61–70 of 377 posts
Later versions of Google Maps didn't do this, so on some streets, you would have no idea what the street names were, and would have to zoom out or scroll out until you saw the name.
THIS is what I want fixed. I don't care about vegetation, I want to be able to see what the street names are without distracting myself on the map.
This is really neat but I don't really care about greenery when I'm using Apple Maps. Can they take a break from figuring out how to convert satellite images into green blobs and devise an algorithm to put street names on the screen ? Apple and Google maps are both worthless as maps without typing in an actual address and using navigation because they can't just show the main cross street names on the screen. It abso…
I think this article illustrates a critical issue with Apple's software. The stance on privacy means little machine learning can take place. Little machine learning means that Apple has to resort to more manual techniques. This, in turn, leads to the far inferior (and often dangerously incorrect) place databases and issues with their Maps application. And then users will simply turn to an alternative which absolutely…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but that is assuming that those streets ever existed. As far as I can tell from the article that's just an assumption. Although I think it would actually be possible to use once-real-but-no-longer steets as trap streets, as long as your sources are improbable enough. For example, if you take a map from 1908, remove one street, then add in another single street from 1920, etc., your exact combination of streets…
sounds like more work than just making some trap streets. It brings up an interesting issue though - ideally if you have trap streets you would never want to use them in route finding...
I think this article illustrates a critical issue with Apple's software. The stance on privacy means little machine learning can take place. Little machine learning means that Apple has to resort to more manual techniques. This, in turn, leads to the far inferior (and often dangerously incorrect) place databases and issues with their Maps application. And then users will simply turn to an alternative which absolutely…
You may take another look at the article. It's incredibly detailed in pointing out the differences between old and new Apple Maps, as well as comparing map images from Apple, Google, Tom Tom, and others. The article demonstrates through the use of animated gifs that Apple Maps has become significantly better over time and in many cases surpasses the quality of competitors.
Except for actually finding & navigating to places, where it's somehow getting worse rather than better.
Vegetation & building outlines are the primary aspects Apple Maps is improving upon per the article, whereas places are getting worse.
I think this article illustrates a critical issue with Apple's software. The stance on privacy means little machine learning can take place. Little machine learning means that Apple has to resort to more manual techniques. This, in turn, leads to the far inferior (and often dangerously incorrect) place databases and issues with their Maps application. And then users will simply turn to an alternative which absolutely…
Here's one example article on the subject:
https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning-with-p...
I could't figure out if the author was being sarcastic by stressing the vegetation detail so much. Certainly seemed like an interesting focus.
Another great article from this blog! Last year's article from the same author [1] about Goggle Maps' use of photogrammetry and other building scanning techiques was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting HN submissions ever (its comment section[2] is also worth a read). [1] https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965653
He's written multiple articles about maps, even before that one: https://www.justinobeirne.com . He's very good at spotting details in maps–IIRC he worked on Apple's maps team before, so this isn't particularly surprising.
For some reason I thought he is some random guy just passionate about maps, I was actually looking for donate me buttons on the site because I love reading his articles whenever they are posted to HN.