11–20 of 109 posts
I've found the Embark transit applications to be a great alternative (at least for Chicago). It doesn't make up for other missing features like Street View, but you'd be surprised how many users did not even know those features existed.
For finding other stuff I can always use other apps or Google Maps mobile, which is very decent too.
This is exactly the OPPOSITE of why I'm intrigued and impressed by Google as a company. They just want people to have access to their services. They are not about authoritative control over who gets access and locking their users in a walled garden. Android is wonderful and Google's done a great job of integrating their services with it.. but why shouldn't iOS users have at least some of the same benefits (if Apple a…
But for users, yes.
My bet is that the end users aren't even going to notice. I switched my website maps from Google to OSM/Leaflet and absolutely no one noticed or cared enough to email me about it. Disclaimer: I didn't use OSM's default/ugly color palette. Disclaimer #2: I have used iOS 6 maps, and the most visible change (other than the color palette) is that subway markers are clickable and that Yelp is more tightly integrated into…
Without knowing more about your web site I can't do a detailed comparison, but unless people use your web site every day, on the move, to search for transit, business and social locations then the use cases just aren't the same. Not to mention that the biggest issue with Apple Maps is the dismal coverage outside of the US.
Instead they are propping features like "Palm Picture Capture", "Tilt to Mute", and other dumb things that nobody really cares about. http://images.latinospost.com/data/images/full/5424/samsung-...
Things like this is what differentiates great companies, from ones that just doen't get it. Users don't care about useless feature list, they care about end experience.
The iOS 6 maps subsystem is the worst OS component regression Apple has shipped since Open Transport 1.0. It is really bad, and if navigating a city is one of your key phone usage scenarios, this change makes Apple's arch-rival's devices significantly more attractive than they otherwise would be. I carry around both the latest Apple phone and the latest Google phone, and this is one area where the Google phone was al…
Wait six months: increases the pain iOS users feel, and possibly increases migration to Android, but by how much? If you've bought an iPhone 5, in many cases that means a 1-year contract (or renewal). And in six months, Apple may have released a better Maps app that fixes the problem.
Release Google Maps for iOS sooner: iPhone users feel less pain, but Google Maps keeps more users.
Actually though, the more I think of it, even in the latter scenario, Apple still wins, because whenever they release their fixed Maps app, they win back the entire market because they own the platform. So maybe the first strategy actually makes more sense.
heh. Google can't release a Maps app - mostly because that would be duplicating a service that Apple already provides, and apple hates competition !
This is exactly the OPPOSITE of why I'm intrigued and impressed by Google as a company. They just want people to have access to their services. They are not about authoritative control over who gets access and locking their users in a walled garden. Android is wonderful and Google's done a great job of integrating their services with it.. but why shouldn't iOS users have at least some of the same benefits (if Apple a…
> They just want people to have access to their services.
The lack of including public transit routing was a huge miss -- the "Designed in California", everyone has a car confused the decision making. I've found the Embark transit applications to be a great alternative (at least for Chicago). It doesn't make up for other missing features like Street View, but you'd be surprised how many users did not even know those features existed.
heh. Google can't release a Maps app - mostly because that would be duplicating a service that Apple already provides, and apple hates competition !
That said, the lack of third party transit from apple is pretty horrible, and the API for the maps app is pretty limited (you have to throw the start and end points to your app, there's no overlays or anything like that)