Only if there was a way to set Google Maps as the default map/address-finding app. Anyone know how to accomplish this?
Right now, touching any addresses you have saved under a contact will open up Apple's Maps app.
Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
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Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#102Frankly, Tim Cook should shut down the entire Apple Maps division. Who in their right mind is going to use Apple Maps at this point? Try searching "Pier 39 San Francisco". The query can't be any more specific, and it's the most iconic location for tourists, and Apple Maps will bring you to a pretty shady area of town, only a mile or two away from Hunter's Point, one of the more violent areas of SF.
No wonder he is the CEO and you aren't. Think LOOOOONG term, in a few years Apple will catch Google for the most part (hello AAPL bank accounts and increase of usage!) and Apple will not depend on a major competitor for a crucial aspect of the mobile world. Google is the loser, despite Apple having a few growing pains.
A good CEO knows when to stop throwing good money after bad. Apple will NEVER reach the search domain expertise of Google, and Maps is too valuable to let turn into a complete debacle, as Apple has learned.
We have given Apple so much money THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH IT. They have $120B in the bank, more cash than any other company has ever had. They can buy very famous companies for cash, like Cisco, Dell, Facebook, etc, and even banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, etc. This is a crazy amount of cash, and they are clueless as what to do with it.
I know what I would do, I would throw some of that money to improve the quality of my product for the sake of my hundreds of millions of customers. I would admit defeat, and I would pay Google for a license in perpetuity for Google Maps to be on iPhone. I would engage in some sort of rev/data share with the Maps app and throw them a few billion. Win-Win-Win for everyone.
Sure, maybe Apple doesn't extract every single red cent from the deal, but money is of secondary or tertiary importance here. Their money is already relatively useless sitting in a bank account making 0% interest. And sure, maybe they left money on the table, and maybe Apple overpays and gets the short end of the stick for once, but it's called taking one for the team. Customers get the very best maps technology and a permanent agreement to always have access to it, and Apple can stop being distracted by one of the most important aspects of a smartphone experience, which is location services. They can continue innovating in things that will make them money, like newer designs, etc.
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#103Frankly, Tim Cook should shut down the entire Apple Maps division. Who in their right mind is going to use Apple Maps at this point? Try searching "Pier 39 San Francisco". The query can't be any more specific, and it's the most iconic location for tourists, and Apple Maps will bring you to a pretty shady area of town, only a mile or two away from Hunter's Point, one of the more violent areas of SF.
Actually, this app is way better than what was provided before, so it is a net plus to have a Maps division at Apple.
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#104Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, what did people do BEFORE a smartphone! It's a wonder a human being ever found a hospital before Google saved the human race from it's own helplessness!
There's a difference between not having a smart phone and having a smart phone that actively misleads you.
No, there's not as big a difference as you're implying -- because ALL mapping data is imperfect, therefore ALL smartphones are capable of actively misleading you. And paper maps can mislead, as well! (I'm trying to think how many "this place is closed/moved/never here" notices I sent Google Maps myself, because of the number of times I've been misled by Google Maps!)
A smartphone is not a replacement for common sense. In Apple Maps, you can clearly look at your destination and say "Hmm, wow, that doesn't look like sprawling medical complex, perhaps this tiny out of the way building isn't a hospital".
People have been misled by Google Maps and MapQuest and Tom Tom for years and years. How common are stories of people driving off of cliffs or other such nonsense because a GPS said so?
Yes, Apple Maps isn't perfect, but it's a long shot better than Google Maps and MapQuest were six months into the product, and is actively providing superior maps to the baseline of a decade ago, or even five years ago.
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn't you just use car/walking directions?
Google Maps optimizes bike directions for bikers using bike paths, roads with lower speed limits, roads with dedicated bike lanes, and even bike trails through public parks.
Cool, I didn't know that. Does the Android version of Google Maps have this?
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you're wrong. It's not with the data. It's with Apple's ability to search. Like I said below, look up "Pier 39 San Francisco". This is a dead simple query, extremely specific, and they point you to a really bad area of SF. This isn't Tom Tom data, it's how Apple resolves this query to something useful. Search is Google's domain expertise. Apple needs to basically start from scratch and figure out how to create a…
Apple Maps also doesn't handle small spelling mistakes (transposed letters) well. That's been one of the most annoying things.
Having played with a toy geolocation feature detector for text, I can safely say it's extremely hard to do well.
My first attempt is inspired by Peter Norvig's spelling corrector using a corpus built from the places2k.txt file, but it gets confused when the words are transposed. My guess is that Google is using some sort of n-gram based approach for maps and search, where as their little sidebar map is similar to what I built. (Or only applied to the most clear-cut n-gram—a little while ago there was a search for the movie "The end of the world" that would return a definitive date, which went slightly viral.)
Try searching in Google for "San Francisco" versus "Francisco San." Maps is fine, the search is fine, but only the first version brings up the little related info sidebar on the search page.
I'm surprised that Apple had such a hard time dealing with search, since they have some experience with Siri. I should have trusted this guy's opinion more:
http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2011/10/siri-techn...
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#108Nokia Maps give one the ability to download maps locally to the phone. Do either Google Maps or iOS Maps have that feature?
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
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely you agree that your example is a non-standard address. The things are more important to get right: postal addresses, searches for company names, airports, schools, searches for intersections. Of course you want to get the other things right like, parks (what's the pinpoint location of a park?) and things like pier 39. But those errors don't make Apple Maps a non-starter. I've been using it in the Bay Area with…
If you need the user to visit the website of their intended destination to figure out how to search for it then you need to hit the drawing board.
Well, that's the point I'm trying to make. It's not a hit the drawing board problem, it's a refine the algorithm problem. How many "if you google this string, you can't find the right site" problems have there been in the life of Google search? They continue to refine pageranking don't they?
Re: Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, no worries then. A few thousand people who don't get to hospitals or who end up in dangerous situations is not LOOOOOONG term thinking and can safely be ignored.
Wow, what did people do BEFORE a smartphone! It's a wonder a human being ever found a hospital before Google saved the human race from it's own helplessness!
>Wow, what did people do BEFORE a smartphone!
The question is not what they did BEFORE the smartphone, but what they do now. What they do now is to use the maps application that came with the device they bought.