Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 109 posts

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

#91

Post by X-Istence »

SquareWheel wrote: post #75
neop wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google placed restrictions on how Apple could use the data. For example, Google did not allow Apple to have turn by turn navigation.

I'm not familiar, is Google specifically blocking Apple from using that data or have they simply not published an API for turn-by-turn yet?

Google requires a contract if you want to use their mapping data in applications or if you go over certain free limits (which Apple's app certainly did).

This contract allegedly contained terms that disallowed Apple from implementing Turn by Turn directions in their application.

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

#92

Post by aisenik »

jsnell wrote: post #56
aisenik wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maps gives google a ton of information, and it's fresh. Remember that our information is their product. They can see which areas are experiencing growth, which businesses are getting increased demand, travel patterns, etc. They can see where you like to shop and sell ads to their competitors that target you. They can deduce your shopping habits and how likely you are to eat at a fine dining restaurant vs. a fast food…

You're vastly overestimating the utility of the data. Information about the behavior of individual users will be of limited use since Google will mostly not be able to associate an iPhone user to a Google account (unless they actively force users of the app to sign in). And even then the such tracking would really need an opt-in feature to avoid being extremely creepy, and for it to be opt-in it'd need to give users…

I don't think I'm truly overestimating the utility of the data so much as eliding over the massive engineering and labor required to extract useful information out of it. But that is probably Google's core competency.

I don't think Google's going to get very evil, at least not overnight. They have the infrastructure to collect all this data, the resources to store it, and the technology to make sense of it. They're already at the point where their business regularly butts against social norms regarding privacy.

Ultimately I find advertising an extremely unpleasant (if not inherently evil) phenomenon. At the highest levels it's nearly the science of manipulating unwilling people. Advertising companies, especially nebulous yet megalomaniacal tech companies with access to the best behavioral datasets possible, should be treated as highly suspect.

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

#93

Post by fpgeek »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #61

Has anyone used Ovi maps in iOS? I used to prefer Ovi Maps to Google Maps for navigation type usage back when I used both a E71 and Android handset. I wonder if Nokia has any ambition take advantage of the current situation?

Given that Nokia is already selling map data to Amazon for the Kindle Fire, they almost certainly do. That being said, their means of taking advantage might be pointing out their WP8 phones' relative advantage in this area.

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

#94

Post by minikomi »

sukuriant wrote: post #77
kalleboo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one's better: https://twitter.com/ahm/status/248064518566051840 The lack of train lines on the maps until you zoom in super-far is shockingly bad. At least your friend managed to find things with his searches - most of my searches for Japanese addresses just come up with "not found" error. Apple's maps definitely seem far more car-oriented than walking or public-transit oriented. I've taken to carrying an Androi…

To be fair, they look about the same, they're just not marked and the transit system isn't drawn in. It's just blank. If the transit system still exists and is accessible in the back end, then it's not so bad and is actually about the same --- just doesn't look as pretty. Oh, and I'm not an Apple fanboy. The most recent piece of Apple hardware I have is a iPhone 3G. My upgrade from that was a Motorola Droid and then…

It's really not usable.

Apart from having NO STATION (It's a really really big station - busiest and one of the biggest in Tokyo) several different train line's terminals are merged into one blue blip smack bang in the center.

There are no convenience stores / landmark shops (eg. mosburger) which ALL Japanese use to find their way around due to lack of order in building numbers (no street numbers.)

The 26, 27 etc. you see are numbered blocks which people use to find addresses - not visible on new map.

No indication of one way streets in most cases. Shinjuku, like many dense parts of Tokyo, has a lot of one way streets.

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

#95

Post by robomartin »

masklinn wrote: post #68
robomartin wrote: post #31

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 ow…

> creating a private WiFi hot-spot with your iPhone 5. > Wait a minute. The iPhone 5 doesn't do that. Uh? It's been doing that for 4 or 5 years.

Learn something new every day. I stand corrected.

Although you seem to be wrong about it being available for 4 or 5 years. Apparently (in the US) it became available in February of last year for Verizon customers and a little later on the AT&T network.

What sucks is that, in order to enable it, you have to pay an additional $20 to $25 per month on top of your data plan.

That's just wrong. My iPhone is in WiFi nearly 100% of the time. This means that the carrier's network almost never has to deliver data to my phone save text messages and, perhaps, notifications. I'd be interesting to find out if it is actually smart enough to use WiFi for messages when available. If it does, then nearly no data goes over the cellular network. I suspect that lots of people fall into the same pattern.

So, carriers charge us for something that is underutilized and then, if we want to simply use the phone as a personal hot-spot we have to pay more!

Maybe I was right after all, in an odd sort of way.

Granted, not an Apple issue after all.

There's plenty more that could have been better with the iPhone 5. For example, why didn't they move picture and video storage to a removable mini/micro/whatever SD card and also enable this as an external file system that could also be accessed when plugged into a USB port?

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

#96

Post by trin_ »

philjohn wrote: post #72
joshu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the fact that I can parachute in to some random city and walk around like I know what I am doing between maps and Yelp. I do not want to give that up.

Have you tried the new maps? The only real regressions I can see are poorer satellite imagery coverage (big whoop - it's a gimmick for 90% of the time) and non existent public transport routing. In my experience in the UK, the public transport routing never really worked on the google provided maps either. The maps themselves are provided by TomTom and in the UK and Europe at least they are very high quality, can't s…

the maps for the town i'm living in (250k people, state capital in germany) are not entirely accurate. the positions of the listed businesses especially. some are downright false and some are misplaced by sometimes 400-500m.

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

#97

Post by masklinn »

robomartin wrote: post #95
masklinn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> creating a private WiFi hot-spot with your iPhone 5. > Wait a minute. The iPhone 5 doesn't do that. Uh? It's been doing that for 4 or 5 years.

Learn something new every day. I stand corrected. Although you seem to be wrong about it being available for 4 or 5 years. Apparently (in the US) it became available in February of last year for Verizon customers and a little later on the AT&T network. What sucks is that, in order to enable it, you have to pay an additional $20 to $25 per month on top of your data plan. That's just wrong. My iPhone is in WiFi nearly…

> Although you seem to be wrong about it being available for 4 or 5 years. Apparently (in the US) it became available in February of last year for Verizon customers and a little later on the AT&T network.

That's a slightly different issue: tethering has been built into iOS since 3.0 (there had been kinda-hacky HTTP thethers in 2.0 but let's ignore them), but it is indeed a service operators can lock or unlock via operator settings.

> What sucks is that, in order to enable it, you have to pay an additional $20 to $25 per month on top of your data plan.

I don't, for what it's worth. My carrier gives me 2GB of data per "month" (it's prepaid so I could always get a second bundle) and i can use it for wahtever I want.

> For example, why didn't they move picture and video storage to a removable mini/micro/whatever SD card

Because now you'd need a slot for reading a microsd card. I don't know if you've looked at the teardowns, but the only way to do that is to remove a significant chunk of battery to make room, the phone is packed to the brim. And Apple is not going to trade battery life for an SD slot few people (let alone clients) care for (let alone want).

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

#98

Post by masklinn »

thatjoshguy wrote: post #70
robomartin wrote: post #31

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 ow…

> Wait a minute. The iPhone 5 doesn't do that. Hey, but it's longer, thinner and faster. What else do you want? Sadly, you're mistaken. http://i.imgur.com/SPBUH.png If you're iPhone doesn't have it, blame your carrier http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937

> If you're iPhone doesn't have it, blame your carrier http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937

FWIW this only lists "partner carriers", when you buy your phone unlocked (or get a "partner carrier"-provided phone unlocked, which they have to do on request in most euro country) you can use non-partner carriers which often have different sets of restriction (up to "no restriction"). The only one usually missing from non-partners is visual voicemail.

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

#99

Post by masklinn »

philjohn wrote: post #72
joshu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the fact that I can parachute in to some random city and walk around like I know what I am doing between maps and Yelp. I do not want to give that up.

Have you tried the new maps? The only real regressions I can see are poorer satellite imagery coverage (big whoop - it's a gimmick for 90% of the time) and non existent public transport routing. In my experience in the UK, the public transport routing never really worked on the google provided maps either. The maps themselves are provided by TomTom and in the UK and Europe at least they are very high quality, can't s…

> The only real regressions I can see are poorer satellite imagery coverage

Map coverage of US campuses is also way down. Which makes a very small but vocal segment (US uni students) completely lose their mind over the issue. If you go to the apple/iphone subreddit, 9 out of 10 maps criticisms are US uni campus.

On the other hand, considering how those things work, I'd expect non-US locations to be just as downgraded as US campus (and testimonies in this thread seem to confirm it)

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

#100

Post by kalleboo »

sukuriant wrote: post #77
kalleboo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one's better: https://twitter.com/ahm/status/248064518566051840 The lack of train lines on the maps until you zoom in super-far is shockingly bad. At least your friend managed to find things with his searches - most of my searches for Japanese addresses just come up with "not found" error. Apple's maps definitely seem far more car-oriented than walking or public-transit oriented. I've taken to carrying an Androi…

To be fair, they look about the same, they're just not marked and the transit system isn't drawn in. It's just blank. If the transit system still exists and is accessible in the back end, then it's not so bad and is actually about the same --- just doesn't look as pretty. Oh, and I'm not an Apple fanboy. The most recent piece of Apple hardware I have is a iPhone 3G. My upgrade from that was a Motorola Droid and then…

If you're walking around Shinjuku on foot (as everybody does), Apple's map is basically useless. Note how the Google map has all the exits marked, the different stations (JR vs Metro vs Keio line). The whole red area on the Google map is the station, part of it underground. Navigating around Tokyo, maps of stations are essential.
Post reply on HN