Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#191

Post by penagwin » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #149

penagwin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that got me thinking, biking rules vary far more than for cars. Depending on your location, pedestrian traffic, streets, street traffic, etc. It might be best for you to be on the sidewalk. Or maybe you should instead be on the road since the road is only 25mph and there's pedestrians on the sidewalk. Maybe there's a bike lane, maybe there isn't. Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road. Ar…

> Depending on your location, pedestrian traffic, streets, street traffic, etc. It might be best for you to be on the sidewalk. … Maybe a town has a law saying you HAVE to bike on the road. Depending on location indeed. The majority of US states still make it blanket illegal to bicycle on a sidewalk, codified into early highway laws. (It's also probable the last time those laws were effectively enforced was somewhere…

I made a comment to a sibling with an example from Michigan. I won't copy paste the whole comment but Michigan allows biking on sidewalks but you have to yield to pedestrians. But individual towns may add their own restrictions.

https://michiganbikelaw.com/michigan-rules-of-the-road/

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#192

Post by tssva » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

theboat wrote: post #92

aresant wrote: post #44

In the midst of the world (rightly) turning on big tech's abuses, efforts like these make me optimistic about our industry on a whole and help me recover some of the enthusiasm that led me into tech in the first place. I love how this effort relies on & amplifies what were before relatively obscure specialties The mapping wars elevate cartographers, mapping specialists, GIS data nerds, mobile computing / compression…

As much as I agree with your general sentiment, Apple Maps, like many of Apple's mobile apps, gets a boost from Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's utterly ridiculous that we can remove default apps from iOS, including Maps and Safari, but we can't set new default apps to replace them. If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default brow…

Apple won't even let you remove the Chess app from macOS without disabling system integrity protection.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#193

Post by hyperbovine » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

theboat wrote: post #92

aresant wrote: post #44

In the midst of the world (rightly) turning on big tech's abuses, efforts like these make me optimistic about our industry on a whole and help me recover some of the enthusiasm that led me into tech in the first place. I love how this effort relies on & amplifies what were before relatively obscure specialties The mapping wars elevate cartographers, mapping specialists, GIS data nerds, mobile computing / compression…

As much as I agree with your general sentiment, Apple Maps, like many of Apple's mobile apps, gets a boost from Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's utterly ridiculous that we can remove default apps from iOS, including Maps and Safari, but we can't set new default apps to replace them. If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default brow…

> letting users set default browsers, maps, and email clients on their devices.

This is so disingenuous. It's called Android. People hate it. Although the walled garden may offend you personally, the market at large has spoken.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#194

Post by graeme » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

ed312 wrote: post #9

taylorlapeyre wrote: post #6

If Apple could bring bicycle directions into the app, I would probably never use Google Maps again.

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

I suspect it may be california-centrism. Bikes are a vital mode in Europe and many other parts of the road. In california car is king, bikes are either recreational or for hardcore commutes.

You can see similar assumptions in how Siri is designed. (“Users only speak one language at a time”) or the effectiveness of multilanguage support in autocorrect. Most people outside north america use their own language + english fairly frequently. At least those in apple’s customer demographic.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#195

Post by jonfw » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

skizm wrote: post #177

theboat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree with your general sentiment, Apple Maps, like many of Apple's mobile apps, gets a boost from Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's utterly ridiculous that we can remove default apps from iOS, including Maps and Safari, but we can't set new default apps to replace them. If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default brow…

One specific thing that bothers me is that Microsoft got in trouble for bundling IE with Windows, but apple doesn't get in trouble when they block all browser apps that don't use Safari under the hood. How is this different? I want Google and Mozilla (and anyone else) to be able to make iOS browser apps from scratch if they want. It wouldn't be an issue if you could sideload apps easily, but the app store is really t…

The big differentiator here is that Microsoft had a dominant monopoly on PCs. Apple is a huge huge player in the smartphone space, but they're still in no danger of having a majority of the market.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#196

Post by pauljonas » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

I'd been using Waze for a couple of years, and initially it was far superior to Apple Maps. But a few months back, I got really frustrated with it because it led me down some closed roads & ended up doubling my commute time home from work that day. I'd also been noting how off it was on its estimates on when I'd get to my destination. And I was also perturbed by it not knowing the back street entrance to my work site, though I've "paved it" on multiple occasions, it it remains uncorrected.

So I switched over to Apple Maps and started tracking how often it is off in its estimates (& also trip duration) -- I have like a commute that can be anywhere from 40 minutes to 90 minutes or more, depending on traffic -- and I was pleasantly surprised that it got me to destination within +/-5 minutes of when it said it would and that the journey was taking less time that with Waze. It also knew about the back entrance of my work site and was able to route better with some of the smaller side streets in the neighborhood too.

I've always preferred the Apple Maps UI -- it shows all the lanes at top, stoplights are more prominently shown, though the speedometer on Waze was nice, plus Waze alerted you to police presence too. It gives you a buffer when wishing to change route (Waze frequently would change the route and instruct me to take an exit that was 300 feet away when I was in the furthest lane from the exit side) to check off and is totally ad-free, and incorporated into iOS (yeah, Apple monopoly and all, true).

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#197

Post by krrrh » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

skizm wrote: post #177

theboat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree with your general sentiment, Apple Maps, like many of Apple's mobile apps, gets a boost from Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's utterly ridiculous that we can remove default apps from iOS, including Maps and Safari, but we can't set new default apps to replace them. If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default brow…

One specific thing that bothers me is that Microsoft got in trouble for bundling IE with Windows, but apple doesn't get in trouble when they block all browser apps that don't use Safari under the hood. How is this different? I want Google and Mozilla (and anyone else) to be able to make iOS browser apps from scratch if they want. It wouldn't be an issue if you could sideload apps easily, but the app store is really t…

Because the DOJ suit against MS was misguided and unnecessary. It had little effect on eroding Microsoft's supposed stranglehold on the browser market. When browser monoculture began to really hurt consumers and innovation the market found solutions through improved collaboration (W3C getting its act together, and developers embracing web standards), business model innovation (mozilla foundation embracing open source vs. Netscape charging $40 for a commercial license), and better technology and industry/community collaboration (khtml and webkit). Even some eventual deadends like Flash played a role at the time in routing around the untenable, but very temporary, situation of IE v.4-6 dominance.

Edit: I want to add that during the suit MS reps had a glib but prescient defense: "we think web browsers should be free". They meant as in beer, but they were right in the larger sense, and few would disagree with them today.

Netscape was arguing that their by-then totally crappy commercial browser deserved protection from the state, when their demise had a lot more to do with insane bloat and their embrace of groupware.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#198

Post by bdcravens » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

Google Maps appears to do a better job of mixed mode (for instance, I have to drive about 15 minutes to get to the Park and Ride to hop on the Houston Metro; Apple Maps says no route available, whereas Google calculates that first leg)

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#199

Post by rmc » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:35 PM UTC

AWildC182 wrote: post #127

aresant wrote: post #44

In the midst of the world (rightly) turning on big tech's abuses, efforts like these make me optimistic about our industry on a whole and help me recover some of the enthusiasm that led me into tech in the first place. I love how this effort relies on & amplifies what were before relatively obscure specialties The mapping wars elevate cartographers, mapping specialists, GIS data nerds, mobile computing / compression…

....what are you talking about? This is just an update on yet another closed platform. If apple cared about elevating the discipline and righting the abuses of big tech with their mapping app they'd partner with OpenStreetMap and make the data public rather than continuing to silo all the data about you and everyone around you. Instead we're continuing the closed source data gathering land rush and trying to beat goo…

Apple Maps _is_ OpenStreetMap in many countries. In Denmark it's used for turn-by-turn navigation even.

(Source: Talk by Apple employee at the OSM'a 'State of the Map' conference 2018 https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Co... )

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#200

Post by abawany » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 8:35 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #167

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This update may make me switch from Google Maps. The UI in Google Maps has always been confusing and cluttered. There's a search bar, then quick search buttons underneath, then the layers button, "Explore nearby", explore, commute, "For you", and then finally the hamburger menu. Apple Maps is a lot cleaner but the only thing missing was the quality of the actual maps. Hopefully that has changed now.

My favorite feature of Google Maps is how it gets 10x slower when you turn location history off. And then it obnoxiously prompts you to turn it back on for an "improved user experience." I've duplicated this exact experience across several generations of smartphone including a relatively recent Galaxy S7. Turning location history back on makes the slowness go away.

Google's treatment of Android users vs. its treatment of iOS users for the same app is insightful: in the former case, the treatment imo borders on the abusive with mandatory and permanent changes required to data collection to be able to do trivial things such as activate a Google Assistant using the Home app.