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Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

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Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#81

Post by tomaskafka »

ndr42 wrote: post #63

I don't know if anybody else is so petty like me regarding installing new apps but while I can't say anything about the app itself, I just wanted to know how much it would cost, if it is an subscription and so on. But it was not possible from the app store page itself. Have a look, how confusing it is: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@ndr/116483475865871622 It shows a lot of price points from 1€ all up to 45€ without…

This is Apple's work - they show all enabled purchases/subscriptions author have enabled for price testing. And once you add one, removing it would mean the user's subscriptions auto-renew would get canceled, so they stay and accumulate.

And there is no way for the app to mark "this is the current pricing".

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#82

Post by raylad »

ndr42 wrote: post #63

I don't know if anybody else is so petty like me regarding installing new apps but while I can't say anything about the app itself, I just wanted to know how much it would cost, if it is an subscription and so on. But it was not possible from the app store page itself. Have a look, how confusing it is: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@ndr/116483475865871622 It shows a lot of price points from 1€ all up to 45€ without…

The Pedometer functionality is free, and I’ve been using it for many years just because its display is pleasant.

The map tracking features cost $29.95 a year.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#83

Post by tomaskafka »

SpyCoder77 wrote: post #32
monk_grilla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested since it’s clear this is a passionate and talented developer, but it seems the primary feature is step tracking, which iPhone already does by default. Is Pedometer++’s step counting somehow more accurate?

Yes, the primary feature that is being marketed is step tracking, but the app in general is much more than that. It's like how flighty just is a wrapper for the flights API that you could access through Google, yet flighty is the best app for flight tracking nonetheless and is a really cool app.

I think it is long overdue for rebrand, as right now the marketing is "it's a simple utility to show the daily step counts Apple is already collecting anyway, oh and by the way it has awesome offline maps almost no other apps offer", which is a bit of a weird sell.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#85

Post by gcanyon »

interstice wrote: post #42
kumarvvr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch is such a failure I remember a time when Apple was chided for integrating functionalities of popular apps into its OS. Apple created an incredibly awesome device, and its up to the market to make full use of its potential. Why would it be a failure for Apple to not make such an app?

Because they don't allow deeper integrations maybe? I still don't have a watch face layout I like.

But in this case at least, the third-party developer has produced exactly the wonderful result they're looking for. The screen shot at the end showing the difference between Apple's map and theirs is so stark and compelling. If I were hiking I'd pay $20+ for their version.

Edit to add: throwing out a price like that made me go check to see what they actually charge, and either Apple's presentation of in-app purchases or their use of it is sad: it gives the same "premium" item like eight times, with different prices. Maybe that's per month and then longer periods with bulk discounts? Maybe they have a lifetime option for $40? If I were a regular hiker, I'd go for that.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#86

Post by mootothemax »

agilek wrote: post #73
apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, I assumed he was using images because his screenshots show text perfectly following the curves of rivers, which seems hard to do with dynamic rendering.

That’s the point of a vector (not raster) tiles. Wh do you say it is hard to do with dynamic rendering? With Maplibre or any modern map SDK this this is standard…

> With Maplibre or any modern map SDK this this is standard…

In practise, this doesn’t work out as visually pleasing as you’d like; labels repeat, or render partially or not at all, or become interfered with by other labels, or only work well at one given zoom. It’s easy to end up in a visually dissatisfying place that’s taking an unfathomable number of magic rules to get to.

The secret sauce to fixing this is creating separate label layers of perfect point locations or lines for labels to follow in advance. Added bonus is faster render and interaction times due to fewer rules.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#87

Post by joshstrange »

rjzzleep wrote: post #51
kumarvvr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch is such a failure I remember a time when Apple was chided for integrating functionalities of popular apps into its OS. Apple created an incredibly awesome device, and its up to the market to make full use of its potential. Why would it be a failure for Apple to not make such an app?

That is quite literally how every part of Cocoa was polished. Things such as sidebars, notifications, came from third party libraries, Growl, etc. were all design patterns from the community. Isn't that also how iTunes came to be? Apple trying to acquire the best music players to integrate into its ecosystem? It's somewhat sad to observe what become of apple.

And jailbreaking was a creative source as well until jailbreaking (full, surviving reboots) went away. Yes there is still a sideloading community but nothing like what we were doing with Summer/Winterboard or the hundreds of random tweaks I applied to my phone back then. So many hours spent scrolling through new packages on Cydia.

I wish Apple would see that opening up their platforms actually leads to a better core OS as Apple borrows/steals from the community.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#88

Post by sobjornstad »

arjie wrote: post #13

Apple Maps on WatchOS is pretty good but the usual routine is that I get on my bike with a route set and 3 minutes in the “are you working out?” screen takes over and I can’t see the maps without stopping to turn it off. Surely that screen should turn into a notification or silently record after some time without taking over the screen. I’m surprised to hear people at Apple work on this because surely they must encou…

I was looking to see if someone had commented on this. For me it sometimes even happens if I start the workout before starting navigation – it will start off in the right configuration but then suddenly switch back to workout data in the middle of the ride.

Google Maps on the iPhone has a similar problem where a banner notification can block the section at the top that shows the next turn. If it's persistent (e.g., a calendar reminder), you have to try to swipe it away while driving without clicking on it by mistake. I guarantee multiple people have crashed because of this.

Whoever at Apple thinks that anything at all should override navigation for more than a couple of seconds without explicit user action is an idiot.

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