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

Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 476 posts

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#431

Post by xenadu02 »

woahitsraj wrote: post #430
ed312 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

Because unlike Google, Apple is a California and especially Cupertino centric company so most of their employees have probably never used mapping outside the confines of their car. Transit and walking directions are decent on Apple Maps but still leaps and bounds behind Google Maps. Just shows how forcing all your employees to live and work in the same place is incredibly limiting

That is not accurate at all. Biking is huge and many employees use public transit all across the Bay Area.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#432

Post by galangalalgol »

stouset wrote: post #381
galangalalgol wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As recently as a month ago apple maps sent my coworker miles from his destination to a very bad part of town. It is still pretty bad.

So… your friend entered the wrong address?

My coworker claimed they entered the name of a chain store and it sent them to a dead strip mall.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#433

Post by chipotle_coyote »

commoner wrote: post #400
Someone wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never heard that argument as to why Apple avoids the GPL. I also don’t see how it is consistent with their behavior. For example, Apple wouldn’t need to change anything to bash to make its latest version run on MacOS. Yet, they don’t ship it. On the other hand, the argument that they don’t avoid the GPL in general, but specifically GPLv3 because of legal concerns is consistent with their behavior. They shipped t…

Apple made the MIT-licensed zsh the default shell in macOS over the GPL-licensed bash precisely to avoid the GPL. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090193 Apple has historically been hostile to the GPL. Remember when Apple removed the GPLv2-licensed VLC from the App Store in 2011? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/01/vlc-for-ios-vanishes... VLC didn't return to the App…

I don't think what you're posting is inconsistent with the observation the person you're replying to made -- Apple is hostile more specifically to GPL 3, which a lot of companies seem to be (rightly or wrongly). IIRC, a lot of GPL-licensed stuff that came with OS X, like bash, just stopped being updated by Apple when it moved from GPL 2 to 3; moving to zsh lets them keep their default shell up to date while also keeping whichever execs/lawyers have decreed "Thou Shalt Not GPL 3" happy.

Also, IIRC, Apple doesn't have a policy of prohibiting GPL-licensed software from being in the App Store, but rather, the FSF's own interpretation of the GPL is that its terms are incompatible with the App Store's terms.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#434

Post by adrianN »

flyingfences wrote: post #267
forty wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's a good opportunity for you to start following speed limits and stop risking everyone's life :)

Driving over the posted limit is not dangerous on most roads.

That strongly depends on where you live. If you live anywhere where things other than cars going roughly the speed limit are on or around the road that speeding is definitely dangerous. In Germany that's basically all roads except for the Autobahn and some country roads.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#435

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

Lio wrote: post #407
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSM does record population, and many sites that use OSM data parse that information. I think you're overstating the importance of the demo stylesheet on openstreetmap.org, which really isn't significant: OSM is all about recording factual map data and making it freely available.

Not sure if stylwsheet has a different meaning in the context of OSM but it is what is shown when you zoom out that I’m objecting to. If the OSM project is just about data then it’s doing a great job. If it’s about a usable navigation experience too then it’s failing because in the UK it doesn’t take local politics into account when deciding what to display.

It’s 95% about data.

FWIW OSM was founded and is still heavily influenced by the UK. As a UK user I like it that ceremonial cities are tagged and displayed as such. YMMV.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#436

Post by radlad »

K0SM0S wrote: post #331
Swizec wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember using some car’s built-in GPS once and it wanted me to take every freeway exit and get right back on after. Because it decided that saves time/distance. Maps really need a “not worth it” features for tiny optimizations. I’d often prefer a slightly slower route that’s less work to drive.

Oh please YES, the "not worth it", followed by an option to "please take me back to previous path before (because) latest fork = mistake". The very idea of judging the overall travel is a good start (at the end, when they prompt you) but individual datapoints should be reportable as well. I'm pretty sure this would massively help build a dataset with "annotated" cases (good / bad) for RNNs. > I’d often prefer a sligh…

> please take me back to previous path before (because) latest fork = mistake

Seriously. I regularly travel from Ohio to Michigan and back, and often times if I take an exit for gas, Google Maps will assume I want to take an obscure country backroad for the final 2 hours rather than get back on the highway.

I absolutely do not want to worry about deer, a lack of gas stations, food, and light.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#437

Post by sjwright »

radlad wrote: post #436
K0SM0S wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please YES, the "not worth it", followed by an option to "please take me back to previous path before (because) latest fork = mistake". The very idea of judging the overall travel is a good start (at the end, when they prompt you) but individual datapoints should be reportable as well. I'm pretty sure this would massively help build a dataset with "annotated" cases (good / bad) for RNNs. > I’d often prefer a sligh…

> please take me back to previous path before (because) latest fork = mistake Seriously. I regularly travel from Ohio to Michigan and back, and often times if I take an exit for gas, Google Maps will assume I want to take an obscure country backroad for the final 2 hours rather than get back on the highway. I absolutely do not want to worry about deer, a lack of gas stations, food, and light.

This is especially true in the UK where most rural roads are nominally 60 MPH even if they’re barely wide enough for two cars.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#438

Post by hesarenu »

krrrh wrote: post #181
theboat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree with your general sentiment, Apple Maps, like many of Apple's mobile apps, gets a boost from Apple's anti-competitive practices. It's utterly ridiculous that we can remove default apps from iOS, including Maps and Safari, but we can't set new default apps to replace them. If we ever get serious about increasing competition in the tech sector, an easy place to start is letting users set default brow…

What's worse for consumers in the end though? One profession missing in the parent comment are the researchers innovating on differential privacy. Apple has taken great pains to figure out ways to improve their maps without storing massive amounts of private user data, to the extent that they split routes in half, fuzz addresses, and analyze the start and end of trips independently. There's an argument that Google ha…

Are you saying users should give up freedom privacy( even though apple is willing to give up in china ). User choice is still better then corporate handouts.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#439

Post by robin_reala »

toasterlovin wrote: post #246
graeme wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it may be california-centrism. Bikes are a vital mode in Europe and many other parts of the road. In california car is king, bikes are either recreational or for hardcore commutes. You can see similar assumptions in how Siri is designed. (“Users only speak one language at a time”) or the effectiveness of multilanguage support in autocorrect. Most people outside north america use their own language + english…

Or maybe they’re busy rolling this massive update out (they’ve barely completed the US and have yet to finish Europe).

Yet to start with Europe.

Re: Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for users in the United States

#440

Post by karmelapple »

graeme wrote: post #194
ed312 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea why they haven't / are there plans to add cycle routes in the future? It seems like a glaring hole in functionality (more than "street view")

I suspect it may be california-centrism. Bikes are a vital mode in Europe and many other parts of the road. In california car is king, bikes are either recreational or for hardcore commutes. You can see similar assumptions in how Siri is designed. (“Users only speak one language at a time”) or the effectiveness of multilanguage support in autocorrect. Most people outside north america use their own language + english…

Bicycles are very popular in many places in California; UC Santa Barbara has an amazing bike culture.
Post reply on HN