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Apple's New Map

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Apple's New Map

#91

Post by stanleydrew »

mulmen wrote: post #60

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…

You should read all the way to the end.

"AVs navigate themselves—so all we’ll really need to know is where we want to go. And Google, with a rapidly-growing autonomy project of its own, seems to have caught on to this.

"If you zoom out on Google Maps’s recent features, you’ll notice that they’re increasingly about figuring out “where to go?”

"And even Google’s map seems to be following this pattern. Over the last two years, Google has gradually been turning it inside out, from a road map to a place map.

"Is Google future-proofing itself against a not-too-distant world that has little need for driving directions? Whether or not that’s true, it does seem as if place information might be even more important tomorrow than it is today."

Re: Apple's New Map

#92

Post by lvs »

mastazi wrote: post #11

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

Just to be clear, as far as I can tell from Google, the author actually works for Apple [1] on Apple Maps, at least at some point. So this blog may serve as an advertisement of his own work, despite the fact that it seems to be written in the voice of an observer.

"Justin O'Beirne designed and led the development of Apple’s cartography effort, and is the author of Maps for the Masses, an upcoming book about digital cartography." [2]

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/person/justin-o-beirne

[2] https://qz.com/author/justinobeirne/

Re: Apple's New Map

#93

Post by ianmcgowan »

ryandrake wrote: post #81
crazygringo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter... but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that. All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by…

I’ve worked on mapping software, and in fact on street name placement (Not Google or Apple). The code we had for deciding where and when to draw street names has to be among the most complicated, full-of-edge-cases code I have ever encountered. Engineering is pulling one direction, data providers are pulling another direction. UX is pulling this direction, cartography is pulling that direction. Everybody in the compa…

Thanks for explaining that - I tend to assume there are smart people are working on these things, and when thinking "Can't they just... it would be so easy to..", I assume it's because the problem is a lot harder than I think it is, not because they're missing the obvious solution right in front of them.

For my own personal more mundane stuff, it's usually "can't you just parse the names and addresses and put them in separate fields?" and the answer is usually, "80% of the time, yes. If you're ok with that, we're good". They never are ok with that :-)

Re: Apple's New Map

#94

Post by ethbro »

ryandrake wrote: post #81
crazygringo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter... but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that. All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by…

I’ve worked on mapping software, and in fact on street name placement (Not Google or Apple). The code we had for deciding where and when to draw street names has to be among the most complicated, full-of-edge-cases code I have ever encountered. Engineering is pulling one direction, data providers are pulling another direction. UX is pulling this direction, cartography is pulling that direction. Everybody in the compa…

I think the thing that confuses me and parent is that Maps ALREADY knows about road continuity. And road names.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but (1) flow labels along their roads to the center of the screen, (2) separate them with predefined padding, (3) drop labels if visible label count > maximum, smallest-to-largest road, until under the threshold.

If UXers want to bitch, hide it behind a layer filter. But honestly, #&@+ them. (Sorry, but we are talking about maps that don't show road names here)

Re: Apple's New Map

#95

Post by phs318u »

mulmen wrote: post #60

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…

On iOS there's a clunky workaround. Drop a pin on the street with no name and the pin info tells you the name. Of course you probably don't want a pin, so scroll down and hit the trash can.

What would be awesome is if the UI didn't assume I wanted to drop a pin when I'm pointing at a spot on the map - it could popup the info with an option to add a pin, or just touch away to not do that.

Re: Apple's New Map

#96

Post by MaysonL »

crazygringo wrote: post #73
mulmen wrote: post #60

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…

It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter... but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that. All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by…

And heck, it would be very easy to make this a setting: yes or no, this user wants as many street names as possible.

Re: Apple's New Map

#97

Post by heavymark »

This is a great write up but aweful news for us Apple users who finally thought Apple would be able to catch up with Google Maps. That is the only have part of one state and will be many years until the whole country but the promise that the new data would be near perfect made it worth the wait. Apple continues to favor manual vs automated such as news and music and in each case googles automated approach wins out. Yes Apple is backing privacy which is fine but they shouldn’t say they can offer equal or better features and also pursuing the privacy strategy. POI and Yelp has been the major issue with Apple Maps and this review shows they aren’t changing in this regard so now we have better vegetation but same POI issues. Very disappointing.

Re: Apple's New Map

#98

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #81
crazygringo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter... but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that. All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by…

I’ve worked on mapping software, and in fact on street name placement (Not Google or Apple). The code we had for deciding where and when to draw street names has to be among the most complicated, full-of-edge-cases code I have ever encountered. Engineering is pulling one direction, data providers are pulling another direction. UX is pulling this direction, cartography is pulling that direction. Everybody in the compa…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's New Map

#99

Post by graeme »

Great article discussing the achievements and the missteps of apple's new maps.

Oddly, I found Apple's most successful effort, greenery, to be mixed. It's really cool the data is there! But....the roads are less visible. I think they need to increase the contrast or somehow make the roads more notable amidst the green.

As for the locations, I was surprised to see the limits listed here. Apple seemed supremely confident in their Techcrunch feature. And they rarely preview stuff like this, so I had assumed they had some secret ace. But, this looks rather limited and error filled. Optimistically they only rolled it out to a small area to work out these kinks. But the errors O'bierne highlighted don't seem easily solveablr....time will tell.

Re: Apple's New Map

#100

Post by _jal »

mulmen wrote: post #85
crazygringo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter... but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that. All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by…

I agree it is a deliberate choice and may even be necessary. The problem is how they identify "clutter". To Apple clutter seems to be street names or useful human scale landmarks. To me clutter is the name of a coffee shop four blocks away that happens to be highly ranked on Yelp when I haven't recently searched for coffee shops.

> To me clutter is the name of a coffee shop four blocks away

Agree, although I don't find it entirely useless; it allows a bit of mental confirmation along the way if you happen to notice something marquee'd go by.

But more generally, there must be a reason or two why this doesn't work, but why leave street name placement "static"? I know it isn't; what I mean is why not accept a touch event to show the name of a street when you tap on it?

It is a touch screen map. Why are the only things I can touch things Yelp wants me to know about[1]?

It seems to me there's a massive lack of imagination going on with maps. Everyone seems to be locust-like scouring for doing anything with them that can turn a quick buck rather than thinking about what they're good for now besides shopping, and could be good for, if-only.

But this is not anywhere near that blue-sky. If figuring out how to make an interactive digital map show the name of the street that is centered on your screen is an unsolvable problem, there's something wrong.

[1] Frankly, I wish I could turn Yelp off, because I mainly only trigger that by accident. But that's a different topic.

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