

Take A Closer Look At The Icon For Apple's Terrible Maps App - option_greek
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Take-A-Closer-Look-At-The-Icon-For-Apple-s-3898650.php

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mc32
The app has many shortcoming sure. But criticizing an icon is getting petty.
Icons are abstractions of items, not the item. So, while it could be used as
representative of the problems of the map in an editorial way, it's not really
a problem.

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swighton
Precisely. The maps icon has basically taken the on-ramp for the highway and
abstracted it away for simplicity. Because there actually is an on ramp that
you turn left onto after the overpass this icon is accurate.

If they had included the amount of detail shown in the second accurate picture
on the link it would look completely cluttered and amateur.

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sambeau
Now I see that all icons are lies!

A calculator with four buttons isn't useful.

Why is my letter flying off into the sky.

This minute hand is 20 minutes to the hour but the hour hand is clearly at 10.

Why hasn't this little green Android's arms fallen off?

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krrrh
Bashing Apples map app has jumped the shark.

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bonzoesc
The icon is rendered in a quarter of a square inch. Making it abstract and not
directly representative is for legibility and visual reasons. Anyone
navigating based off the icon for a navigation app deserves to drive into an
overpass piling, because they would undoubtedly endanger others if they were
on the road.

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pettazz
When did it become "terrible"? It has some problems that are a result of being
brand new and behind Google's years of experience, but I don't think any of
this warrants being "terrible."

We saw this criticism of the icon when the beta came out as a "lol, that's
mildly entertaining" months ago. It's just an icon. It's not supposed to be
used as literal directional advice. Do these people really expect them to put
the very slight angle of the on-ramp in an icon?

This is starting to get really painfully ridiculous.

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mattparcher
Note: the linked article was not originally written by SFGate or the San
Francisco Chronicle, but rather republished from Business Insider (the small
logo to indicate this seems a bit subtle to me).

I would argue that this is a worthwhile distinction, in that Business Insider
is generally regarded as being closer to the inflammatory and attention-
grabbing nature of a tabloid than a traditional news publication—though I
recognize that they are simply one of many popular outlets using similar
tactics.

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eyeareque
This is funny, but I think that apple maps is just fine. I like the new maps
app and don't understand the huge deal people are making this into.

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snogglethorpe
Presumably you live in a place where they haven't completely mucked everything
up...

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jcfrei
steve jobs would have never allowed this! is this the beginning of apples
demise?! etc.... a funny find though, made me chuckle!

