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The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

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Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#311

Post by fpgeek »

bitcartel wrote: post #239
smikhanov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will have something much better in one year It certainly will be better but I'm not holding my breath about Apple maps surpassing Google Maps any time soon. Google bought a Rasmussen brothers' company (what eventually became Google Maps) in 2004. That's eight years of product development, data collection, storage and refining -- all at Google's pace. Will Apple find some shortcut to compress this time in one-tw…

Maybe this is as good as it gets. "Sources tell The Verge that Apple began work on the iOS 6 maps system nearly five years ago" http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/20/3363914/wrong-turn-apple-i...

Hold on a minute... Apple had already started working on replacing Google Maps approximately a year before Google had launched a single Android device?

Wow. Just wow. Now we see how strategically brilliant (and utterly necessary) Android actually was.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#312

Post by philwelch »

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?

The G4 Cube doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. It was a work of art.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#313

Post by philwelch »

cooldeal wrote: post #208
Maascamp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

>Microsoft got so such pass with WP7 and that was an entirely new OS/platform! Well, around tech circles, Apple and Google frequently get more free passes compared to Microsoft. And that's kind of funny because Nokia just put out a comparison with Apple and Google maps to cash in on this hoopla. http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/09/20/benchmarking-mobil...

> Apple and Google frequently get more free passes compared to Microsoft

Microsoft used up their free passes almost 20 years ago now.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#314

Post by fpgeek »

wonnage wrote: post #73
beatpanda wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that a maps app without transit and biking directions is "good enough", even if the driving and walking directions were accurate, betrays an extreme bias and disconnect with the way a lot of the world gets around. For Apple's set of rich customers in the U.S., yeah, maybe driving and walking are good enough. But "most of the people" is a huge overstatement.

Uhh...Apple has plenty of customers in metro areas like the Bay Area or New York, Tokyo, etc. that rely heavily on public transit (I'm one of them). There are plenty of reasons to hate on Apple but stupid populist rage is not one of them.

I think it is less about the customers being out-of-touch with transit users and more about the decisionmakers and the developers...

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#315

Post by simplexion »

heed wrote: post #300
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.

I wouldn't go as far as blaming the Maps team for this. It's not their fault they haven't had YEARS to catch up with Google.

It looks like a pretty good product to me. I think it's silly they have forced it onto people already but I wouldn't say it's bad. Just not as good as the competition yet.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#316

Post by fpgeek »

bluthru wrote: post #301
ilaksh wrote: post #217

But you're still going to buy Apple because that is what all of your rich and trendy friends use. I have never owned an Apple product. The main reason for this is related to class and/or culture and financial circumstances. My family was always very frugal and on the lower side of middle class. And honestly I'm frugal and so when I buy devices I am focused on value and bought a laptop with a good graphics card and ot…

>And honestly I'm frugal and so when I buy devices I am focused on value The iPhone is $200. You still can't get a tablet that matches the iPad 3 for $500. Saying Apple is expensive is like making one button mice jokes. Value is a product of usefulness and longevity, plus resale value. It's ridiculous to proclaim that Apple products aren't high on value--I still use my 2007 MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion. It works…

> The iPhone is $200.

The cheapest new iPhone on sale (the iPhone 4) is $450. If you think it costs less, that's because you have let Apple and the carriers fool you.

The cheapest Android, meanwhile, is less than $100. Even better, you can even get a new Galaxy Nexus for $100 less than the cheapest new iPhone.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#317

Post by fpgeek »

jpxxx wrote: post #66
cooldeal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then they could have spent the money hiring armies like Google's to get the map data right.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#318

Post by beedogs »

philwelch wrote: post #312
ryannielsen wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The G4 Cube doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. It was a work of art.

Except for the hairline cracking at the corners that happened to most of them.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#319

Post by beedogs »

diggan wrote: post #279
jsnell wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way that it was a unilateral decision by either company. Clearly there was some offer (e.g. more money, dropping patent lawsuits against Android) that Google would have been happy with. Or some terms that Apple would have been happy with (e.g. lower cost, access to more API features). It's not either party's fault alone that they couldn't agree about the terms.

Don't forget that Apple and Google is currently playing in the same game, smartphones and tablets. Probably a strategic move by Apple.

Strategic, perhaps, but terrible nonetheless.

Re: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

#320

Post by bluthru »

fpgeek wrote: post #316
bluthru wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And honestly I'm frugal and so when I buy devices I am focused on value The iPhone is $200. You still can't get a tablet that matches the iPad 3 for $500. Saying Apple is expensive is like making one button mice jokes. Value is a product of usefulness and longevity, plus resale value. It's ridiculous to proclaim that Apple products aren't high on value--I still use my 2007 MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion. It works…

> The iPhone is $200. The cheapest new iPhone on sale (the iPhone 4) is $450. If you think it costs less, that's because you have let Apple and the carriers fool you. The cheapest Android, meanwhile, is less than $100. Even better, you can even get a new Galaxy Nexus for $100 less than the cheapest new iPhone.

Fool me? What are you talking about?

If I get a S3 or an iPhone 5 via AT&T, the cost will be the same over 2 years.

So what you're really saying is, if I get an iPhone on contract, I'm getting more hardware for my dollar?

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