21–30 of 38 posts
I agree that Apple have done a better presentation here by showing more data at a further zoom level. It's the exact opposite of my experience of Apple Maps here in Japan - I have to zoom in to absurd levels just to see train tracks (which should be on par with freeways IMO)
If I zoom in one more step than he did on Google Maps, I see the same POIs as on his Apple map. And the copyright on maps.google.com is... "AutoNavi", the same provider he praises. I agree that Apple have done a better presentation here by showing more data at a further zoom level. It's the exact opposite of my experience of Apple Maps here in Japan - I have to zoom in to absurd levels just to see train tracks (which…
I'm in China right now, and yes Google Maps is shit, at least in China. The AutoNav Maps iOS 6 utilizes is quite a bit better. That been said, in China the one map you have to beat is Baidu, and I see Apple still have a long way to go.
If I zoom in one more step than he did on Google Maps, I see the same POIs as on his Apple map. And the copyright on maps.google.com is... "AutoNavi", the same provider he praises. I agree that Apple have done a better presentation here by showing more data at a further zoom level. It's the exact opposite of my experience of Apple Maps here in Japan - I have to zoom in to absurd levels just to see train tracks (which…
The font that they chose for the area names is also incredibly wide, which works well for something like "Brooklyn" but not for a name as long as "KakamigaharaHonmachi," which is pretty standard for a Japanese town.
Everyone I've talked to in Japan who has upgraded regrets it.
All was almost a disaster until a co-worker returned from a year in Beijing and brought a small stack of locally produced paper maps of the city back with him, with careful notes where they were "not accurate". We kept 4 or 5 interns busy for a summer converting the various paper maps into digital vector data we were able to use with our GIS systems.
So the fact that less than a generation later, people are complaining that the iOS maps lack sufficient detail of the countryside or whatever is almost mindboggling to me.
On a similar note, recent travels in Seoul have also reminded me how bad our GPS systems are no matter the provider. The average GPS most people use to get around with has astonishing levels of detail[1] by anyone's standards. Would that google maps had that level of detail even in just big cities I'd be amazed.
[1] - Some sample screenshots http://www.navigadget.com/index.php/tag/inavi and yes, they do really look that good.
edit this is pretty good http://map.baidu.com/
I'm in China right now, and yes Google Maps is shit, at least in China. The AutoNav Maps iOS 6 utilizes is quite a bit better. That been said, in China the one map you have to beat is Baidu, and I see Apple still have a long way to go.
Baidu Map is not shit only if you download and store 10G+ map data on your phone
For most of the prefecture level cities I've searched for I find nothing. Kunming, Maoming, Sanya, Zhanjiang, Nanning, Nanchang, ... It's only the big international cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzou, Shenzhen, that appear.
I think if you view that data from outside China, it's not visible. That is, the details show up only while searching from within China.
Meanwhile, searching for a Broadway address a few blocks away from the Manhattan Apple Store in SoHo led to directions to Broadway in Brooklyn, NY. I've used Apple products since 1993 (Centris 610) and even owned a Powerbook G3 trapped on ADB and a G4 Cube. I've put up with all sorts of weirdness from Apple over the years. The point of technology is to help you do your job better. I saw my future of late meetings, ge…
I'm getting the feeling that most problems with the new Maps come from it's subpar recommendation/auto-correct engine, which (unsurprisingly) is great in Google maps. It gets thing right if you type exact, complete addresses, but can fail miserably on basic queries.
Is it just me, or do the two examples look pretty similar? Apple Maps shows a few more businesses, but the street data look more or less equivalent. Find me some examples where Apple Maps is complete and detailed and Google Maps has nothing.
Bonus: if you look closely at the bottom, iOS Maps shows a clear bifurcation while Google just merges it into a blob.
That being said, it is important to put this in perspective. While the overall Chinese smartphone market will soon be larger than the US smartphone market, the portion currently addressable by Apple (people who will buy a smartphone that costs 450 USD and up and won't support 3G on the largest carrier) is much, much smaller. Improved maps can't be a significant part of a plan to address this because they have no impact on the bigger issues.
Show me a cheap iPhone with TD-SCDMA and I'll agree that Apple is serious about the Chinese market. Until then...