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Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

blog.telemapics.com

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Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#41

Post by cookiecaper »

dasil003 wrote: post #31
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.

Is this true though? It's easy for everyone for all the armchair CEOs to say that Jobs never would have released such an epic fail, but I'm not so sure. If there's one thing that Apple hates as much as a half-baked UX, it's dependency on another tech company. It seems pretty obvious to me as a casual developer and observer of Google maps over the years that global mapping is really really hard. How could Apple not ha…

Are Bing Maps this horrible? Couldn't they license those if they didn't have a choice? Or what about MapQuest? What about the maps used by GPS units? Couldn't they have made a deal with Garmin or Tomtom or someone like that? It may have taken more work than integration with Google, but it'd almost definitely take less work than starting from scratch. I definitely do not believe that their hands were tied and they were forced into creating their own shoddy, incomplete system.

On top of all that, I think Google has more business intelligence than to actually let the contract for iOS maps go. Maybe both sides were just bluffing and never thought the one party would cut the other loose, or something like that, but you'd think with a deal this big at some point someone would come back with their tail between their legs and reopen negotiations.

Of course, it's all speculation at this point anyway. It'd be nice if someone with knowledge could come in here and elucidate, though the likelihood of that is really small.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#42

Post by blrgeek »

lispm wrote: post #35

The article does not really provide much new information. That mapping is hard is known. That there are companies who have much experience in this area and that Apple will have to compete with them is known - from Google, over Garmin to Nokia. It's just that it is hard and that it will take Apple a lot of time and investment to bring the mapping functionality to a better level. I'm pretty sure Apple knows that. It's…

The article actually breaks down the exact lacunae in Apple's approach - it's certainly has more map domain specific insight than all the other articles on iOS6 Maps put together. And it has recommendations which are very specific and not hand-wavy.

From the article

1. Completeness – Features are absent and some features that are included seem to have erroneous attributes and relationships.

2. Logical Consistency - Expecting the data across different sources to be completely consistent ie 'An example of this could be having a store’s name, street number and street name correct, but mapping it in the wrong place'

3. Positional Accuracy – is considered the closeness of a coordinate value to values accepted as being true

4. Temporal Accuracy – particularly in respect to temporal validity – are the features that they map still in existence today?

5. Thematic Accuracy – particularly in respect to non-quantitative attribute correctness and classification correctness.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#43

Post by locopati »

cageface wrote: post #18

Where was Apple's QA on this? This seems like a colossal oversight for a company previously known for sweating all the small details.

My guess would be QA found lots of problems, reported them, fought for them, and, at the end of the day, deadlines are deadlines and the maps app shipped. QA is not some magical barrier and usually is overridden when a go/no-go decision meets are hard ship date (like 'this device must be released now because there's an entire supply chain and retail chain that needs to be coordinated').

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#44

Post by skeletonjelly »

cookiecaper wrote: post #41
dasil003 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true though? It's easy for everyone for all the armchair CEOs to say that Jobs never would have released such an epic fail, but I'm not so sure. If there's one thing that Apple hates as much as a half-baked UX, it's dependency on another tech company. It seems pretty obvious to me as a casual developer and observer of Google maps over the years that global mapping is really really hard. How could Apple not ha…

Are Bing Maps this horrible? Couldn't they license those if they didn't have a choice? Or what about MapQuest? What about the maps used by GPS units? Couldn't they have made a deal with Garmin or Tomtom or someone like that? It may have taken more work than integration with Google, but it'd almost definitely take less work than starting from scratch. I definitely do not believe that their hands were tied and they wer…

I thought Apple did have a relationship with Tomtom for this?

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#45

Post by iaskwhy »

tonfa wrote: post #27
zalew wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From my previous edits, I think it's in the order of weeks.

Two to three weeks on my unique attempt since I reported it. Maybe because it was a major location, in Westminster there was an Iceland store showing on top of Parliament Square.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#46

Post by zenocon »

blrgeek wrote: post #37
zenocon wrote: post #29

> My overall view of the companies that it (Apple) has assembled to create its application is that they are, as a whole, rated “C-grade” suppliers. This just amazes me. For the longest time there were really only two suppliers of data: Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ. Everything else wasn't worth touching b/c the quality sucked. Then Google collected their own in their little cars and stopped paying suppliers. I'm not sure why…

Isn't the TomTom data really the Tele Atlas data set? Apple has no lack of hubris - in some things they succeed spectacularly beyond all expectations, and in others - well MobileMe, Ping, and now Maps...

Yes, Tele Atlas was acquired by Tom Tom about 5-6 years ago, so it is the same.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#47

Post by cookiecaper »

lispm wrote: post #35

The article does not really provide much new information. That mapping is hard is known. That there are companies who have much experience in this area and that Apple will have to compete with them is known - from Google, over Garmin to Nokia. It's just that it is hard and that it will take Apple a lot of time and investment to bring the mapping functionality to a better level. I'm pretty sure Apple knows that. It's…

>It's just the first iteration. Apple works that way.

Sure, all software works this way. We all know the "release early, release often" mantra. The difference is that Apple replaced functionality that many users depended upon with something completely inadequate. It'd be like Sun or IBM going in and replacing all the super specialized custom microprocessors in your server farm with experimental souped-up 386es. Sure, they're the same type of thing, and hypothetically they should serve the same function, but you don't just go out and replace completely functional stuff without at least the basics firmly in place.

It is clear that Apple released iOS Maps very prematurely, mid-development. This was stupid, and there's really no use splitting hairs about it. Some bugs or problems are to be expected, but a critical function that most of your users depend upon, that has real, serious consequences if failure occurs (lost in a dark alley, etc. etc.) ought to be better than what Apple has put out. Add to this Apple's draconian policies that forbid Google from offering "Google Maps" as a third-party app on the App Store (though I guess today it looks like they may be waffling a bit on this), and you have a very serious problem.

I guess we can say that it may be good for Android adoption. :)

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#48

Post by epo »

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 is smarter than this. They would not have released such a half-baked replacement unless they were forced to. I suspect Google refused to renew knowing Apple were working on a replacement but were not yet ready.

This is Apple's "Vista" moment and will inevitably draw the "wouldn't have happened under Jobs" comments. How Apple recovers will form business school study material for years to come.

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#49

Post by dvanduzer »

blrgeek wrote: post #33
dvanduzer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 devi…

From what I've heard, Google had an army of around 1000+ contract workers in Hyderabad, India, cleaning up the data for about 5 years. If anything 400 man-years sounds low :) This is apart from MapMaker, and their dev teams, and their software improvements. For instance, if you look at directions in India now, they're awesome, since they tell you landmarks to look for on the way [pass by * on left], at the intersecti…

I don't think 3-4 years is a crazy estimate. This is pretty cutting edge stuff. If you hadn't already seen it, the Atlantic piece on the technology is a fantastic read: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-go...

On the other hand, this actually is one of the rarer problems where throwing 10,000 contract workers from India for 5 months could solve much of the problem, especially since Google has already paved the way on the harder parts.

What I really want to see is a serious quality comparison between Apple and OSM.

edit: And the million dollar question... How much of Google's map data was correlated/verified against iPhone positioning data?

Re: Google Maps' advantage over Apple Maps

#50

Post by cookiecaper »

skeletonjelly wrote: post #44
cookiecaper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Bing Maps this horrible? Couldn't they license those if they didn't have a choice? Or what about MapQuest? What about the maps used by GPS units? Couldn't they have made a deal with Garmin or Tomtom or someone like that? It may have taken more work than integration with Google, but it'd almost definitely take less work than starting from scratch. I definitely do not believe that their hands were tied and they wer…

I thought Apple did have a relationship with Tomtom for this?

Yes, you're apparently right: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-tomtom-ios-6-maps/

I'm not sure what all that deal entails, so it's hard to say whether it could have been better executed upon, other than to say it's clearly not ready yet. I find it hard to believe, however, that all of the incorrect placement of destinations and, in some cases, even the inclusion of destinations that have not existed for decades, also occur in TomTom's car navigation systems.

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