
Apple's New Map: Midwest and Western U.S. - admp
https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps-midwest-west
======
Avshalom
As a long time rural:

They need to be smarter about how small of a road they show at a given zoom
level, maybe based on density. If I've gotta zoom in to the point that I can't
see the next town over before I can see the road that goes there your map is
kinda useless.

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bane
I really love these posts because it shows methods of critical thinking about
things that aren't strictly lines of code -- and ways of mentally
deconstructing things. The 1st and 2nd order steps in reverse engineering
processes, comparisons at different levels, and so on must take dozens of
hours per post and a huge archive of screenshots from select areas preselected
months ago for later comparison.

I also found the general "greening" of the map at larger scales interesting --
something that seems to be a drop in detail -- while the green spaces at
smaller scales seem to be more specifically defined (and the new maps seem to
have more of them).

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specialist
Ask HN:

Do Apple Maps, Google Maps, Yelp, etc scrap local business listings? Local
search still remains very frustrating. I'm baffled how stores, dr offices,
public parks which I know exist don't appear in results. If I was doing the
work, I imagine I'd start with every known address and every known business,
try to pair them up, and then triage the remainder. Classic data quality
efforts. No? I recall an OpenMaps presentation on measuring data quality
maturity. Much like bug curves, where rate of changes is used to estimate
completeness (coverage). Commercial map vendors do the same, right?

More selfishly, I'm always looking for places to run with my dog. I use a
combo of Apple Maps, Google Maps, and AllTrails. I have no idea how local
governments account for open spaces, but I imagine they're all in a GIS
somewhere, and that Apple & Google have data feeds.

Also local data search (on mobile), if there's a way to geofence results, as
in only show shit within my timezone, or even within driving distance, I
haven't stumbled across that feature. Driving thru Phoenix, I don't want
listings from Indiana, ffs.

~~~
londons_explore
Map licensing is very tricky. Typically "open" government mapping data is
incompatible with both openstreetmap and free Google/apple maps.

Also, governments tend to be bad at mapping things they own. The guy who mows
the grass knows where it is, so they don't spend money to make a map of it.

~~~
maxerickson
US states and counties often have extensive data that is available under what
is basically a disclaimer. They don't really analyze or assert copyright.
Google sucks that data up for sure. They buy data from some cities and
counties too.

It's hard to push through imports in OpenStreetMap when all you have is a
disclaimer, but the data licenses are probably mostly compatible (public
records laws requiring the release and things like that).

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bistro
What happened with that chunk of land in Lake Michigan that appeared out of
nowhere on the new map?

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jacobwilliamroy
Insider here. Apple pulls in map data from all kinds of sources. Some of these
sources exist in alternate timelines. Apple maps will be a lot more useful
when the apple timegate finally launches in 2038.

~~~
auggierose
This comment is too good for a mere upvote.

~~~
stock_toaster
Don't worry, Titor will upvote on his next pass through.

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bussierem
How is that the Midwest without including MN, WI, IA, and MO?

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pohl
The headline got this Nebraskan’s hopes up. The term “Midwest” should be
retired.

~~~
Breza
I'm from Michigan and I prefer "Great Lakes region" when talking about the
area described in this post.

~~~
gre8tlakes
But the problem there is that the "Great Lakes region" typically includes
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan's UP. And none of those were included in
the update.

So it's not really any better than describing the area as "parts of the
Midwest".

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jccalhoun
I'm not sure about the usefulness of their coloring scheme as there seems to
be far too much green that isn't a park or public space. For example, I looked
at my neighborhood and they have all the area around the on and off ramps of
the local bypass colored green. Technically, yes, that area is all grass but I
don't think coloring it green is useful.

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saagarjha
I'm curious how these maps are made. Are they done by hand with careful
planning beforehand to get the "before" shots? Or is there some API that you
can call?

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yaur
Looking at the changes around Midewin National Tall Grass Prairie... I don’t
think this is an improvement. AFACT the boundaries between federal, forest
preserve district( which has different usage restrictions), and private land
is now totally indecipherable.

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jtbayly
Well, to be fair, that data was probably was only unintentionally there before
(and maybe not actually labeled?).

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clamprecht
Is there a normal browser website for Apple maps, or plans for one? I often
use Google Maps website first, then "Send directions" to my phone. If there's
no Apple maps website, then I can't do this.

~~~
jmah
You can access it through DuckDuckGo.

~~~
333c
Link:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hn&iaxm=maps&ia=web](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hn&iaxm=maps&ia=web)

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georgehotelling
What is going on with Michigan's Upper Peninsula? Did anyone at Apple look up
there and notice that they paved Lake Michigan?

~~~
DuskStar
Maybe there was ice cover during the relevant satellite passes? But I'm not
sure why they wouldn't also have issues with Superior too then. (And I'd
expect summer passes to be required for things like grass cover, so it's not
like they don't look at that)

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reaperducer
I've long had a mild streak of map-geekery in me. But I never really
appreciated cartography, especially computer cartography, until a couple of
years ago when I was put in charge of a mapping project.

Bottom line: _maps are hard!_

Especially when it comes to colors. And even more so when you apply those
colors across a large and diverse geographic area.

Even harder than rendering digital maps, though, is searching digital maps.

I get frustrated with Google and Apple and all the other maps like everyone
else. But I never appreciated how hard these things are until I had to wrap my
own brain around it.

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ravedave5
I love these articles, really insightful into what goes into making a map.

~~~
corentin88
This blog is a treasure of well-written, highly curated articles. The author
is very details focused. I find myself reading all of it, while I haven’t been
a map enthusiast at all.

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dajohnson89
Very well written. It was odd how the article mentioned an improved rendering
of Chicago's second largest building, and hyperlinked to the wiki page about
the tallest buildings in chicago (spoiler: it's the trump tower). Why not just
refer to it by its common and well known name?

~~~
messick
Would anyone who doesn’t live in Chicago know there was another Trump Tower
there? I for one thought all but the NY one had their names changed because
the licensees no longer wanted to be associated with such a toxic brand.

~~~
selectodude
It's the 7th tallest building in the US. It's not an obscure building in the
middle of nowhere.

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peternicky
I find the animated images that constantly flip back and forth between "old"
and "new" images distracting and make it very difficult to understand the
changes.

If the author added a button to allow the user to toggle the two images I
think users would be appreciative.

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willyt
Interesting that they speculated that it was an algorithm that was trained by
comparing a manually drawn map with imagery. US cities are all fairly uniform
as they are pretty much all based on a grid, but they vary in colour
significantly from Oregon to Arizona. I wonder what level of granularity they
would need to go to in Europe? Is London different enough from Paris that an
algorithm trained on Paris would not work London? In Britain you would need to
recognise different cultural structures that you wouldn't necessarily get in
Paris, one example is many British parks have a raised up circular bandstand
for a local brass band. So they probably need to recruit quite specific people
for each locality.

~~~
willis936
Pray you never visit Boston.

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ksec
Questions,

Do Apple now owns the Mapping Data, along with Live street views? Where
previously Apple were just buying Mapping Data from multiple sources and glue
them together.

~~~
oflannabhra
I believe this is the case, yes. Apple still has a licensing deal with Yelp,
but I'm not sure if that includes business locations.

Apple has put significant effort into gathering the data for this new map (4+
years).

I'm sure they still include data from other sources as well, that they may not
fully own (like satellite imagery).

~~~
mtmail
Also OpenStreetMap and actively improving OSM data around the world
[https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues/154](https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues/154)

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odysseus
Were stop signs and stoplights supposed to be part of this latest update? If
so, how do you get the maps app to show them?

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el_cujo
I found it surprising that Hawaii was chosen for the first expansion. Maybe
someone looking for an excuse to take a trip?

~~~
bondolo
Until recently they were using old TomTom data for Hawaii. Really old crappy
data c. 2006-2011. Hawaii was done early because they wanted their own data.

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chooseaname
So, what's next? Central for land area or Southeast for population?

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LargoLasskhyfv
Still fails the Malta to Minturn benchmark over Tennesse Pass along US HWY 24
in Colorado. Needs to have Mitchell, Pando, Red Cliff, Gilman visible at the
same time at the right places also. Does not. Busted. Go home.

~~~
wilg
Report it! [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT203080](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203080)

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
I don't live there, why should i? This one is now burnt as a benchmark, but i
have others, more relevant to my location. I've only chosen this example
because it was the one where i noticed how badly common online maps differ
from what i'm used to from old paper maps, while following up some old
railroad history in the Rockies. With the exception of Bing Maps they create
some sort of virtual reality, where some places either don't even show up as
separately named area, or the labels are wrong, up to some miles away. Not
always, but often. This makes them unusable, or at least annoying to use. By
that i mean a general overview of where is what related to its neighbours. As
it is now, i get streets, POIs , Businesses, whatever else, for themselves,
often missing the right name of the area, be it suburbs or other (sometimes
historic) places like i'd explore some blank spots. Which defies the meaning
of map, i think. Of course, if all you need is to get from point A to B via
maybe C with total disregard for flyover country, industrial wasteland,
monotonous suburbia while listening to some audiobook, then this is
unimportant.

Edit: Warping spatial perception is what i mean!

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wilg
Why should you correct the map if you don't live there? Because you seem to
use the map and think it should be more accurate. I don't see why where you
live is relevant.

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
Sorry, for being unclear. I wrote that i used this as a benchmark/test to
derive the general quality of the map provider. Which means if i see that
single example as wrong/insufficient, chances are the rest is too, because
whatever process(es) produces the maps is somehow skewed. What is the benefit
of correcting that single thing when the rest of the data remains skewed?

