
Apple’s New Map, Expansion #5: Northeast U.S. - l1n
https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps-northeast
======
_august
Wow, this guy makes super in-depth posts. This one about Google's methods for
creating "Areas of Interest" is fascinating:
[https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-
moat](https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat)

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sixstringtheory
I wonder what kind of change resulted in that first before/after image, where
Allentown PA disappeared at that scale and Philadelphia appeared. It seems
more right than before, but also, why not both?

Also wonder why some town names are in the same exact location, but others
move just a few pixels. Updates in annotations, or in a constraint solver?

Cartography is such an interesting topic. I experimented using Douglas-Peucker
on 3D images of protein molecules in grad school–cool stuff. I find myself
often using cartographic principles in analogy to software architecture and
codebase organization.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Three cities for CT, only one for NJ. Syracuse doesn't merit a label despite
plenty of room to relocate NY.

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prepend
I’m not sure what they mean by “top 9 urban areas” the top 9 metro statistical
areas in the US for 2018 [0] are: NY, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, DC, Miami,
Philadelphia, Atlanta.

Apple has 6 out of 9, not 8 out of 9. San Fran and Boston are not top 9.
Boston is 10, SF is 12.

They still have a lot of coverage but they can at least say top 10 or
something.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas)

~~~
cupidtino8
The "Largest U.S. Urban Regions" chart is likely referring to the U.S.'s 569
"Primary Statistical Areas":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_area_(United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_area_\(United_States\)#United_States)

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ilikepi
Interestingly, while the 3D buildings are present in the vector map of
Washington DC, they appear to be disabled in the Satellite view. We wondered
if this was intentional obfuscation, in the same vein as how the rooftops of
certain DC buildings were blurred out in early satellite imagery on Google
Maps.

EDIT: clarification

~~~
reaperducer
_Interestingly, while the 3D buildings are present in the vector map of
Washington DC, they appear to be disabled in the Satellite view. We wondered
if this was intentional obfuscation_

Probably not. It seems to vary based on the availability of data.

In fact, it can even vary from hour to hour. Over the weekend, the 3D
satellite of downtown Chicago disappeared for a while, while the 3D vector was
still available. It restored itself in a few hours.

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SECProto
Good in-depth article. Only nitpick is the part about "Apple’s rollout might
be slowing." They have to really (in my opinion) misrepresent the data to say
that it's slowing. The author quotes how the latest expansion is smaller than
the last expansion. However, they don't take into account that the "Expansion
5" came only one month after "Expansion 4", which came /five/ months after
"Expansion 3". If anything, it would feel like the rollout is speeding up,
since it came hot on the heels of the previous expansion.

The author does, at least, qualify that the most recent expansion covers a lot
more population density than previous expansions.

~~~
dasfewagasd
It's a bit harsh to say that the data is "misrepresented" here, especially
since it's immediately qualified with the population density info.

Apple could very well be slowing down, and it's not immediately clear to me
that they'll actually make their deadline.

~~~
SECProto
I don't think it's harsh. The author says that the rollout might be slowing.
They justify this with smaller increase in coverage in the most recent update.
But the updates are not spaced equal amounts of time apart. So the actual
expansion per unit time is continuing to increase.

Compare to OS releases. Windows 10 gets updates every month, with feature
updates every six months. Compared to before, these updates have fewer
features. But they are coming much more frequently. Can we say updates are
slowing, because they don't have as many features in each update? Or do we
have to look at the features per unit time?

I agree that it's not necessarily clear that they'll make their end of 2019
deadline.

~~~
dasfewagasd
I disagree. The first few expansions were increasing at a rate of 5x and were
roughly 2 months apart. Then the 4th expansion took almost six months and was
only 1.4x bigger. And now this latest expansion, which took ~2 months, is
smaller than the last two. So it's definitely fair to speculate that Apple
_might_ be slowing.

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donatj
I'm curious what Apple has to actually gain by doing Maps?

Is it just about not wanting to share user information with Google as a
selling point for their devices? Competition for Google Maps is _absolutely_ a
good thing to spur innovation.

At this point, I'm still using Google Maps because they still seem far more
usable and feature filled. I'd love to see a viable alternative.

~~~
cmroanirgo
Everytime I see an article on HN about Apple Maps, I get hopeful that there's
an announcement buried that they're releasing an Android version...

I agree that Apple (& Bing/MS) is vital... But in order for the goog to be
toppled, there needs to be apps on all platforms. It seems ludicrous they want
to redistrict their map and messaging to iOS only, but there's a real
opportunity for Apple to spread out into competing platforms.

~~~
savoytruffle
There is Apple MapKit to embed into websites
[https://developer.apple.com/maps/web/](https://developer.apple.com/maps/web/)

~~~
cmroanirgo
I'm already using that for a couple of projects. It's not the same though.
(PS: It's got a great trucking api)

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knasmai
What is the value (to Apple) in providing this kind of detail in maps, other
than aesthetics? I'm trying to understand why Apple (or any company) would
invest money into what seems like a marginal improvement in UX. The city
landscape is constantly changing, so there's associated maintainence cost too.

~~~
mturmon
This was previously covered by a well-known post by the OP:

[https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-
moat](https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat)

The necessary link between aerial imagery and on-ground navigation by mobile
phone is a 3d map.

I'd like to know where the front entrance is vs. the side entrance, is there a
ramp vs. stairs, are these two buildings connected or not, is there a skyway,
is there a penthouse on the roof, is there a garage behind the main house,
etc.

~~~
jandrese
So Google Street View is chopped liver? Flat gray 3D representations don't
seem to answer those questions as well as just tooling around the building in
Google Street View.

~~~
zapzupnz
Google's also moving towards adding 3D topography to their maps so I don't
quite see what your point is. This isn't an Apple vs Google thing; they're
both doing the same things, they just seem to have different priorities about
the order in which they do it.

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applefan89
At 4:45p PDT, this post was #14 on the HN front page with 77 points and then
it suddenly disappeared.

I can't find it on any of the first several pages of HN. Where'd it go? Was it
flagged?

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robertoandred
Between this improved map and Look Around, reasons to bother with Google Maps
are dwindling.

~~~
QuixoticQuibit
Using Yelp as a POI provider prevents me from completely dropping Google Maps.
Even ignoring Yelp’s shitty practices, needing the Yelp app to view reviews
and images is a showstopper. Apple needs to dump Yelp and go full Google here
their own reviews and POI DB.

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ilikehurdles
I don't believe you need the Yelp app. It will prompt you to use it, but
reviews (and seemingly all other information?) can be viewed without the app.

Edit: never mind. I’m wrong. I could have sworn I used to be able to just view
the web version of yelp last time this came up, but I might be misremembering
the browser vs the Maps app experience.

~~~
QuixoticQuibit
Tested on iOS 13: I can scroll through thumbnail previews of images but
tapping to view full size opens the App Store to Yelp. As for reviews, it
shows 3 of them as shortened previews, so I can’t even view a single full
review (unless it’s trivially short). Tapping on them again opens the App
Store to the Yelp app. Around the review previews are links to “Open Yelp” and
“Find out more on Yelp”, all leading to the same thing: App Store.

This is such an un-Apple-like UX. Idk if they signed a long-running contract
with Yelp out of desperation when Apple Maps launched forcing it to be this
way, but if not, then their insistence on this experience is truly
dumbfounding.

Edit: I see you’ve tested it yourself.

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vgrafe
My two cents, Apple Car edition: adding such detail increases the visual noise
when glancing at the navigation display, where simplicity should be king when
the user is driving.

~~~
tinus_hn
The fact these structures are visible while browsing the map does not require
that they are shown during navigation.

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usaphp
Honestly I never saw a point of adding these 3d structures on a map. Map
should be 2d, these grey blocks don't really add much information on 99% of
the maps and seems like a wasted time to me, I would rather they focus more on
small and hard to find roads, that's the main reason of a map

~~~
zapzupnz
> that's the main reason of a map

That's what _you_ might think is the main reason of a map. There are many
various reasons to want to use a map. I assume one of the main uses for most
of Apple's customers, and probably even Google's given they're also working
towards 3D topography, is to find particular buildings, particularly
businesses, or landmarks.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that your use case is everybody else's.

