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The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

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Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#281

Post by caycep »

enraged_camel wrote: post #259
spitx wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs would have fired the whole Maps team, en masse. Furiousness is a skill. Tim Cook falls short here.

Actually, Jobs would never have allowed Maps to be released in this state to begin with.

I would agree with this...there were a lot of features that "cooked" for a long time under the wraps. Better to keep the iOS 5 maps app going for one more iteration while Apple Maps simmered for a bit longer.

then again, they do need the crowdsourced data, but maybe they could have had the iOS 5 app stream a duplicate of whatever it's phoning home to google into the new Maps databank.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#282

Post by icebraining »

batista wrote: post #149
icebraining wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't usually revert in quality.

The Google Reader redesign fiasco? Google Wave to Google+ transition? It's not like Apple "usually reverts in quality" either. This was a business decision, probably forced. They had to create something of their own for maps from what they could license and buy quickly. Goes to show that you should not depend on your competitors for core technology. Which Apple always tries to avoid, but probably in 2007 (when the iP…

They weren't?

In what could be a key move in its nascent wireless strategy, Google (GOOG) has quietly acquired startup Android Inc., BusinessWeek Online has learned. The 22-month-old startup, based in Palo Alto, Calif., brings to Google a wealth of talent, including co-founder Andy Rubin, who previously started mobile-device maker Danger Inc.

-- BusinessWeek, August 16, 2005

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-buys-a...

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#283

Post by diggan »

devcpp wrote: post #275
snogglethorpe wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also don't expect Apple to approve any Google "maps" application any time soon either given how strategic it is for their mobile business. Soooo, their users don't matter? "Business strategy" is more important? This is Apple?!

You know, I'm starting to miss Steve Jobs. He was a businessman as well, but he also knew how to treat his customers right, because keeping the customers in the hype is extremely important in his high-benefits scheme. I don't think he would have let that kind of stuff happen. He would have paid the price: it's not like Apple can't afford Google Maps for another version of two of the iPhone, and now some customers are…

Yeah, the question is if Apple still got the feeling that the hype should result into pleasure in post-launch.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#284

Post by batista »

batista wrote: post #149
icebraining wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't usually revert in quality.

The Google Reader redesign fiasco? Google Wave to Google+ transition? It's not like Apple "usually reverts in quality" either. This was a business decision, probably forced. They had to create something of their own for maps from what they could license and buy quickly. Goes to show that you should not depend on your competitors for core technology. Which Apple always tries to avoid, but probably in 2007 (when the iP…

>They weren't?

Yes, they weren't. The first Android phone appeared one year after the iPhone (HTC Dream, released on October 22, 2008).

That 2005 acquisition didn't automatically make the two companies competitors...

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#286

Post by misnome »

ryannielsen wrote: post #278
enraged_camel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Jobs would never have allowed Maps to be released in this state to begin with.

So… you two both personally knew SJ? And SJ, while he was leading Apple, was always without fault? If that's the case, how do you explain Ping? MobileMe? The G4 Cube?

At least they were functional, and it's not like they pushed ping and blocked every other social network from working on macs.

As far as what Jobs would have done; the state of the maps is a plain embarrassment - I can't see why anyone has released this, let alone anyone with as much care about details as Jobs.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#287

Post by spitx »

ryannielsen wrote: post #278
enraged_camel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Jobs would never have allowed Maps to be released in this state to begin with.

So… you two both personally knew SJ? And SJ, while he was leading Apple, was always without fault? If that's the case, how do you explain Ping? MobileMe? The G4 Cube?

I think it was the MobileMe team he humiliated and necked out of the door. Part of Apple lore.

Now everybody knows that Apple's history with cloud-based initiatives have been less than stellar, and no time was that more clear than during Apple's klunky MobileMe rollout a few years ago. Server down time and extremely slow loading times had many wondering how Apple let a product that seemed beta at best roll out to the masses - for a $99 fee no less.

The MobileMe fiasco was of course not lost on Steve Jobs who reportedly told members of the MobileMe team that they "should hate each other for having let each other down."

At one point, Jobs asked his team what MobileMe was supposed to do. Upon receiving an answer he quickly fired back, "So why the f doesn’t it do that?" Jobs even invoked the name of trusty ally Walt Mossberg - who was critical of MobileMe - to drive home the point that the MobileMe rollout was a flop.

"Mossberg," Jobs said, "our friend, is no longer writing good things about us.

Source: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/steve-jobs-mobile...

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#288

Post by SoftwareMaven »

Tichy wrote: post #265
ChuckMcM wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have completely missed the big picture here. Google charges 'volume' users of their maps API, that is part of the way they pay for it. The map "application" on iOS was a client that called Google Maps APIs and displayed the results. It generates a lot of volume, and Apple was going to have to start paying for that this year. you wrote: "For example if you show a map on your homepage with all the locations of your…

So now it is Google's fault that Apple ships a crappy maps app? Sorry, I think Apple just were too full of themselves, and they were greedy at the expense of their customers. As for the other story - sure, if Apple had demanded that the Google Maps app shows Apple Ads, not Google Ads, or that they get a share of the Ad revenue, then Google would walk away eventually. Obviously it is also worth something for Google to…

Why should it have been different with a Google maps app shipping with iOS?

Because the world of business development is very different from the world of consumer APIs. In a bizdev world, you want SLAs and contractually understood definitions of how both sides will behave. A company like Apple (or Google, Oracle, Microsoft, etc) isn't going to build a core feature of its product on somebody else's technology without understanding exactly what that means.

And all of that costs money.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#289

Post by enraged_camel »

ryannielsen wrote: post #278
enraged_camel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Jobs would never have allowed Maps to be released in this state to begin with.

So… you two both personally knew SJ? And SJ, while he was leading Apple, was always without fault? If that's the case, how do you explain Ping? MobileMe? The G4 Cube?

All of those were relatively minor projects, and likely off Steve's radar, which is why he could only berate the teams after the release. But maps is a major part of any smartphone experience - everyone knows it. And Steve would definitely would have paid close attention to it, especially since it involved trying to outdo a competitor's product.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#290

Post by SoftwareMaven »

angryasian wrote: post #264
toyg wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fair to say Apple couldn't improve it without help from Google. It's not like they could just switch to the officially-published API and hope Google would let through all the traffic.

Apple and Google had an agreement in place. It was apple that chose not to continue this agreement. Speculation: I find it hard to believe from a business perspective that Google would want to do anything to harm this relationship as the map and map search provider on the ios platform. Being the default service for maps on ios is a win for google. Even if they release an app at this point, they aren't the default whi…

It was apple that chose not to continue this agreement.

Do you have evidence of this? I find the history of this fascinating and have my own theories (that I've posted elsewhere), but this is a pretty definitive statement that isn't the way I imagined things going down.

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