

Old Maps vs. New Maps - kemayo
http://vore.cc/post/32503374905/old-maps-vs-new-maps

======
billjings
The debate about iOS maps is driving me absolutely crazy, because any fool can
see that this is not about the data (in the US, at least).

This is about _quality of search results_.

Apple has had search in its products for a long time. It has search in its
documentation, in Spotlight, in Mail.app.

All of this search technology is crap. Spotlight is fast, but it's fast crap.

I was in the bay area this week, and searched for San Francisco International.
The data is not lacking for this search result. The roads are there in the
Maps app database.

Anyone want to guess the result of my search?

Apple partisans want to believe that this is a data problem. If it were a data
problem, then it'd only be a matter of time before Maps.app were a solved
problem.

Unfortunately, it's not. It's a search problem. I know absolutely nothing
about the technical details about how to implement a decent search, but I do
know this: Apple has never, not once, delivered a product that gave decent
search results.

So good luck, Apple. Hopefully this problem can be solved by throwing money at
it. Something tells me that it can't, though.

~~~
Bud
1\. You were searching for an airport, left out the word "airport", which is
the most important word, and it's Apple's fault?

2\. I just went into Maps and searched for "San Francisco International".
There were two hits, and the second hit was the airport. The other hit was for
a business in SF with "International" as the first word in its name. These do
not seem like completely awful search results to me.

3\. Why are you assuming (and yes, it's a complete assumption which is free of
evidence) that "Apple partisans want to believe" (you can read minds now too?)
that it's only a data problem? I'm an Apple partisan, and I worked on the Maps
team, specifically on quality of search results. I can tell you that what I
believe is that it is both a problem of needing to refine the database, and
also a problem of needing to continue to improve the search capability. Does
this change your assumptions?

~~~
joeyo

      > 1. You were searching for an airport, left out the word
      > "airport", which is the most important word, and it's
      > Apple's fault?
    

Yes, it is Apple's fault, in a sense, because the customer is always right.
Moreover, a competitor (Google) is able to connect the dots and return the
right results. I just searched that same phrase on Android and it gave me
directions to the airport in question, along with a phone number and other
useful information.

Whether it is able achieve that feat because it knows that I have been to SFO
within the last month, or knows that I have emails in my inbox that pertain to
the airport, or because more users click through to SFO than other hits for
that search phrase or because they use black magic is beside the point:
Google's search results are simply better.

~~~
guywithabike
Why not just search for "sfo" or "airport", both of which return the airport
correctly on iOS 6's maps? Typing out "san francisco international" and
leaving out "airport" seems incredibly contrived.

~~~
zmmz
No, it isn't.

When most people refer to a place, they refer to it by it's common name. You
fly to JFK, Heathrow, Charles de Gaule, Gatwick, Luton, O'Hare, etc. There is
no need to add "airport" to something which so obviously is one in the
context.

The familiarity of common names is why wikipedia uses them for article names:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names)

~~~
Bud
You're missing something obvious, which is that out of all the airports you
listed, NONE of them is named after the city it's in or near.

SFO, of course, is. Which makes this particular search MUCH more ambiguous
unless you include the word "airport".

------
collypops
"Had Apple set the public’s expectations better, we may be having a very
different discussion at this point."

This, for me, captures exactly why Apple deserve the backlash they've seen
from this whole Maps thing (and why Tim Cook's apology was much needed). Their
special events are always filled with the same bullshit: 'Amazing'. 'Magical'.
'Incredible'. 'Unbelievable'. Ok, Apple have very talented people working on
their products, and they're extremely proud of what they do (they should be),
so I get that they can't help but roll out the same marketing spin for
everything they release.

This of course backfires when we get these products in our hands and they're
not everything we expected them to be. The biggest change that needs to happen
at Apple now is that they need to breed humility into their culture, and show
it more in public.

The last hint of humility I saw from them in recent years was the word 'beta'
slapped onto Siri at its original announcement, and yet Forstall still put on
a flawless presentation that showed Siri as far more capable and responsive
than it's been in the wild.

The most recent of course, was Tim Cook's Maps apology. Steve Jobs would never
have written that letter, and I'm glad that there is now someone running Apple
that knows when an apology is due, especially one that recommends alternative
products in the meantime, rather than shovelling shit on them in an
Antennagate-style "we suck, but look, everyone else sucks more, na na na na
na".

It takes a certain kind of person to get a company like Apple to the top. It
takes an entirely different kind of person to keep them there. I can only hope
that this is first step in Apple forging a more honest, humble, real
relationship with it's consumers, because in time that will be the only thing
that can secure their future.

------
madrona
"Google has discovered that an incorrect result is better than no result at
all when it comes to keeping people on their Websites and continue to generate
ad revenue."

Big eyeroll here. Returning a probabilistic match is a nefarious plot for
revenue. OK...

~~~
drats
Also the author missed the point of clicks, subsequent searches and back
buttons/bounces: Google sees all of these as data to be mined. So while the
Apple engineer is worried about returning the wrong result supposedly (yet
they return tons of wrong ones anyway), the Google engineer is saying "we are
mostly confident on these ones, lets put them out there and see which ones
cause the users to bounce or search again and which ones terminate at that
point and then we can upgrade their scores".

------
jordanthoms
The biggest issue here in NZ seems to be that the POI data is horrible. I'm in
Auckland, the largest city in NZ, and searched for Britomart, the main
transport hub with a large train and bus station, and Apple maps had no
results.

That may be an anecdote, but that single data point is enough to make Apple
maps utterly useless for Auckland.

Also, I don't agree with the assertion that Apple maps won't return far-
fetched results. I searched for "PB Tech", a technology shop chain, and it
took me to Mexico.

~~~
taligent
Apple relies a lot on Yelp for POI data which obviously isn't in NZ right now.

But I believe they will be there soon as they just launched in Australia and
bought the NZ domain name. Yelp's strategy has been to partner with the local
YellowPages equivalent.

So what you will see is a jump from bad data now to almost perfect data
overnight.

~~~
untog
Ha. Yelp _just bought_ a .co.nz domain name, therefore we're going to see an
increase in data quality overnight? I admire your optimism. Why wasn't this
present at launch?

------
jsnell
I don't believe these results are an accurate representation of the Google
Maps geocoder or map data. And it's absolutely not the case that an incorrect
result is considered better than no result.

I spot-checked on the Google API a few entries that the spreadsheet showed in
the wrong country (Waldemar, Coldstream, Osceola, Snow Road Station, Belgrave,
Winger, Heidelberg, Priceville, Vernon, Blackwater). I only got one result
that was wrong (Vernon) with the default settings. With a country bias to
Canada, which I hope would have been there for an API user from that country,
that one is resolved to a sensible looking locality as well.

There clearly are some queries in that set for which Google returns the wrong
answer, but I'd be the frequency of those problems is an order of magnitude
lower than this post suggests. It'd be interesting to know what the reason for
this discrepancy is, but without seeing the exact queries on the wire one can
only speculate.

------
jarjoura
This experiment is flawed. iOS 5's forward/reverse geocoders are using Apple's
servers, just like iOS 6.

The only way to use Google's forward geocoder data is to make a REST request
with your own API key using NSURLConnection yourself.

In iOS 4.x you can use MKReverseGeocoder which would return results from
Google, but this class was rewritten in iOS 5 to be a thin layer on top of
CLReverseGeocoder (using Apple's servers).

~~~
ralfd
What does Maps in iOS 5 use? This is just a comparison between old and new
Maps.

------
aristidb
Precise match is broken: People will spell addresses in all kinds of ways, and
Maps needs to find all of them.

------
krob
I think that @billjings hit it on the money. What this means is that if apple
is capable or even able to catch up to a company like google when doing a
location search, they may have a true search engine on their hands. Google
makes quick / easy work of navigation because their search is context-aware
(geo/account) and will help narrow the search down with a great deal of
intelligence. Take for instance the new google search in JB android. This
relates to maps because it's ability to acquire fuzzy data to provide you with
accurate results. Apple is not going to catch up to google anytime soon on
making "search" better or even close to the accuracy of google due to the
infrastructure & algorithm constraints. Apple as big and cool their products
are, I can almost garantee they don't have the brainpower that google does
behind their largest most important products. Google products take Computer
Science to a new level.

------
TallboyOne
I'm honestly getting tired of this debate. I haven't mentioned anything until
now, but the new maps is incredible. I saw FIRST hand how it worked. I can't
speak for someone living in the boonies but, I ordered my iphone 5 online, and
had to pick it up an hour away in Miami beach.

My iphone 4 had google maps on it as I drove to Miami beach, I actually missed
my turn twice and I am not a bad driver, it's just that you need to merge very
quickly in one particular spot twice (basically stay left or stay right).
Google maps wasn't keeping up and even after using maps for a year or more or
three, it still happened. It just was unfamiliar and the app didn't provide
any additional help other than trying to flip through the directions very fast
while driving which isn't safe as it is.

I finally got there, got my iphone 5 and was BLOWN AWAY at the maps app. At
first I was annoyed coming out of the parking garage because I thought "you
cant skip forward ahead in the directions??". It must be what everyone is
annoyed at. Suddenly, I pulled out of the garage and magically it has 3d view,
which rotates as you drive, and talks to you. It was an INCREDIBLE comparison
because not 45 mins before I was missing turns, and on my way out of miami i
could see every turn PERFECTLY, and not only that I didnt have to hold my
phone not keeping my eyes on the road.

I understand the data/search is what most people are referring to but the
point above is massive. It blows google maps away x10000. I played with the
GPS the entire way home, especially the part where you go around the
cloverleaf loops on the highway merge junctions, and watching the maps follow
around with it.

As far as search, I have tried searching 'sushi' while somewhat zoomed in.
whereas google would search a given radius if it had low results, apple maps
stays with the low results unless you manually zoom out.

I have also seen it be somewhat picky if you don't specify a road correctly
(in the jungle where my parents live it didn't recognize "CR" as county road,
so I typed that manually). These problems are hardly more than just an
annoyance, and the benefits far outweigh the gains imo

~~~
untog
Honestly, if you are that blown away by turn by turn directions, then you've
been held back by Apple for the last few years. Android has had it, Windows
Phone had it, and numerous third party apps on iOS provided it.

None of this blows away Google Maps. It blows away _Apple's implementation_ of
Google Maps, which was subpar. So, now Apple's implementation is on par with
everyone else, but with subpar data.

~~~
TallboyOne
I'm aware of plenty of other phones having this. The thing is android seems to
accept all their user feedback or something and their phone ends up looking
and running like a cobbled together piece of garbage, seriously I try out the
BEST droid phone when it comes out and its laggy where I can't even use it..
kind of ridiculous. Things aren't organized well, etc.

Any time my friend hands me his droid phone to text while hes driving its just
a mess.

I'll stick with iphone. Theres a reason it takes features longer to get there
I think, its because they actually need to really make sure they 'fit in' in
really smooth cohesive way. if they just accepted every single suggestion or
feedback from customers it would be just as cluttered as droid

------
podperson
My iOS6 maps experience comes down to the new Maps has a far better UI but
sucks at figuring out where you want to go unless you provide the street
address.

(It's not like the old Maps app was flawless. It's just that it usually worked
and the new one usually doesn't. I'm in greater Washington DC, I'm sure your
mileage will vary.)

The same can be said for Waze -- I often would convert a descriptive location
(such as "San Francisco International" per another post) to a street address
then copy and paste it into Waze. I use the conditional tense because I
consider the new iOS Maps app to be superior to Waze for navigation, once
you've found an address.

It seems to me Apple could easily cut a deal with a third-party-search-engine-
that-isn't-Google to improve this simple flaw.

<http://loewald.com/blog/?p=4918>

------
josteink
I think a good summary of the situation is that Apple attempted to out-Google
Google. Microsoft has tried that in the past, just as they've tried to out-
Apple Apple.

It's bound to fail.

What's interesting about this is that it beyond a doubt confirms that Apple is
now playing catch up to Google (and Android).

------
unreal37
If the author only limited the "success" category to a 1KM radius, that is
awfully narrow for the search for an entire city name. If we say anywhere
within 10KM (6 miles) is success, I wonder if iOS5 blows iOS6 out of the water
even more.

------
snogglethorpe
tl;dr: apple maps apologia

~~~
37prime
Isn't that ironic that you formed an opinion about an article that you didn't
read?

~~~
snogglethorpe
I did read it ... :)

"tl;dr" is to save other people the effort.

~~~
scott_s
If someone says "tl;dr", I assume they mean "it was too long; I didn't read
it." If you want to provide a summary, then perhaps just call it that.
(Although I think your summary mischaracterizes an actual test.)

~~~
myko
> If someone says "tl;dr", I assume they mean "it was too long; I didn't read
> it."

This would be correct, however 'tl;dr: <summary>' is pretty common for
providing a summary.

~~~
scott_s
I assume that's providing the _reason_ they didn't read it. How's about we
just say "Here's my summary:".

~~~
catshirt
the way snogglethorpe used "tl;dr" is fine and pretty generally understood.
can we stop arguing semantics of an internet acronym? regardless of your
admitted assumption, their intent was explained, let's move on now.

------
smithite
Obviously the old map is better.

~~~
guywithabike
Did you even read the article?

------
ehosca
oh i get it... its my fault when a mapping does not display anything when i
type in Tim Horton's instead of Tim Hortons...

