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If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

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Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#31

Post by robomartin »

Just throw an old 3GS or 4 in your pocket and use Google Maps by creating a private WiFi hot-spot with your iPhone 5.

Wait a minute. The iPhone 5 doesn't do that. Hey, but it's longer, thinner and faster. What else do you want?

It almost reminds me of Microsoft Word. Once MS Word got to the point where it did pretty much everything the majority of users wanted it to do there really was not reason to upgrade. As my own example, the only reason I upgraded some of our systems to Office 2007 was because we needed 64 bit systems for Finite Element Analysis and Office 2003 wouldn't go there.

I know that they'll sell a lot of iPhone 5's, but I really think that they are starting to loose the magic. I, for one, don't really care about thinner or lighter beyond the 4S. A little larger, maybe, but there are so many things that the next generation iPhones could or should be doing that I can't imagine why Apple would pull resources into trying to out-map Google.

3D fly-over map views? Really? How much money did they waste on that crap?

It's almost like Siri. It's a big smelly, smoldering pile of crap. I don't know of anyone that actually uses it. And it sure as hell doesn't work one bit like the TV ads. What a waste.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#32

Post by kevinsd »

If I were Apple, I would had been very pissed off with Google's inferior Maps app for iOS than its Android one. If Maps is so core to a smartphone's overall experience, perhaps it is better to break it from a competitor's control sooner than later.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#33

Post by dannyr »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #23
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #10

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 are not about authoritative control over who gets access and locking their users in a walled garden." You think the iOS maps app was stagnant for such a long time because of what? Because Apple is lazy? It's obvious they don't want to be on the hand of a competitor. Google Maps used to be free with a large API quota when released, remember? Then, once everybody was using it, they updated the API and imposed a m…

The new Google Map pricing affected the Top 0.35% of its API users.

What kind of site do you have?

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#34

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

LoganCale wrote: post #25
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #12

Really? Although the maps show less information, I found the navigation feature much more usable now. For me, it's the most useful feature since I don't have a car with GPS and TomTom's app is pricey. Now I have it built-in. For finding other stuff I can always use other apps or Google Maps mobile, which is very decent too.

The routing is nice. The maps themselves are much less detailed and in many areas have no detail at all or are completely incorrect, in the sense that they show roads in places where there have never been roads, and roads which have been there for 30 years are absent.

The maps are okay for me, but I'm in a big city (São Paulo). Since the map data comes from TomTom, it should be decent, at least that's the GPS everybody I know uses.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#35

Post by SquareWheel »

kevinsd wrote: post #32

If I were Apple, I would had been very pissed off with Google's inferior Maps app for iOS than its Android one. If Maps is so core to a smartphone's overall experience, perhaps it is better to break it from a competitor's control sooner than later.

You do realize Apple created the app, right? Google only provides the data.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#36

Post by chimeracoder »

rimantas wrote: post #21
Irfaan wrote: post #8

"If I were Google, I wouldn’t launch a native Maps app for iOS 6 for at least six months, [...]" If I were in Google's shoes, I wouldn't be launching a native Maps app. Period. It's not like Maps is driving vast amounts of search revenue for Google. And with the degraded functionality of Apple's own Maps app, Google's Map app has become a reason for a buyer to consider switching to a Google-blessed Android phone. And…

> If I were in Google's shoes, I wouldn't be launching > a native Maps app. Period. I hope Google does just that. It takes a nontrivial amount of stupidity to think that Apple does not know shortcomings of its maps application and are not working on fixing that. Loosing iOS users for some barely noticeable amount of switchers is hardly a good business for Google—do they even make money from Android phones someone sel…

> do they even make money from Android phones someone sells?

Their goal isn't to make money on the devices, so that's a little like comparing the margins on a Kindle Fire to the margins on an iPad.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#37

Post by bobbles »

I'm pretty sure that 95% of iOS users don't even know that it WAS Google maps. All they know is the maps on their phone suddenly don't have as much information as they used to. (and hey that new flyover thing looks cool)

I don't really see holding out on a release being beneficial to Google, in fact quite the opposite.

Now people will have an app called 'Google Maps' that will be the one they know and love, and might even get them to consider 'hey, maybe i should check out those Google phones as well'.

I'm personally going to hold out on iOS6 for a little while longer while some of the issues get explained or ironed out.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#38

Post by bathat »

jser wrote: post #11

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.

Unfortunately, Embark's applications don't do inter-city transit, and they only exist for a few large cities. Even with a 3rd party app installed, and completely ignoring the regression in UX, iOS 6 has a major regression in functionality. Try typing the following into Google maps: "Redondo Beach to UCSB" Then look at the public transit options.

This is a completely plausible scenario, and look at how Google shines:

1) Seven different transit agencies are represented in the first four suggested routes: LA County Metro, LA City DOT, Culver City Bus, Amtrak, Metrolink and Santa Barbara Transit

2) Google has no trouble mixing and matching the agencies to find the best route (but gives the user the option of reducing transfers).

3) Each route option only requires a subset of those, usually three.

4) Google knows that UCSB means University of California Santa Barbara, and picks a reasonable location on campus

5) This journey works my iPhone 4, but not on an iPhone 5

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#39

Post by notatoad »

epoxyhockey wrote: post #7

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…

End users maybe won't notice if they live in a major city and never want to leave. My town (which is small, but not nowhere: a fairly major tourist destination near a large city) has gone from detailed satellite imagery to no more than about 500 total pixels. You don't need to be a power user to see that kind of regression.

Re: If I Were Google, I Wouldn’t Release A Native iOS 6 Maps App For Six Months

#40

Post by evoxed »

dannyr wrote: post #26
zachalexander wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a tricky question. 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. Act…

Well, not every IPhone user upgraded the past week or so. Some people might think twice about upgrading to the IPhone 5 based on the complaints on the Maps app. While there are people who are loyal Apple fans, there are some that are on the fence. This might be enough to push them over to Android or Windows Phone. Once you go to another platform, you're likely locked into a 2-year contract and it's going to be hard f…

> Once you go to another platform, you're likely locked into a 2-year contract and it's going to be hard for Apple to get them back.

I think it would be very interesting though to see what would happen if Apple did face some sort of collateral damage whether for this or some other decision. Apple hasn't exactly found itself in many tight spots, or at least doesn't let it show. If a significant chunk of users left and Apple decided it was worth it to get them back, the fastest way to get over the contract hump is just what they've done occasionally in the past: cut the price, aggressively. Of course, this might not be realistic except in some warped little technodoomsday scenario, but still... I wonder...

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