

On the Timing of Apple’s Map Switch - joshus
http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/timing_of_apples_map_switch

======
swang
Gruber essentially tiptoes around the main problem. The iOS 6 map app was
released before it was polished up to what people expect from Apple. "Oh Apple
had to release it now or else Apple would have to release in a non major
release!" Are you kidding me?

The alternative being to release a terrible version that tarnishes their
brand, that is way better alternative

~~~
ryanb
His main suggestion is that Apple couldn't get enough data to make it good
without launching the app, and they had to go ahead and release it at some
point. The software works quite well - it's the dataset that's inferior.

~~~
cheald
Apple's been keeping logs of iPhone users' positions for ages. And they could
have just sucked data out of user behaviors of the existing mapping solution
if they needed something in a map context.

This smells of revisionism.

~~~
cwp
It's not position data that Apple needs, it's bug reports. Regardless of how
much work you put into map data, at some point the only way to know if it's
correct or not is to go there and see what things look like on the ground.
Crowd sourcing is the only way to get to the quality level of Google Maps.

~~~
cheald
Okay, I can buy that.

But, that basically means that Apple has drastically regressed the user
experience in order to force users to help them build a product so that one
day it might be able to compete with the product that they were already using
for years, and suffer through cruddy data in the meantime. And they expected
people to be okay with this?

Google is so far ahead on mapping that I doubt Apple will ever catch up.
You're talking about volunteer crowdsourced data versus a company that
literally has a fleet of cars and employees out scouring the world and mapping
it in detail. Unless Apple decides to make a major play in mapping - not just
in iOS, but in building a first-class mapping product to compete with Google
Maps - I doubt that they're ever going to have data that'll match peoples'
friends' Android-based mapping experiences, and that's going to leave a lot of
people very sour on what is supposed to be the premium-brand smartphone.

I have a number of friends and acquaintences who have either already switched
or are soon switching from their iPhone 4 to some Android-flavored phone
specifically because they're so disappointed with the iPhone 5 + iOS6
combination, and no longer feel like it's the best option on the market.
Pissing people off and losing them as customers is a pretty terrible price to
pay for wanting to gather bug reports on location data.

~~~
ghshephard
"Google is so far ahead on mapping that I doubt Apple will ever catch up. "

We're not talking rocket science here. If Apple wants to catch up to Google on
mapping, they just have to invest time, money, and attention. We're talking at
most two years for Apple to get where Google is today.

~~~
brianobush
Google has far more data to enhance its maps. Does Apple have the internet
lying around to analyze?

~~~
ghshephard
I'm not making any claims about Apple catching up to "searching" - That truly
is a field in which google has demonstrated they have unique, and proprietary
advantages over the competition. They have deep research and superior search
algorithms, and I would say only Bing can give them competition, and I don't
believe Apple will ever be able to provide similar capability when it it comes
to that.

But the elements of mapping that are not related to search, that is, routing,
displaying tiles, walking directions, cycling directions, turn-by-turn,
aerial-view, points of interests - these are all elements that internet data
is less useful, and where being able to invest billions of dollars in
acquiring suitable cartographic information (as Nokia did) should be
sufficient to put together a world class map environment for the customer. My
perspective on the challenges is mostly informed through several hours of
reading historic postings here: <http://blog.telemapics.com/?p=399>

In all likelihood, after several billions of dollars invested, Apple 2014 will
equal Google 2012 in the areas I just described (mapping sans search).

------
cheald
> Technically, they could roll such a thing out in a 6.1 or 6.2 update, but
> major changes — and I think everybody can agree this has been a major
> change, for users and app developers alike — should be delivered only in
> major new OS updates.

Well, I personally can't wait for OS XI, since by that criteria, Apple
apparently hasn't released a major OS update since OS X yet.

Version numbers schmersion numbers. Ship it when it's ready.

~~~
mattparcher
(I understand that you’re probably being somewhat sarcastic, but for the sake
of semantics…)

It’s pretty clear by the amount of change (and Apple’s marketing efforts) that
each OS 10.#.0 release is a "major" OS update, on par with the relative
significance of each iOS #.0 release.

But Gruber may have over-generalized here. Indeed, Apple _has_ added major new
features in iOS .# updates, e.g. AirPlay and AirPrint in 4.2, or the Personal
Hotspot feature in 4.3.

What they _haven’t_ done is change key functionality in a point update, let
alone introduce regressions. (In fact, before this incident, I’m struggling to
recall Apple _ever_ removing/crippling existing functionality.) If they were
going to perform a full Maps switch-out, maybe they felt that now would be the
best time, if only because there is so much positive press out there to temper
the backlash.

Edit: Regarding removed features, I was mostly thinking of Apple’s record with
iOS. As gurkendoktor points out, they have certainly removed ("simplified")
functionality in Mac OS X, often creating great frustration.

~~~
cheald
My tongue is firmly in cheek, yes. I'm poking fun at the silliness of
attaching some holy meaning to version numbers.

My point is that version numbers for end-user software are borderline
meaningless; they're marketing fodder. Just look at Chrome and Firefox, for
example. Firefox didn't suddenly start improving 10x faster than it was
before, but they changed their versioning scheme in a marketing play to
compete with Chrome's ever-inflating version, as the casual user assumes that
Chrome 37 must be much better than Firefox 6 because its major version is so
much bigger.

Apple could either ship a regression in a new major, or ship a less broken
regression in a new minor. In either case, there's going to be a regression.
Regressions are unfortunate anytime they have to happen, but the assertion
that you could only replace Google Maps with an in-house solution in a major
is just silly post-hoc justification. You can't avoid disappointing users
except by not shipping a regression at all, but you can lessen it by shipping
a less-broken product.

As an aside, I can think of at least one other major breaking
change/regression in a point release - the total swap in functionality of the
lock/mute switch in iOS 4.2. There are also things like dropping support for
older devices in point releases (4.3 dropped support for the iPhone 3G) that
make the argument look even weaker; device deprecation is generally the sort
of thing that is sacredly reserved for major releases, yet Apple seems to have
had no problem doing it in a point release, and we're supposed to believe that
yet somehow Apple wasn't willing to replace an app in a point release just
because it isn't a major?

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zmmmmm
Problem with this analysis is that if the replacing maps on iOS6 was always
going to be this year then it just compounds the culpability of Apple for
shipping it half baked with no fallback. ie. in trying to assuage the
criticism of Apple for shipping maps too early (what I read as the main point
of his piece here), Gruber only begs the question of why they weren't better
prepared for it.

~~~
nivloc
Maps are hard.

The original Google Maps was pretty bad. Mapquest beat it much of the time.
There was one road in my hometown, and none in many countries.

Google devoted enormous resources to acquiring data (petabytes worth),
processing it, correcting it, to give us the product we have today.

Even though Apple acquired some neat companies that made data look good, they
obviously underestimated how much data was required to make it useful. No
amount of QC could have prepared them, frankly.

The upside is that Google has been fairly closed with their map products.
They're miles ahead of Apple, who will need every partner they can find to
close the gap. Hopefully it will give the data providers a bit of leverage to
get refinements back out so it can be used in endeavours other than showing
where the nearest pizza joint is.

------
arpit
I dont get why Maps releases are tied to OS releases. If the Maps api to other
apps doesn't change, why can't maps be updated as other apps are?

~~~
ceejayoz
Any big feature change makes for a good slide or two in the keynotes. They get
once or twice a year to make a big impression on the press - dribbling out
updates to core apps in the meantime would remove the buzz.

~~~
amirmc
It's certainly made a big impression, though perhaps not the kind they were
after. Revealing something in a keynote talk leads to more scrutiny so making
a big deal out of something that isn't ready doesn't seem wise to me.

------
arrrg
Ok, can someone help me? I’m quite confused. Apple’s maps have undeniable
problems. Pretty big ones in some cases.

But are they really unusable? From my perspective it seems as though Apple’s
maps are merely inferior, not unusable. Some aspects are even better than they
were before (on iOS), some (very few) are better than Google Maps (traffic
info in Germany is quite impressive).

Everyone here seems to take it as self-evident that the maps are unusable. I
don’t get that. To me it looks like a slight (again, depending on use case)
regression in the short term.

I also don’t get the deification of Google Maps. I remember they weren’t that
great in Germany only two or so years ago. I still encounter mistakes
regularly. Google Maps are awesome despite those flaws.

~~~
nivloc
Apple's maps are really good. Google's maps are much better, generally,
though.

There are places where Apple has an advantage over Google, but Google has been
pouring resources into Maps for a long time.

Garmin, TomTom, Navteq, etc. won't be nearly as good as Apple or Google
because they aggregate sources.

They aren't unusable, and are better than if you rely on a dedicated GPS. But
they can still be improved. Apple doesn't seem to be weighting proximity for
search as effectively as Google (unsurprisingly).

Honestly, Apple is the new #2, but they've got a mountain ahead.

------
ghshephard
This is one of those articles, that after you read it, you face palm, and go,
"Of course."

I feel stupid not having come to the same assessment after hearing about when
the dates were set.

~~~
mcantelon
What he doesn't answer is why they chose to ship a half-backed map
implementation rather than continue to pay licensing fees until they got it
right. It's not like Apple's starving for cash.

~~~
guywithabike
> rather than continue to pay licensing fees until they got it right

It's not like you just buy the data at Wal-Mart -- you have to negotiate
licensing terms with Google and the terms that Google wanted were, reportedly,
onerous.

~~~
CamperBob2
Gee, that almost sounds like something worth considering _before_ starting a
thermonuclear war.

------
ejdyksen
If I'm reading this right, does that mean when the contract expires, Google
stops serving map tiles to iOS clients using the Google Maps client?

That would mean the iPhone, the iPhone 3G, and the original iPad (none of
which support iOS 6) will lose all mapping ability starting next year. Unless,
of course, Apple backports their maps app to iOS 5 (and even that wouldn't
help original iPhone users--if there are any left).

~~~
philwebster
Check the footnote. Devices using still Google Maps will most likely function
without a change for a few years, but Apple won't be allowed to sell/activate
more phones using Google Maps.

~~~
ejdyksen
Yeah I just saw that.

I'm sure the deal takes into account legacy devices, but I wonder how long
that extended support would last.

~~~
fpgeek
I suspect it would last for quite some time beyond the officially supported
window (possibly until the vast majority of those devices are no longer using
Google's map data either via upgrade or retirement). Absent Apple or someone
else unreasonably taking advantage of the "legacy device loophole", Google
doesn't have much incentive (and some disincentive from the potential PR
fallout) to shut it down even no matter what the contract allows. I'm sure
sometime after that support windows they'll want to roll out something where
it's easier to break existing clients than to keep them working, but until
then...

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zaphar
This still doesn't explain why they didn't ship it in iOS7 then. If it wasn't
ready and they only want to ship such things in major versions then hold it
till the next major version. It wasn't ready. And bug reports aren't the
solution to get it ready either. They needed better expertise and better
quality data to start with.

~~~
Steko
How does it not explain it? Maps deal expires 6/13; iOS 7.0 launches 9/13.
What do you ship from 6/13 to 9/13?

~~~
zaphar
New maps deal to get you up to 9/13.

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b0sk
Remember he usually calls half-cooked products or apps as "turd"s.

------
Yhippa
Who cares about the timing? The maps experience, even with turn-by-turn, feels
worse than what I had in iOS 5. I hate it when companies deliberately make
things worse.

~~~
ap3
really ? I'm liking the turn by turn directions in ios6 a lot and to me the
update was worth it just for that. I still have the mobile google maps on
there if I need to search anything.

Apple Maps feel very snappy and I like the Yelp tie-in.

But I have never used the transit options so I can't say I'm missing it. If I
had to use it I figure I could just jump over to web based google maps.

Curious to know what don't you like about the new apple maps that can't be
solved by the web based google maps ?

~~~
Yhippa
To be fair I've only used it for about a week-and-a-half now. If you give it a
specific address it works pretty well for the most part. One thing I love
compared to my Galaxy Nexus is that under the lock screen the next direction
will turn the screen on.

Another thing that works better is integration with Siri. I felt that on
Android there were a few more hoops to go through to do things like "drive to
home" or "drive to Bob's Chicken Shack".

The things I don't like are the lack of detail on the maps currently. I don't
use the satellite layer so it looks really sparse and I feel like I'm driving
to big abstract blobs.

To be honest this is pretty good for a first try. Getting native turn-by-turn
that works 95% of the time is pretty impressive.

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georgebarnett
While I'm not a fan of the new iOS maps, I'm reasonably happy that Apple chose
to break the relationship with Google rather than throw my privacy under a bus
to get a contract extension.

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thewileyone
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Gruber. IOS6 Maps still suck balls.

------
norswap
tl;dr : Apple screws up. The totally-oh-so-unbiased Gruber defends them
anyway. For the rest of us who don't give a rat's ass, life continues.

