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Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat

#71

Post by AnodyneComplex »

ucaetano wrote: post #62
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And what would be the incentive to create such data if there's no economic gain from it? // If the data is useful then there is an _economic_ gain, just not necessarily a profit. If you meant "if there's no profit from it" then it was spoken like a true capitalist. Why do anything if you're not going to be paid for it. Why visit your mum in hospital? Why give money to the homeless for food? Why create software for o…

?? Would you invest your retirement savings into a company that plans to return no profit by mapping the world and releasing the data for free? I thought so.

This seems to be attacking a strawman. The original comment was bemoaning the duplicated effort instead of cooperation amongst parties.

If you had a single company, you wouldn't have 10 teams doing the exact same job. The competition here isn't fruitful because so much of the work is shared. Competition is more effective when there is a diversity of approaches.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#72

Post by krisdol »

encoderer wrote: post #43

I recently switched to Apple maps primary for car play after 10+ years. I haven’t looked back. Building outlines are not much of a moat for me.

I switched as well, for different reasons. Some things I found that I liked about apple maps: its navigation has speed limit information and I much prefer its design. It seems less busy, and it gets out of my way. Something about google maps just felt really cramped. I know that sounds really subjective, but I enjoyed using one more than the other.

That said, google has better directions and estimates. And maybe that should trump all. It hasn’t been enough of an issue to convince me to reinstall.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#73

Post by iClaudiusX »

mastax wrote: post #63

Great article, but it has me thinking: what is holding Apple back? My ideas: - Apple is just a few years behind; they launched a decade later. Come back in 3 years and they'll be close to parity. - Apple only needs Maps to be good enough to avoid PR disaster, since they need a reasonable default on iOS. On the other hand Google needs to be good enough to beat competitors since they want to make money on traffic, usag…

Apple had a huge head start with Siri but has been surpassed quite handily by Google and Amazon for some time now. I'm not sure we can simply rely on the passage of time for Apple to improve these large projects.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#74

Post by cooper12 »

Hmm, this really does make me worried for OpenStreetMap. If the competition is so powerful and has a moat protecting it that will only grow larger, how can it ever hope to catch up? This isn't a case like Wikipedia where it entered a market that was barely there (e.g. online/software encyclopedias). Instead, you have to face off against giants with enormous resources and the money for any type of data. Amateur volunteers working on their own areas won't really be able to keep up. And it'll be even harder to recruit more workers because the competition is so entrenched/good while OSM can be subpar in some aspects. Oh, and these volunteers will instead give their time to Google because it's something they already know and use (I have a friend who does things like answer questions, take pictures of places, for points).

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#75

Post by Viper007Bond »

encoderer wrote: post #43

I recently switched to Apple maps primary for car play after 10+ years. I haven’t looked back. Building outlines are not much of a moat for me.

Do you ever manage to get where you're actually trying to go though? ;)

In all seriousness, I've found Apple Maps search to be absolutely horrendous, either missing places or having them in the wrong spot.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#76

Post by agumonkey »

sharpercoder wrote: post #6

Google maps is improving since the day I first saw it - that must have been around 2003 or so. The improvement on the data is phenomenal if you look at it over then past 10+ years; The amount of times I blindly trust GM to go somewhere increase every year. I suspect the edgecases will be solved slowly, like navigating to a shop inside a mall, a market stall, an ad-hoc gathering, a planned building, et cetera. Typing…

GM saved us from missing a wedding using an near obsolete razr i over 3G while the in-car GPS was directing us into oblivion.

Not only GM was generally right, the overal intertial refresh rate was smooth .. extremely surprising.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#77

Post by turtlebits »

wutbrodo wrote: post #25

Is there a reason anyone uses Apple Maps, aside from wanting to avoid Google out of principle/privacy/monoculture concerns? To be clear, these are entirely legitimate reasons, but I was wondering if the product has any direct benefits for the user (which is a coherent subset of reasons given the modal users' level of concern about systemic issues). I'm not trying to randomly snipe at Apple here, I just know very litt…

Google maps absolutely obliterates my battery life (iPhone 6S+). Last time I travelled it I was down to 40% at noon.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#79

Post by Stratoscope »

sharpercoder wrote: post #6

Google maps is improving since the day I first saw it - that must have been around 2003 or so. The improvement on the data is phenomenal if you look at it over then past 10+ years; The amount of times I blindly trust GM to go somewhere increase every year. I suspect the edgecases will be solved slowly, like navigating to a shop inside a mall, a market stall, an ad-hoc gathering, a planned building, et cetera. Typing…

This is all true, but of course there will always be a few missing features that seem so obvious and useful that you wonder why they still don't have them.

For me it's one or two announcements of the actual destination address at the end of the drive. If it's not an address I'm familiar with and not a business with a sign out front, by the time I get there I've usually forgotten the street number!

But when I arrive all I hear is "your destination is on the right."

It would be so great if the last two announcements were:

"Your destination, 123 Main Street, will be on the right in 800 feet."

"Your destination, 123 Main Street, is on the right."

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#80

Post by bacon_waffle »

londons_explore wrote: post #38
EGreg wrote: post #32

These building footprints, complete with height detail, are algorithmically created by taking aerial imagery and using computer vision techniques to render the building shapes. I could have guessed that before the punchline. And it's not that difficult to add for a company with tens of billions in cash. What are you doing, Apple? Fix your OS and Maps!

You need aerial imagery from different angles. Thats surprisingly hard to buy from imagery providers, because most of them only want to point their cameras directly downwards.

Or with lighting from different angles - different time of day.
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