The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

[Gekko71]

Many of these made me laugh...

...but this one is a classic!

[CDN_Merlin]

It sucks. My own street is incomplete. How could they release such a poor product?

[Gekko71]

It sucks. My own street is incomplete. How could they release such a poor product?

Very good question. On the first site I linked to, some places in Europe features town names that haven't existed since WWII - other areas list landmarks that haven't existed for either years or decades. This to me suggests the map info was compiled from 1001 different sources from the public domain ....that's money for old rope in anyone's language! For shame Apple!

[CDN_Merlin]

I saw a video online about some cities in the UK that are no where near where they really are. Is this the start of the downfall of Apple? Stay Tuned, news at 11.

[TechPro]

Did none of you ever try Google Earth when it was first made available (and was a seemingly perpetual "beta")? Google Earth was riddled with these same kinds of issues. Overtime, errors and issues have been getting resolved and the product improved, especially with more and more usage. The same thing is most likely to happen with the new iOS 6 Maps. (duh)

Meanwhile, there are already like a bazillion sites/articles/columns/reports/whatever discussing the new iOS 6 Maps. We don't need to add to the discussions. It's not like the 'issues' isn't easy to work around.

[CDN_Merlin]

I know there are millions of discussions on it but I don't visit millions of websites about it.

[vision]

Overtime, errors and issues have been getting resolved and the product improved, especially with more and more usage. The same thing is most likely to happen with the new iOS 6 Maps. (duh)

I agree. But I think the reason for commentary is that this is seen as highly uncharacteristic of post-iPod Apple. They are all about polish and usually don't put out half-assed products. This, along with some of the problems with Siri, make Apple look a little sloppy -- which I think is a good thing because there are too many people who look up to them as gods. They are a fantastic company (without a doubt), but they do drop the ball occasionally, just like everyone else.

[Isaac]

They lost their main/insane quality control guy/god. Now that he's gone, you have too many rational and compromising people in control. Those types make better followers...

I predict Apple plays it safe from here on out..

[Top Gun]

Did none of you ever try Google Earth when it was first made available (and was a seemingly perpetual "beta")? Google Earth was riddled with these same kinds of issues. Overtime, errors and issues have been getting resolved and the product improved, especially with more and more usage. The same thing is most likely to happen with the new iOS 6 Maps. (duh)

The thing is, though, a lot of the features that Google Earth was trying out were being done largely for the first time, so there had to be some initial lack of polish expected by default. What Apple has done is removed a full-featured mapping application that's been around for years and replaced it with their own product. If you're going to do something like that today, you'd better be damn sure that your software is at least close to what you're replacing, and from those blog entries, they're nowhere close to it.

It's the same principle as why everyone had so many gripes about EA's Origin distribution platform when it was released. Yes, Steam had a ton of issues at its start too, but they were ironed out over years of work by Valve. If you're going to release a competing product into that sort of environment, it only makes sense to draw from your competitor's work and use what they've learned, instead of making the same mistakes as eight years prior.

[Sirius]

They couldn't just keep Google Maps?

[Foil]

Sure, they could have, but come on... it's Apple. They need to have fundamental control over everything they sell, even if it means releasing their own inferior competing product.

[Top Gun]

Plus, Google's now a direct competitor due to Android, so it probably seemed like a bad idea to them to tout said competitor's product.

[Ferno]

Sure, they could have, but come on... it's Apple. They need to have fundamental control over everything they sell, even if it means releasing their own inferior competing product.

indeed. It's part-in-parcel to their 'think different' MO.

[roid]

Sure, they could have, but come on... it's Apple. They need to have fundamental control over everything they sell, even if it means releasing their own inferior competing product.

indeed. It's part-in-parcel to their 'think different' MO.

Think of anyone but our competitors. Oh please God, just stop thinking about our competitors! noooo

[Sirius]

I read elsewhere that they wanted to have turn-by-turn navigation, which Google wouldn't offer them, so they went the roll-your-own route.

[Tunnelcat]

Apologies aren't replacements for bad management decisions. In the meantime..............use someone else's app.

http://www.apple.com/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/

[Isaac]

http://i.imgur.com/ZVBU9.jpg

[Alter-Fox]

Apologies aren't replacements for bad management decisions...

True. If they were, no one would ever apologize for bad management decisions.
Also Dilbert would be a lot less funny.

[Isaac]

Apologies aren't replacements for bad management decisions...

How does one exclude the other? If you're replacing a bad management decision with an apology, you're apologizing for a good decision...

[Pandora]

what I heard is that the conflict was indeed about turn by turn. Apple wanted Google to offer turn-by-turn navigation. In exchange, Google said they wanted to add Google latitude and be able to harvest user data. Apple wouldn't agree to his.

Its always easy to explain stuff simplistically like "apple wants complete control", or "google wants to spy". I think what we are seeing here is a differentiation of two business models. Apple offers a paid service without data harvesting. Google offers a free service in exchange for data harvesting/advertising. Its natural that they don't get along, because each model is incompatible with the other.

[roid]

Apple offers a paid service without data harvesting.

i doubt that

[Pandora]

at least that's what it says on the box.

but really, their business is not based on data harvesting/advertising, so they don't need to do it, with the exception of improving their product. in fact, they make money from the people who do not want to go down the google-way.

[Money!]

This is why I'm not updating to iOS 6

[roid]

at least that's what it says on the box.

but really, their business is not based on data harvesting/advertising, so they don't need to do it, with the exception of improving their product. in fact, they make money from the people who do not want to go down the google-way.

Yes the "improving their product" part.
It's more than all businesses who deal with the public are obsessed with market research, the obsession getting stronger as the company gets bigger and thus able to throw more money at it's database engineers. I just can't imagine an "experience orientated" company like Apple forgoing such a goldmine when it's flying straight past their noses, collecting such info is a matter of course. Songplays in iTunes etc.
If they didn't collect info, i'd honestly lose respect for them as a business powerhouse. You gotta collect that stuff, it's gold. And if you're not collecting that stuff, YOU'D WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW YOU'RE NOT. You couldn't buy that sort of PR, and you'd thus be daft not to make it a central aspect of your branding: Apple, the trustworthy company who vigilantly protects and respects their customers.
But that's not how they're branded at all, ergo i just expect they are collecting everything they can, ultimately to improve their products.

[snoopy]

But that's not how they're branded at all, ergo i just expect they are collecting everything they can, ultimately to make more money.

Fixed it for yah! (I think that's already what you were trying to say)

[roid]

1. Collect data
2. Improve products
3. ???
4. Profit


The way that companies can collect huge swaths of data and gain increasingly esoteric insights from it, reminds me that i'm living in the future
For all it's creepy personal intrusion, it's kinda cool seeing what can be done. A morbid fascination perhaps, like marvelling at weapons tests while trying hard not to think about the people who will one day be in the crosshairs

[Pandora]

You're right of course, roid. What i meant is, they don't harvest data and make it available for third party advertising etc.

As far as i recall they are a vocal supporter of privacy laws, i.e. They were one of the first to throw their weight behind the do not track initiative, and there were other things as well...

[Top Gun]

Reminds me of an article I saw once about Target, or some other such chain, doing research that discovered that women making certain purchasing patterns were very frequently pregnant, so they sent out maternity/baby catalogs to said women. This one teenage girl's father was incredibly pissed when his daughter received one...until she told him that she was, in fact, pregnant.

[Pandora]

Haha, yes, i remember that one, too. A very strange world we live in...

[Ferno]

Now why would google want to harvest data from apple users? If they harvest data, they already get that through their Android OS.


Unless what google really meant was statistics for which device is using their service. Because if that's the case, apple is just bull★■◆●ing people again.

[Isaac]

iVibrator sends data back to apple.

[Pandora]

Ferno, its not only data harvesting, its advertizing, too. And for these two things, iOS appears still more important for Google than their own Android. In one of the recent trials, Eric Schmid had to give some actual numbers. If I recall correctly, they make $3 on every iDevice for every $1 they make for an Android device. It just seems to be the case that, even though lower in number, iDevice-user rely - on average - on the internet more than Android users. Mobile browser share numbers paint exactly the same picture...