
Apple Says Give Maps Time, The More You Use it The Better It Is - cooldeal
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/09/20/apple-maps-major-initiative-the-people-use-it-better-will-get/
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Derbasti
Look at any mapping provider: Google, Bing, Ovi/Nokia, TeleAtlas, OSM... They
are ALL way better than Apple. Apple allegedly is using OSM data, yet their
maps are ridiculously bad compared to OSM. Town names are missing, there are
next to no terrain features at all. Even the coloring is bad (low contrast
etc.)

And then there is sattelite imagery, which is sort of fine in the US. But the
rest of the world is low resolution, is partly covered in clouds, badly color
corrected and partly black and white.

And then there are no public transportation directives and no sensible terrain
view.

Apple released a crap product. Aerials won't get better 'the more peopl euse
it'. Neither will maps grow more detailed. It's not like people can
collaborate to make them better.

To me, those maps seriously diminished the worth of my devices. And this
response makes me want to buy an Android phone. It is frankly insulting.

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maxk42
Looks like without Jobs at the helm, quality and customer satisfaction began
suffering almost immediately.

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varunsrin
It's kind of silly to say that - Apple under Jobs did make several mistakes,
over the history of the company. It's just that your recent image of Jobs is
someone who was consistently successful, but even there Ping is a good counter
example.

To look at a single flaw and then say "oh this is because Jobs is no longer
there" is without warrant. Now, if there is a systematic decline in quality of
products and services over several months/years, your claim begins to carry
more weight.

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maxk42
Well ping may have been unsuccessful, but it didn't harm the customer's
experience. People who weren't interested simply didn't use it. In the case of
Apple's new maps app, they've actually removed functionality customers came to
rely on and replaced it with an inferior product.

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tymekpavel
The real problem is that Apple lacks the quality control of Steve Jobs. Nearly
everyone I've talked to has said something along the lines of: "Steve Jobs
planned out the next three years of Apple's strategy, so Apple is still a
power player in the tech industry." What many people forget is that Steve Jobs
can no longer veto features because he no longer sees the product before it's
released. Steve vetoed ~90% of features that were implemented and sent them
back for further development. Tim Cook simply doesn't have the eye that Steve
had, and so we're left with products that don't cut it.

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parasubvert
Apparently you never experienced Mac OS X 10.0. Or Mobile Me. Or owned an
iBook G3.

Steve's quality control is legendary. By that I mean a legend. By that I mean
fiction. Steve killed products that didn't fit what he wanted Apple to sell --
that doesn't mean Apple had perfect QC under his watch.

Mainly, Apple has had way more success than most companies in getting a
product 80% right out of the gate and not too many huge embarrassing failures
- more a series of small or moderate failures.

The current Maps failures seem to be moderate but could wind up being big.

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jlgreco
_"Jobs was not being perfect at QA, and frequently made questionable
decisions"_ does not contradict _"Jobs was better than Cook at QA"_.

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pan69
The problem Apple has is that Google Maps is awesome and they somehow have to
top that. When Google Maps came out there was nothing to compare it to, it was
so far ahead and so much better than anything else.

I think Apple has a difficult task ahead to "reinvent" maps. Also, do maps
need reinventing?

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ghshephard
Apple didn't have to top Google, or even equal them. All they had to do was
come out with a competent product.

There were several options:

1) Realize that they weren't ready, suck it up, and negotiate with Google to
keep their map as the primary product, until they were ready.

2) Decide that, strategically, they couldn't go with Google, so they would use
some other third party - Bing, for instance, has some nice maps - but I'm sure
those who know more than me could identify the partner would have been
appropriate. They could have used this time to develop their mapping platform.

But, they decided to go with the third option:

3) Try to build a mapping platform before they were ready to, and deliver an
inferior product to their customers, albeit with some flashy "3D building"
touring.

They put the icing on the cake before the substances was ready.

Now, ironically - I'm personally in no way effected. Living in the Bay Area,
everything that I want from a mapping product right now is there. I quite like
the IOS 6 product.

But, it doesn't stop me from noting that Apple delivered a sub-optimal
product, when they had the choice to do otherwise. It seems to be the blind-
spot in their DNA - they are able to build great physical products, and
competent operating systems - but web services continue to be a challenge for
them to bring the same fit and finish to.

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trhtrsh
Does Bing have a mobile solution for 3rd parties?

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jwuggles
Apple's Advertisement should say: "You've never seen maps like this before"

Truly ;)

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beedogs
Apple to entire iOS userbase: "walk it off, suckers."

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chj
If piling engineers can solve problems, MS would not be still struggling in
mobile space.

Anyway I would rather wait for google maps. Just like I use Dropbox instead of
iCloud. Sometimes you should not waste resource on things you are not good at.

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scotty79
They should stick to making cool casings for tech that is two months ahead of
what everybody else is working on.

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connortomas
The issue here seems to be that Apple have developed a reputation for
producing polished "finished products" that doesn't gel particularly well with
rolling out "perpetual beta" web services.

I assume their hands were tied here, and there was no way for them to roll out
a "New Maps Beta" for interested/adventurous users while still bundling the
Google-powered Maps app as the iOS default (the same way they rolled out
Messages beta as an optional download for OS X users while still bundling
iChat with the OS). Certainly, the fact that the new Maps isn't billed as a
"beta" (as Siri _still_ is) doesn't match the tone of Apple PR's message.

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mortenjorck
Much of this could have been solved with an overlap between the new and old
Maps app. I'm not sure what the best way to do it would have been – make the
new one an App Store app while renewing the contract with Google for another
12 months, kind of like the Messages beta on 10.7? It would be out of
character for Apple to release a public beta of something for iOS, but not as
out-of-character as what we've seen happen with the release of iOS 6.

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fpgeek
I think you're right that Apple needed an overlap period, but I also think
doing that would have been very difficult.

Google certainly wouldn't have been happy with a public beta of a replacement
app. Meanwhile, Apple wouldn't have wanted Google to launch their own future
app on the App Store in the interim. Could those have been the sticking points
in their negotiations?

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kemayo
I realize that this seems to be a bit against the majority opinion, but I've
had no problems with the new Maps. Yesterday I had it direct me on an 80 mile
round-trip, and it sent me exactly how Google would have.

Since I also don't live in a good area for transit, Maps is an improvement for
me. Obviously it isn't for other people, but it still feels weird watching all
the fuss over it.

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buro9
Your CV suggests you are based on the West Coast. One of the complaints
appears to be that it works on the West Coast where Apple engineers live and
work, less so elsewhere.

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kemayo
I do commend you on the amount of research that you engaged in for this
comment. However, my CV is a little misleading; I work for deviantART, which
is based in Loa Angeles, but I do so from Missouri. :)

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dumb_dumb
What they really mean to say is the more people contribute to OpenStreetMaps,
the better Apple Maps will get.

So whenever I contribute to OSM I am contributing to Apple Maps commercial
product?

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alexlitov
Apple Maps are not using OpenStreetMaps. So you contributing to Apple Maps has
no bearing on contributing to OSM, same with other way around.

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customer123
The article says Apple Maps is using OSM data. Is the article wrong? Or is
there something they left out?

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w00kie
Looking at the maps for Japan on OSM and iOS 6, if they are using OSM data it
must be a very small subset and they're adding a ton of crap over it.

For example: they usually have one label for a train/subway station which is
well placed and then a second label for the same station 200m to the south-
east. OSM has nothing like this. They must be cobbling many datasets together
with no fact-checking...

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Aloisius
I wonder if they are gathering GPS traces from everyone while the map app is
open and doing with OpenStreetMap does and averaging the results to build
better paths.

I'm also curious if Apple contributes back to OSM when they find mistakes.

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azar1
Apple Maps only looks bad because barely anyone has used it. Try comparing
Google Maps from launch day in 2005 to Google Maps from now.

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kumarm
Google Maps blew everyone the day it came out.

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bluedanieru
I think I would have remembered that.

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ars
And yet, apparently you didn't.

The day google maps came out was basically the last day I used mapquest.

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bluedanieru
I didn't remember it because it didn't happen (parse the original sentence a
little more carefully :-)

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ars
Ooops.

