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Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat

#131

Post by bfred_it »

adventured wrote: post #109
kumarvvr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With their cash pile, they could surely expand, considering the long term returns on such expansion of computing power. Maybe Apple just dosent see the need to improve or dosent see any revenue potential with Maps.

This Internet / Web software services weakness goes all the way back for Apple. Jobs was constantly frustrated at how mediocre Apple's results were in that area (in my opinion I don't think he was very good at cultivating that area in terms of his expertise or skill). It's extremely difficult for a company to be good at many things. I'd be skeptical there's anything Apple can ever do to be good at their hardware obje…

For me the App Store is one of the worst apps on iOS. Just look at how many complain about its poor search results. I just skip them and use Google to search for iOS apps.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#132

Post by callumprentice »

I wonder how much of this building information comes from the LiDAR data the StreetView cameras capture along with images. It's a couple of years old now but I wrote something to display the 3D point data for any address and was surprised to find just now that it still works. http://callumprentice.github.io/apps/street_cloud/index.html

I wonder if there is a more detailed data set available these days.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#133

Post by irrational »

One thing I really appreciate about Google Maps is how accurate the times are. There have been numerous times where google maps says is will take x minutes to get there and I think "Nah, I'll be able to get there faster than that." Nope, I've never had google maps be off by more than a minute or so. I think it must take into account not just road conditions and traffic, but also how much I am likely to go over the speed limit.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#134

Post by puzzle »

adventured wrote: post #109
kumarvvr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With their cash pile, they could surely expand, considering the long term returns on such expansion of computing power. Maybe Apple just dosent see the need to improve or dosent see any revenue potential with Maps.

This Internet / Web software services weakness goes all the way back for Apple. Jobs was constantly frustrated at how mediocre Apple's results were in that area (in my opinion I don't think he was very good at cultivating that area in terms of his expertise or skill). It's extremely difficult for a company to be good at many things. I'd be skeptical there's anything Apple can ever do to be good at their hardware obje…

Apple really didn't get it in the Jobs days. For quite a while, Cupertino's built-in Google Maps app sent traffic to two Netscalers in California that Apple managed, no matter where your iPhone was. That was definitely not Google's idea. As you can imagine, hilarity of all kinds did ensue.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#135

Post by klodolph »

irrational wrote: post #129
ovao wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To offer a counterpoint, I decided to start alternating between Apple Maps and Google Maps a few months ago and — so far — I haven’t been led astray by Apple Maps. I do live in L.A., however, which is probably among the best case scenarios for Apple Maps at the moment. Google does have the better product, but for the most part I can see Apple Maps being at least “good enough” for my use, much the same way that Safari…

The problem for Apple is why would anyone want to use "good enough" when the alternatives are better, free, and easily available?

I don't understand why this would be a problem. Apple Maps is not competing with Google Maps. Apple Maps is simply there so Apple can provide turn-by-turn navigation out of the box without paying Google for it. The fact that Google Maps is free to consumers is irrelevant, because it's not free for Apple to bundle with iOS.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#136

Post by athenot »

Stratoscope wrote: post #79
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 a…

That's what Apple Maps does (but only for the very last announcement):

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

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#137

Post by niftich »

Stratoscope wrote: post #79
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 a…

I usually hear "your destination is on the right", and become aware to having zoomed by the place. 5 minutes of U-turning ensues.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#138

Post by ineedasername »

I think it just shows the primary difference between the two companies. Google is ad-revenue driven by mechanisms that leverage world-scale data mining & analysis. Apple is revenue driven by hardware that leverages high-quality product design. Oversimplifying both I'm sure, but I think most things stem from this.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#139

Post by heartbreak »

scooter_de wrote: post #126

The problem of "under addressed" places in the world is addressed (no pun intended) by several companies. Eg. What3Words (w3w.co) has created a grit of 3mx3m squares which cover the entire planet. Each of this squares is identified by three words. Post/Mail organizations in several countries already accept those addresses. Google also has the OLC (Open Location Code) to address an area of adjustable size on earth. I…

I’m only aware of one government postal org that uses w3w. Are there others beyond Côte d'Ivoire?

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#140

Post by splonk »

ncdev wrote: post #78

Google also uses (used?) a great deal of human judgment in Maps (note: these sources are a few years old now) [1, 2]. [1] https://www.wired.com/2014/12/google-maps-ground-truth/ [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-g...

I think people generally wildly underestimate the scope and impact of Ground Truth (or are entirely ignorant of it).

Back when Apple Maps launched (and probably just after GT had been publicly acknowledged), I had a chat with an Apple journalist, and basically told him that Apple had no idea what they were in for. They'd fix the obvious big public bugs (turning off of highway overpasses) easily enough, but they would remain way behind on data quality. Back then Google was spending something like a billion dollars a year for GT and Street View alone, which is a massive organization that Apple just didn't have, wasn't likely to build, and couldn't license. Add to that a huge lead in satellite imagery, custom flyover data, business data from web search, customer feedback from their incumbent maps app, and I just didn't see any way that Apple was going to come even close to Google's map quality in the next several years. Basically the only question to me was if/how quickly they'd reach "good enough" status for their users to avoid tarnishing their brand.

Story time: Back before GT was used widely, I think some street addresses were placed by just linearly interpolating them along the road. Charleston and Rengstorff are a bit weird near the Google campus, so for a while people looking for directions to the shopping center on the other side of the freeway would find themselves getting directed (embarrassingly!) to the Google Maps building, with its big red pin in front reminding them how they'd been led astray. After giving directions to these lost souls one too many times, I got annoyed enough to rant to someone about how terrible the data was. He agreed, took me over to a what I now know must have been a GT operator, got it fixed, and told me it would be live within a month. So I got to say that I'd personally served some Maps traffic, and reduced load on a low performance server as well (my QPS is pathetic).

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