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The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

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131–140 of 384 posts

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#131
The beauty of this: Apple is definitely going to sell record numbers of the iPhone 5, shitty maps or not. And when they eventually do claw their way back to being on par with Google's maps, people will act like they invented maps themselves and all will be forgiven.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#133

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 Apple gets a pass here. If they are forcing users onto their product it had better be competitive, no matter how hard it is. Microsoft got so such pass with WP7 and that was an entirely new OS/platform!

Does Apple have a Maps program on the Android devices? Are there other Maps programs available on the iOS devices? Saying Apple is 'forcing' users onto their product is a bit much.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#134

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…

It is either the classic problem of floating point precision or just data a data collection error. See my other answer.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#135

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…

You can get elevation data for North America from USGS: http://ned.usgs.gov/

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#136
post #82
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

http://www.google.com/earth/explore/products/

Yes, indeed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Douyfa7l8

This is new development though and only on the Google Earth product for mobile, not in the maps app. Maps app for Android has those blocky untextured 3d buildings in select areas.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#137

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…

Release early, release often. Luckily Apple themselves don't have any delays getting revisions into their app store.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#138

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 also wonder how common these problems are. I live in San Diego and everything looks pretty-good to me. It renders my house in 3D and the turn-by-turn navigation worked great. There are obviously problems in some places, but so-far-so-good here.

I live in the Netherlands and it seems to work like a charm so far. the whole upheaval sounds like an internet pile-on to me.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#139
post #116
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This stuff gets so tiresome. Apple has been buying maps companies for years . Steve Jobs personally ran acquisitions at Apple. He decided which mapping companies to buy and when he did he probably had a good idea of how they would fit into the platform. Development…

>> It only becomes a strategic problem if the quality doesn't improve noticeably with time. The negative PR and reduction in the quality of the core experience might cause a reduction in sales or consumer opinion of Apple. >> What do you think happened? Jobs died and the executive team was like, "Alright everyone, we've got 6 months until the iOS 6 beta is out. Let's cancel our contract with Google and get this shit…

> The negative PR and reduction in the quality of the core experience might cause a reduction in sales or consumer opinion of Apple.

Could be. Remember though that they also added at least one notable feature (turn-by-turn), so it's more like 1 step forward and 2 steps back rather than just 2 steps back.

Also remember that Apple took a pounding for the whole antennagate thing, to the point where Steve Jobs had to hold a news conference to get everyone to calm down. That was an issue that "regular people" knew about. (I was asked by people at a bar if the iPhone 4 I had at the time had reception issues, for example.) And yet, Apple sold a ton of iPhone 4s, and no long-term damage was done to the Apple or iPhone brand.

So I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that this will cause long-term problems. However, it is important for Apple to improve their maps data quickly.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#140
post #100
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't care less about what Apple was thinking before they released this. What matters is that they pushed out a living, breathing UX fuck-up of an application to millions of people that depended on it to get around.

And if each iPhone user reports one problem, the entire POI problem will be solved. I didn't calculate that, but I'm fairly certain it works. The only reason Google knew where my businesses were was because I told them. They kept that information walled up, so I guess I need to tell apple too now that there are millions of people seeing that database. I haven't found where to add a POI, it may not be there, but marki…

If you touch the corner to reveal the map options, "Report a Problem" is next to "Data from TomTom and others." You can report incorrect search results, incorrect street labels, missing location (POI) or problems with directions.
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