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The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

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Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#61

Post by jpxxx »

incongruity wrote: post #50
jpxxx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter to customers whether or not the data will eventually improve - there are significant feature and quality regressions today that will cause delays in iOS6 adoption and directly work against the popular perception of their most important product. Everyone get their digs in now, because the titan doesn't stumble often.

Apple has been virtually printing money with the iOS products because they consistently, if incrementally, offered better and better products. Products that, for most users, offered a genuinely good to great experience and products that challenged the market to be better – far better – than they had before. This, as far as I can tell, is the first really big snafu in the user experience and that may be worrisome. The…

I can't agree, I think mythmaking is unnecessary. Steve Jobs put his fair share of cold garbage onto the market.

Apple's bigger than anyone ever dreamed they'd be and they're the global standard bearer in smartphones. Any platform regression anywhere now affects millions of customers. The Mac is a piffle compared to iOS.

Edit: I will definitely agree that the fallout from this problem will be greater than any they've ever faced.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#62

Post by SoftwareMaven »

I look at this and can't believe Apple wanted to ship with this. And I mean that literally, not incredulously. I believe Apple wants to be in carol of its mapping future, but this product isn't ready yet, and I don't think Apple is so delusional to not be able to see that.

So that makes me wonder what happened in contract negotiations with Google to force it out. Did Google flat-out say "No"? Seems unlikely. Was it just too expensive? That's possible, especially if these negotiations happened during the time Google massively raised the prices on its API (completely random speculation: maybe the price increase was only about Apple), so Apple had to invest elsewhere. Did Google just want control of their map data or want to give Android a massive competitive edge so they backed out? That seems unlikely, but may be answered if Google doesn't put out a map app for iOS.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#63

Post by karlshea »

lhnz wrote: post #56

It seems like the quality level maintained by Steve Jobs is quickly deteriorating in favour of business moves designed to wrest more control off Google. They are operating in a very similar way to other companies now. Google executives must be laughing very hard right now. If I was Google I'd avoid releasing a Google Maps application for at least a year and let the Android handset manufacturers ruthlessly exploit And…

And you came to this conclusion based on one bad app? Quite the leap it seems.

What's missing in all of these conversations is that Apple's contract with Google for mapping ended this year. No one knows what really happened for Apple to make this change.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#64

Post by Geee »

rauljara wrote: post #19

The "roller coaster" effects in the 3-d view are my favorite. They've got some smoothing algorithm going, or it wouldn't curve the way it does, but the elevation data must not have a high enough resolution. Google has made this sort of thing look so easy for so long, but it's clearly very hard to get this stuff right. So, I guess it's not that surprising that apple messed up something incredibly hard in their first a…

I don't think Google has 3D view at all. Those 3D maps were created by a different company whom Apple recently acquired. You can probably find the same errors from here as well, http://maps.nokia.com/webgl/

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#65

Post by Aloisius »

Since Apple doesn't have a website for their maps, just knowing what is broken is going to be a problem for them.

I wonder if they will put in a map editor in their next version to crowd source fixes or at least bug reports.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#66

Post by jpxxx »

cooldeal wrote: post #45
stephen_g wrote: post #20

I really hope that people are using the 'Report Problem' feature in the app every time they post a screenshot here. Because that is one of the biggest things everyone can do that will help the map data to improve.

As Gruber likes to remind us at every chance, Apple has more than $100 billion cash lying around. How about they use a little of that to license some half decent maps from Google or, failing that, Nokia/Navteq? Even Amazon(that Gruber sneered for making far less money than Apple [1]) managed to license Nokia maps and wrapped a nice API around it, and you think the iPhone buyers have a responsibility to work on making…

There is no possibility that this platform change was over Apple's inability to come up with the cash to license a competitor's dataset. Their move was political, strategic, or both.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#67

Post by guilhermetk »

I'd really like to know where the data from Brazil comes from, specifically Florianopolis, SC. The first thing I did when I updated to iOS 6 was testing the maps app. The building I live is at least 5 years old, but the map shows it under construction

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#68

Post by buro9 »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #62

I look at this and can't believe Apple wanted to ship with this. And I mean that literally, not incredulously. I believe Apple wants to be in carol of its mapping future, but this product isn't ready yet, and I don't think Apple is so delusional to not be able to see that. So that makes me wonder what happened in contract negotiations with Google to force it out. Did Google flat-out say "No"? Seems unlikely. Was it j…

Adverts.

Spatial adverts are a big thing now, with a big future. I would speculate that beyond the cost of licensing the maps or the contractual stuff is that Apple did not want to deliver to Google more advertisers that would further entrench Google Maps as the dominant player.

Apple need to be able to build their own POI database and knowledge of where all advertiser businesses are in order to get that revenue long-term.

Thus, Apple need control of the maps to control the method that advertisers get onto the map.

I think it's just strategic rather than contractual or short-term financial.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#69

Post by jackson71 »

liotier wrote: post #30
AJ007 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Directions being ok most for most people, most of the time, is hardly acceptable. Google Maps had a tendency to drop pins for locations on the wrong spot. That meant I always had to confirm the location with street view, 100% of the time. Going to the wrong spot can be catastrophic in some instances (wrong or non existent hospital.) In others it can be really bad (missing a critical meeting, walking in during a weddi…

> If Apple's management thinks its acceptable to roll out > beta products on all of their users, I'll be moving to > Android. Sure - because Google never rolls out beta products on all of their users...

Difference is, it generally says, "Beta" right on the tin.
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