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Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

blog.telemapics.com

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Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#11

Post by zalew »

jeffpalmer wrote: post #6
zalew wrote: post #4

TIL about Google Map Maker. Just corrected a few issues in my neighborhood, they got approved, I wonder when they get into Google Maps. Anyone knows how long it takes? Google's email sent to me just says "Soon you will be able to see your edit live on Google Maps."

From the FAQ: "How does Reviewing work? Why is my edit still pending/not yet live on Maps?" "All new edits need to be reviewed by another mapper. The more you successfully contribute to Map Maker, the more trust you will gain in the system and the easier it will be for you to make and review other changes to the map. If your edit is still pending and not on Google Maps, it has likely not been reviewed yet. You can po…

email #1 "Thank you for helping to improve Google Maps. Once approved, your contribution will appear on Google Maps for everyone to see. Thanks and happy mapping! "

email #2 "Congratulations! We have made changes based on your suggestion on Map Maker. Soon you will be able to see your edit live on Google Maps. Thank you for your contribution to Google Map Maker, and happy mapping! "

it's got status 'published'. is it pending some another review? I've read the faq and learn more, but still have no clue, the terminology is vague and a post from 2010 on a discussion group says 4-6 months to live.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#12

Post by blrgeek »

dvanduzer wrote: post #9
ericHosick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the 400 years referes to the number of people-years used to manually clean up map information?

So it's a problem that $4 billion could solve in a few days, right?

If you can get 14600 workers who can do this work and the software, you could do it in 10 days.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#13

Post by hythloday »

"[Apple's] problem is that they thought they did not have a problem."

Crucial insight, there. From the perspective of an observer who has no special affection for Apple, it's surprising that a company of that competence would succumb to such a basic process error.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#15

Post by peteretep »

hythloday wrote: post #13

"[Apple's] problem is that they thought they did not have a problem." Crucial insight, there. From the perspective of an observer who has no special affection for Apple, it's surprising that a company of that competence would succumb to such a basic process error.

This is the first event that people will put down to a lack of Steve Jobs that I think actually might reflect that...

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#16

Post by ed_blackburn »

The suggestion to acquire TomTom is certainly bold and thought provoking. If you live in a city like London maps is essential and a core feature for phones.

Google must be pissing themselves laughing. Just as Apple get their act together google will probably wade in with a killer app? OR will they? Perhaps they'll not bother and use it as a marketing ploy to push Android?

Fascinating article.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#17

Post by zalew »

dvanduzer wrote: post #9
ericHosick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the 400 years referes to the number of people-years used to manually clean up map information?

So it's a problem that $4 billion could solve in a few days, right?

9 women won't give birth in a month.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#19

Post by saurik »

hythloday wrote: post #13

"[Apple's] problem is that they thought they did not have a problem." Crucial insight, there. From the perspective of an observer who has no special affection for Apple, it's surprising that a company of that competence would succumb to such a basic process error.

Apple actually makes this kind of mistake often: they positively excel at some things (retail relationships, hardware supply chains, physical design, software integration) but really suck at other things (social experiences, data harvesting and search, data synchronization and security, dealing with developers): even "within" the Apple community this leads to a number of well-known failures, from Ping (a similar situation to Maps, with Apple suddenly being forced to compete with Facebook as a deal fell through for functionality they considered critical) to MobileMe (now replaced by iCloud, which has its own set of glaring issues which, if you haven't noticed them now, you might the first time you need to restore an 8GB iCloud backup "all-or-nothing" on the same day tens of millions of other users are attempting to restore their devices with a new version of the firmware).

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#20

Post by dvanduzer »

blrgeek wrote: post #12
dvanduzer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's a problem that $4 billion could solve in a few days, right?

If you can get 14600 workers who can do this work and the software, you could do it in 10 days.

I thought it was reasonably entertaining to consider 400 salary years at $100k each just to see what the numbers looked like.

Apple has had trouble with Big Data, in the parlance, but iCloud is still running. They've made some pretty dumb mistakes with their online services over the years, but they still do happen to be syncing data (if even just push notifications) to something on the order of a hundred million devices.

Catching up to where Google Maps is today will take somewhere between 10 days and 400 years. I'll bet good money that they have this nailed within a 95% tolerance before next year's new hardware model.

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