Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 619 posts

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#31

Post by dvt »

I accidentally used Apple Maps once as I was going to a (new) doctor's office. I realized I was using Apple maps halfway through my drive and I joked with myself that it wouldn't bring me to the right place. I was heading to a fairly large medical complex in Orange County (CA) and I sort-of had an idea of where I was going anyway, but boy, was I wrong.

According to Apple maps, the doctor's office was literally in the middle of a field. I missed it the first time around (drove past it for a few miles, following my GPSs instructions) and then soon realized that I was already going through residential areas.

Never again, Apple. For context, this was 3 months ago. This doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve. My guess is that Apple just gave up.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#32

Post by EGreg »

These building footprints, complete with height detail, are algorithmically created by taking aerial imagery and using computer vision techniques to render the building shapes.

I could have guessed that before the punchline. And it's not that difficult to add for a company with tens of billions in cash. What are you doing, Apple? Fix your OS and Maps!

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#33

Post by CydeWeys »

0003 wrote: post #8
jld wrote: post #7

Google Maps is my pick for the coolest website on the internet. Truly a killer app.

Can maps be a killer app?

Why not? How do you define "killer app"? Maps is one of my very highest used apps, alongside chat/text/email. I'd say it's more revolutionary than all of those, because chat/text/email were just mobile versions of apps perfected on desktop, but a mobile map app shows you exactly where you are, which changes everything. I've traveled internationally both in the pre- and post- smartphone era, and let me tell you, travel is way easier now.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#34

Post by gr33nman »

wutbrodo wrote: post #25

Is there a reason anyone uses Apple Maps, aside from wanting to avoid Google out of principle/privacy/monoculture concerns? To be clear, these are entirely legitimate reasons, but I was wondering if the product has any direct benefits for the user (which is a coherent subset of reasons given the modal users' level of concern about systemic issues). I'm not trying to randomly snipe at Apple here, I just know very litt…

I use Apple Maps when walking because of the nice turn by turn integration with the Apple Watch.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#35

Post by ucaetano »

ajkjk wrote: post #9

Things like this make me think that it's a shame humanity is duplicating all this work instead of collaborating to do it once. One of the awkward failures of capitalism, I guess. At least when your product is something physical you end up with twice as many outputs. When it's just data you just do the same work twice.

> One of the awkward failures of capitalism, I guess.

No, it's actually a feature: competition. With a single product in every category it would be impossible to have diversity of ideas being tested and competing.

It is the same with evolution.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#36

Post by l1n »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #5
donalhunt wrote: post #3

I'm not overly surprised that Google have added so many buildings in such a short time... This IS the same company that re-encoded the whole YouTube corpus (which while small at the time was still a considerable about of content) in a weekend to improve the user experience (SD -> HD launch).

I can't find anything about this re-encode - do you have a link to read about it?

It's mentioned at the end of this blog post: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2009/11/1080p-hd-comes-to-you...

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#37

Post by freetime2 »

brianxq3 wrote: post #26
wutbrodo wrote: post #25

Is there a reason anyone uses Apple Maps, aside from wanting to avoid Google out of principle/privacy/monoculture concerns? To be clear, these are entirely legitimate reasons, but I was wondering if the product has any direct benefits for the user (which is a coherent subset of reasons given the modal users' level of concern about systemic issues). I'm not trying to randomly snipe at Apple here, I just know very litt…

I use it primarily because of integration with the lock screen and integration with CarPlay.

I would like to use it for these reasons, and also that the Apple Maps UI just feels a little nicer to me than the Google Maps app on iOS. There's also the unfortunate fact that Apple doesn't allow users to select a default maps application, so Apple maps integrates better with Messages and other 3rd party apps.

But even with all of these reasons, Google's data and search capabilities are so much better than Apple's that they make Apple Maps feel unusable by comparison.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#38

Post by londons_explore »

EGreg wrote: post #32

These building footprints, complete with height detail, are algorithmically created by taking aerial imagery and using computer vision techniques to render the building shapes. I could have guessed that before the punchline. And it's not that difficult to add for a company with tens of billions in cash. What are you doing, Apple? Fix your OS and Maps!

You need aerial imagery from different angles.

Thats surprisingly hard to buy from imagery providers, because most of them only want to point their cameras directly downwards.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#39

Post by danso »

mcrady wrote: post #15
0003 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can maps be a killer app?

I launched Google Maps for mobile in 2005. In 2006, Eric Schmidt was worried that Yahoo Go was a killer app. My claim that Google Maps was the real killer app fell on deaf ears. :)

I consider myself an old tech geek but "Yahoo Go" rings absolutely no bells for me.

What was Google Maps for mobile in 2005? Those were flip phone days for me.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#40

Post by Lunatic666 »

dvt wrote: post #31

I accidentally used Apple Maps once as I was going to a (new) doctor's office. I realized I was using Apple maps halfway through my drive and I joked with myself that it wouldn't bring me to the right place. I was heading to a fairly large medical complex in Orange County (CA) and I sort-of had an idea of where I was going anyway, but boy, was I wrong. According to Apple maps, the doctor's office was literally in the…

In Singapore the Apple Maps capabilities seem to be a little better, after they introduced bus lines a couple of months ago I’m using it as my main guide to go around the city or when I’m lost. The general direction is always correct, points of interest or businesses are sometimes missing, but it feels like they’re improving, so I don’t think they gave up on it. I think they just don’t put so much effort on it compared to Google, because the data gathered from the service doesn’t have the same value for Apple.
Post reply on HN