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Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

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Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#101

Post by ndr42 »

tomaskafka wrote: post #81
ndr42 wrote: post #63

I don't know if anybody else is so petty like me regarding installing new apps but while I can't say anything about the app itself, I just wanted to know how much it would cost, if it is an subscription and so on. But it was not possible from the app store page itself. Have a look, how confusing it is: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@ndr/116483475865871622 It shows a lot of price points from 1€ all up to 45€ without…

This is Apple's work - they show all enabled purchases/subscriptions author have enabled for price testing. And once you add one, removing it would mean the user's subscriptions auto-renew would get canceled, so they stay and accumulate. And there is no way for the app to mark "this is the current pricing".

Does that mean if I subscribed for 22.99€ it would stay that way year after year?

What could be the reason that Apple designed it this way? The only reason I can think of is customer protection (say 1€ a month changes to 100€ a month and you user does not pay attention).

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#102

Post by gumby271 »

ascertain_john wrote: post #92
yreg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Apple uses private APIs that are forbidden to developers on the App Store to compete with them it's not exactly fair. So I wouldn't say it's a failure that they don't do that even more often .

APIs are hard to get right the first time. I could see why they wouldn't want to release one until they've dogfooded and refined it. That said, I'd love to see them take an approach unstable API release that requires the app to show a warning like "This app relies on unfinished features that may change or stop working entirely in the future, requiring the seller to release an apo update." and require them to launch i…

I feel like we could expect a bit more from the billion dollar company to support new apis. They have a solid mechanism to deprecate apis and force developers to rebuild their apps already, just shorten that window for the cutting edge apis released in preview.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#103

Post by toasty228 »

ndr42 wrote: post #101
tomaskafka wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Apple's work - they show all enabled purchases/subscriptions author have enabled for price testing. And once you add one, removing it would mean the user's subscriptions auto-renew would get canceled, so they stay and accumulate. And there is no way for the app to mark "this is the current pricing".

Does that mean if I subscribed for 22.99€ it would stay that way year after year? What could be the reason that Apple designed it this way? The only reason I can think of is customer protection (say 1€ a month changes to 100€ a month and you user does not pay attention).

Your question implies someone "designs" things and given the state of the apple app store I'm not sure any form of conscious life is in charge of it

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#104

Post by dylan604 »

SllX wrote: post #54
dylan604 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some people are too young to remember Apple's Maps v1. Even Tim Apple recently mentioned that debacle in what was essentially an exit interview.

I recently switched back to Google Maps after Apple announced ads were coming to Apple Maps, since if the default Maps app is going to be saddled with ads on my thousands of dollars worth of Apple hardware anyway , I may as well use the best. And yeah, let’s be honest, Apple Maps is good enough for most use cases, but Google Maps blows it out of the fucking water. In that light, I may be hard pressed to call it a deb…

> In that light, I may be hard pressed to call it a debacle, but it’s still third-rate.

Not sure how that isn't a debacle:

"The product wasn’t ready," Cook, who will step down as CEO in September, said during an Apple town hall on April 21, Bloomberg reported. "We apologized for it and we said, 'Go use these other apps. They're better than ours.' And that was a humble pie. But it was the right thing for our users."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2026/04/24/tim-cook...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-22/tim-cook-...

(Bloomberg site paywalled, so used a non-paywalled source quoting Bloomberg)

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#105

Post by arjie »

sobjornstad wrote: post #88
arjie wrote: post #13

Apple Maps on WatchOS is pretty good but the usual routine is that I get on my bike with a route set and 3 minutes in the “are you working out?” screen takes over and I can’t see the maps without stopping to turn it off. Surely that screen should turn into a notification or silently record after some time without taking over the screen. I’m surprised to hear people at Apple work on this because surely they must encou…

I was looking to see if someone had commented on this. For me it sometimes even happens if I start the workout before starting navigation – it will start off in the right configuration but then suddenly switch back to workout data in the middle of the ride. Google Maps on the iPhone has a similar problem where a banner notification can block the section at the top that shows the next turn. If it's persistent (e.g., a…

Hahaha the Google Maps thing is so annoying. “You have Astra’s appointment in 30 min”. Yeah, genius, that’s what I’m driving to. Infuriating.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#106

Post by astafrig »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #72
astafrig wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch I regularly use hiking and topography maps on my Apple Watch with the first party maps app, so it sure what you’re talking about

That's a regional feature not available everywhere

Everything involving geography is a regional feature because it takes time to create things for physical stuff across the physical world; its not just some arbitrary limitation like streaming media.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#107

Post by redserk »

ascertain_john wrote: post #92
yreg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Apple uses private APIs that are forbidden to developers on the App Store to compete with them it's not exactly fair. So I wouldn't say it's a failure that they don't do that even more often .

APIs are hard to get right the first time. I could see why they wouldn't want to release one until they've dogfooded and refined it. That said, I'd love to see them take an approach unstable API release that requires the app to show a warning like "This app relies on unfinished features that may change or stop working entirely in the future, requiring the seller to release an apo update." and require them to launch i…

1) Apple has had a lot of functionality gated for many years. I’d buy the “they need to refine it” if they had a track record of actually opening things up without the hammer of regulation forcing them to.

2) This is a solved problem. You throw a “this is an experimental API, it’s interface may change”

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#108

Post by interloxia »

SllX wrote: post #54
dylan604 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some people are too young to remember Apple's Maps v1. Even Tim Apple recently mentioned that debacle in what was essentially an exit interview.

I recently switched back to Google Maps after Apple announced ads were coming to Apple Maps, since if the default Maps app is going to be saddled with ads on my thousands of dollars worth of Apple hardware anyway , I may as well use the best. And yeah, let’s be honest, Apple Maps is good enough for most use cases, but Google Maps blows it out of the fucking water. In that light, I may be hard pressed to call it a deb…

Examples.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/24/apple-maps-ads-what-to-...

How to advertise in Google Maps

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16388390?hl=en

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#109

Post by jorvi »

ascertain_john wrote: post #92
yreg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Apple uses private APIs that are forbidden to developers on the App Store to compete with them it's not exactly fair. So I wouldn't say it's a failure that they don't do that even more often .

APIs are hard to get right the first time. I could see why they wouldn't want to release one until they've dogfooded and refined it. That said, I'd love to see them take an approach unstable API release that requires the app to show a warning like "This app relies on unfinished features that may change or stop working entirely in the future, requiring the seller to release an apo update." and require them to launch i…

Apple Maps has been able to display full-size navigation on the lockscreen since iOS 7 or 8 (?). Apple Maps also has access to a special style of notification that no other navigation app has.

iOS 7 was released in 2013. 13 years ago, aeons in tech land.

So "APIs are hard to get right the first time. I could see why they wouldn't want to release one until they've dogfooded and refined it." is crap. They're hoarding private API access purely for competitive advantage in services.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#110

Post by NetMageSCW »

gumby271 wrote: post #102
ascertain_john wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

APIs are hard to get right the first time. I could see why they wouldn't want to release one until they've dogfooded and refined it. That said, I'd love to see them take an approach unstable API release that requires the app to show a warning like "This app relies on unfinished features that may change or stop working entirely in the future, requiring the seller to release an apo update." and require them to launch i…

I feel like we could expect a bit more from the billion dollar company to support new apis. They have a solid mechanism to deprecate apis and force developers to rebuild their apps already, just shorten that window for the cutting edge apis released in preview.

As a developer, that’s a good way to get unused APIs and fewer apps.
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