preferred by serious athletes (and people who don't like charging their watch daily). Whereas I mostly just use my Apple Watch as a way to get notifications and as a glorified step tracker.