271–280 of 308 posts
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Due to iOS Maps using vector tiles once it's been loaded you can switch it into offline mode and the tiles will persist.
so that would be a no then. you still need internet connection to download the initial data. nokia's app is fully offline
And yes, I have a Nokia, the maps don't come pre-loaded.
I hope Google waits a few months and then rolls out a premium-purchase maps feature. Then, when Apple demands their 30% and Google refuses, Apple has to pull the app again and frustrate all their users again. Not saying that's what will happen, but I can dream.
Why would you want that?
That, and Apple has always annoyed me since I can remember...so for me personally, it's just nice to see them lose.
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The answer is clearly yes - this largely removes one reason why someone might prefer Android over iOS. Hard to say how big the effect is, though.
Especially since Apple are clearly working to improve their own maps. If/when they hit (or near) parity, they'll have the massive advantage of being bundled. At least before, they were maintaining a long term position as the major maps app. If they lose 90% of these users when in a year or two when Apple improve their maps, it would just have been a wasted opportunity to sell androids, especially the high end ones.
The thing is that Google is also working constantly to improve its maps, and has a far larger and more experienced team doing so than Apple.
[Besides the underlying infrastructure which forms the bulk the effort, now that Google has its own app, they have a very definite incentive to keep improving it (whereas in the case of the iOS5 maps app, there were artificial constraints preventing it from being kept up-to-date).]
There's no guarantee that Apple ever will hit parity; indeed, they may simply fall farther behind...
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As many commenters have said, it wasn't necessarily Apple's choice to make the change, and they were bound to their own release schedule.
And as has been rehashed over and over, it was Apple's choice. They simply prioritized other things over Maps. Do not confuse not having a choice with choosing to wait until you were under constraints to make difficult choices.
Sort of off-topic and I've harped on this before, but when I search "google maps" in the app store, it's the fifth search result! As a developer in the App Store, I really hope they do something to fix the abysmal searches in it.
I think this happens due to the way the App Store time-weights many metrics. expect it to be top tomorrow.
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Which means you must be using it in a browser, on a Java phone/blackberry, or in iOS 5. Try the new iOS app or an Android phone.
I'm using the maps app on and Android phone. When I zoom in, I see the pixelation before the new tileset loads. Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
Also, even though it's vector-based, there's still different tiles for different zoom levels. For example, with different levels of detail.
Actually I think Apple won here. Google was refusing to release a turn by turn direction update to their apps. By developing an Apple Map App with turn by turn, they kind of forced GooG to provide it on iOS platform. Also, it is very difficult for google to ignore ios users.
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No, I mean Apple won't get the many data faults I report, the missing POI reports or the incorrect POI reports. Apple has an entire globe to cover, it'll improve incrementally globally but improve locally for me if I'm reporting my concerns.
Are Apple doing anything with those bug reports, though? In my area, bugs reported 2.5 months ago still haven't been corrected. (If you are seeing improvements though, more power to you.)
I'm guessing it varies by city/state/country, no idea how apple is actually vetting the reports but I've had no issues.
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What do you mean "if I stop using it it won't get better"? Do you mean apple will stop supporting it? I'm having trouble seeing why you can't stop using it for a year until it gets better.
No, I mean Apple won't get the many data faults I report, the missing POI reports or the incorrect POI reports. Apple has an entire globe to cover, it'll improve incrementally globally but improve locally for me if I'm reporting my concerns.
For giggles, if only 10% of people with iphones report one error a week, calculate how many full time people it would require to process them.
In reality, their biggest problem is probably operator (IE people reading reports) time, not lack of error reports. I would take a massive data entry operation to handle them all.
If they are smart, they will have realized by now that relying on user reports to correct things is basically impossible, unless it's an automated system, which has it's own issues.
In short: If you think crowdsourcing is the way they will solve their data/data quality issues, you are probably wrong.