
IOS 6 Maps might be hazardous to your health - ditados
http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2012/09/22/1738#ios-6-maps-might-be-hazardous-to-your-health
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ck2
Make you wonder how people functioned without smartphones only a few years
ago.

BTW can't iphone users just bookmark maps.google.com as a "webapp" in the
meanwhile?

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masklinn
> BTW can't iphone users just bookmark maps.google.com as a "webapp" in the
> meanwhile?

Erm... the article recommends doing exactly that.

It can also be set as a homescreen "application", and in facts prompts you to
do so when opened on an iphone.

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psylence519
Jeesh, we get it, iOS 6 maps are the worst thing since Super AIDS.

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robomartin
That iOS 6 maps are bad is well established at this point. No need to run over
that dead cat any more.

What would be very interesting for me to understand are the internals of the
iOS 6 decision. I am, of course, not talking about technology but rather the
business and strategic decisions that led to this.

One could certainly not say that there were quality problems with Google maps.
That, particularly today, is self-evident. Why was Apple so hell-bent to
jettison Google?

Was it out of fear of the mounting competition in the Android space?

I can understand this, of course. The problem is that you don't complete with
your competitor with a product that is inferior to theirs. If anything, the
barrier is, at a minimum, to be equal in features and experience to your
competitor. And, in reality, you probably need to have a few things on top of
them to boast about. In Apple's case, did they think that the 3D view was such
a feature? They couldn't have! They are smarter than that. Right? It's
puzzling.

Today we understand the value in seeking customer engagement and buy-in BEFORE
taking-on, developing or deploying a major product. We know that. I think
Apple knows that. How was it decided that iOS 6 maps would clear the Google
Maps barrier? Did they actually show it to people? Who? Where? There seems to
be clear evidence that this really wasn't widely vetted. How else could one
explain airports showing up in rivers or the myriad of funny-yet-sad examples
out there.

My curiosity is one of understanding the business process that led to this.
From the vantage point of a startup these kinds of moves are suicidal. Apple
is likely to survive it. Although, surviving it might mean taking a step that
I am sure they don't want to take. Give people what they want: Google Maps.

Prior to this the most prominent example I had of corporate suicide was the
UPS "What can brown do for you?" advertising campaign. There I stood in
complete disbelief watching a company with a hugely recognized name and
service spending millions to actually bifurcate their image and drive name
recognition towards a new "brown" identity. Not only did they choose a generic
term, but the jokes about what "brown" could do for you when a shipment went
wrong were just too funny to ignore. It looks like someone kicked the CEO in
the ass and they actually got back to marketing the brand everyone already
knows. It was simply unbelievable, just like Apple's move with maps.

I don't know if it is fair to say that Apple has lost its way. Probably not.
However, one has to raise questions when a bad decision of this magnitude
passes through the company without someone setting the brakes with a clear-
minded "We are not ready for this yet".

If it is true that maps are very hard to do well (I don't know maps), then it
is beyond obvious that this is not something that can be fixed in six months.
The last thing you want to do is make it impossible for your customers NOT to
think about your competition. Prior to the iOS 6 maps issue the average iPhone
customer probably ignored the entire smart phone ecosystem past Apple. Today
you have people making comparisons. What can "brown" do for you?

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philwelch
> Why was Apple so hell-bent to jettison Google?

It goes both ways. There's a possibility that this is a gambit from Google,
either to cripple iOS in favor of Android or to simply extort higher fees for
Google Maps.

I think the software user experience of iOS Maps is actually better than
Google Maps, from the visual design of the maps to the 3D flyover mode to the
turn-by-turn directions. The problem is the data. We've seen Apple
underestimate how hard some problem are before--MobileMe was Apple
underestimating how hard cloud stuff is, Ping was Apple underestimating
social. I think Apple just underestimated the problem of map data.

The good news is, the data problem actually can be solved with cash. Design
and software problems can't.

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Someone
Also, the data problem is not 100% clear-cut. Near my home, Apple has more
details (showing e.g. sheds in back gardens and foothpaths along the water)
and more recent data (showing road changes from over a year ago) than
maps.google.com (speculation: that could be because TomTom is popular here)

Point of interest-wise, I think Google has way more data, and it also seems to
be more up-to-date, but still, Apple has tons of (correct) data that Google
does not show.

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lttlrck
Tao of Mac??? A blog that focuses on Apple products, and has a prior article
about the Maps problem, yet you still act surprised?

