
The Amazing iOS 6 Maps - Maakuth
http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/
======
SoftwareMaven
I look at this and can't believe Apple _wanted_ to ship with this. And I mean
that literally, not incredulously. I believe Apple wants to be in carol of its
mapping future, but this product isn't ready yet, and I don't think Apple is
so delusional to not be able to see that.

So that makes me wonder what happened in contract negotiations with Google to
force it out. Did Google flat-out say "No"? Seems unlikely. Was it just too
expensive? That's possible, especially if these negotiations happened during
the time Google massively raised the prices on its API (completely random
speculation: maybe the price increase was _only_ about Apple), so Apple had to
invest elsewhere. Did Google just want control of their map data or want to
give Android a massive competitive edge so they backed out? That seems
unlikely, but may be answered if Google doesn't put out a map app for iOS.

~~~
ChuckMcM
You are probably correct. However if you look at Google's moves in the maps
API with respect to charging money the simplest explanation is that Apple and
Google could not come to terms on the price for access and so Apple went with
'plan B'.

Given the pain Apple is causing Google in its patent assault I don't doubt for
a minute that the senior management at Google would have any regrets about
'losing' the Apple map business vs 'gaining' a poorly executed maps product on
their premier devices.

I also don't expect Apple to approve any Google "maps" application any time
soon either given how strategic it is for their mobile business.

My best guess is that Apple did the math and said "Well its going to suck
rocks but we _have_ to dominate this space, this moves our time table up but
doesn't change what we need to do, ship what you have and put your best team
on making it excellent."

EDIT: Reminds me of Intel's response to AMD's multi-core where Intel literally
glued two separate CPU chips into the same package and shipped it as a 'multi-
core' CPU. That sucked too but they had an answer in the market, and they
invested in making that answer competitive over the next 3 years to get a more
real multi-core out the door.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_D>

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _I also don't expect Apple to approve any Google "maps" application any time
> soon either given how strategic it is for their mobile business._

Soooo, their _users_ don't matter? "Business strategy" is more important?

This is Apple?!

~~~
devcpp
You know, I'm starting to miss Steve Jobs. He was a businessman as well, but
he also knew how to treat his customers right, because keeping the customers
in the hype is extremely important in his high-benefits scheme. I don't think
he would have let that kind of stuff happen. He would have paid the price:
it's not like Apple can't afford Google Maps for another version of two of the
iPhone, and now some customers are considering switching. If they get out of
the walled garden that turns into a prison, they might not come back.

~~~
robryan
Not so sure about that. I tend to think he would have been less likely to put
this new maps out though. Perhaps paid Google for a bit longer until the Apple
maps were real competition.

------
rauljara
The "roller coaster" effects in the 3-d view are my favorite. They've got some
smoothing algorithm going, or it wouldn't curve the way it does, but the
elevation data must not have a high enough resolution. Google has made this
sort of thing look so easy for so long, but it's clearly very hard to get this
stuff right.

So, I guess it's not that surprising that apple messed up something incredibly
hard in their first attempt. I'm curious as to whether these issues are as
widespread as they seem, or if they're more edge cases made to appear common
by the internet. But the curiosity isn't enough to drive me to upgrade. I'm
totally putting off that until I figure out a decent alternative app.

~~~
Maascamp
I don't think Apple gets a pass here. If they are forcing users onto their
product it had better be competitive, no matter how hard it is. Microsoft got
so such pass with WP7 and that was an entirely new OS/platform!

~~~
LnxPrgr3
Anyone here actually used this version of Maps to find someplace yet? Not just
to break it and point and laugh, but to actually use it?

I can only see 3D maps as a gimmick, so I can't bring myself to care too much
that it's broken. I'm slightly surprised that feature shipped in that state,
but meh.

What I care about: can it get me where I'm going? It's 2012 and I've still
found nothing that can do that without occasional issues. This version of Maps
hasn't been in my hands long enough to judge it properly. Considering the
update was just released to the general public less than 48 hours ago, has
anyone had time to judge it properly?

Worth noting: I've had the old Maps try to send me through concrete walls, or
direct me 400 miles away looking for the nearest branch of a bank. My
dedicated GPS unit has told me I've arrived at my destination… in the middle
of a busy highway, and it too has asked me to turn through concrete barriers
more than once. I've had both direct me to locations well off of where I was
trying to go.

This is all from actual usage.

So if anyone knows of something that doesn't have these problems, I'd love to
hear from you!

~~~
caycep
It works most of the time. Especially for businesses, as I think it accesses
the yelp directory. If it gets point a and b correct, the routing seems ok.

Most errors seem to be that of string parsing - the biggest sin is not
recognizing town/state portions of search strings consistently.

Ironic since I'd bet some of the best language parsing people are busy working
on llvm and clang somewhere else on apple campus.

~~~
LnxPrgr3
For that matter, they have people working on natural language processing,
though my phone's too old for me to know how that's working out for them.

------
grey-area
What confuses me about Apple's choice of maps here is why they didn't go with
OpenStreetMap? It was the perfect opportunity to leapfrog Google and help the
open source community at the same time, and they would have had more control
over the data - as it is they are beholden to TomTom and other providers to
try to get things fixed, or will have to try to merge future map updates with
their own patches. As it is they are going to see increasing controversy as
people realise just how bad the maps they have bought are, and that this was
changed for political reasons, not for the good of their users, and there's
very little they can do about it.

They seem to have tried out OSM in the photos app (with a horrible skin), but
to have used purchased data for the street maps. Perhaps they felt it wasn't
good enough in some locations they tested?

In my experience OSM is superior to Google maps in many locations (even in
parts of central London), and it is of course continually improving.

~~~
rburhum
Openstreetmap's doesnt address _any_ of the OP's issues. Having built maps for
the past 12 years, I know exactly what of each of those issues are about. The
blurry images are underlying base layers that drew first and then probably the
upper layer timed out when rendering the tile. The curves are caused by
elevation measurements that are incorrect (measuring elevation from a
satellite involves bouncing from the ground - when there are structures below,
depending on the material, it may go through or bounce differently) or
precision problems when generating the elevation grid (very common). The big
white thing are clouds, when you buy highly expensive imagery you get them
with louds (say 30% cloud blockage) and you need to comnine several images
taken a different times, color correct them, and stitch them back to remove it
(try to do this for one city and then think about doing it for the entire
world). The routes that don't match the pins is weird, but it could be that
the snapping point for the routing engine snapped to the wrong street edge (it
seems very far though) or that the geocoder and the routing engine use
different geocoders (that would be bad). Creating a good mapping product is
difficult, but Apple will have something much better in one year.

~~~
smikhanov
_Apple will have something much better in one year_

It certainly will be better but I'm not holding my breath about Apple maps
surpassing Google Maps any time soon. Google bought a Rasmussen brothers'
company (what eventually became Google Maps) in 2004. That's eight years of
product development, data collection, storage and refining -- all at Google's
pace. Will Apple find some shortcut to compress this time in one-two year?
Unlikely.

It's very easy to underestimate the amount of pure, repetitive effort required
to build products of this sort and how hard it is to "disrupt" the industries
with players like Google.

~~~
rburhum
I meant "much better" than what _Apple_ already has.

I don't think it will be easy for them to catch up (it would be absurd to say
that they can have something better than Google Maps in such a short time).

What bothers me a lot, is that most people blame the _data errors_ to the
algorithms or ability of the team to create good software. You can have the
best coders in the world, and if they have data that is not good, they can
only algorithmically clean it so much.

Google has several vehicles that they drive around and collect all kinds of
information themselves. Sure you can hire Navteq (or in Apple's case, TomTom
aka TeleAtlas) to go around and do it for you. Guess what? When you license
products from either of those companies that means you are relying on _their_
editors. That means no fancy object recognition geotagged image that you can
send to a support vector machine to flag an area as needed revision... the
product you get from that licensing is the vector line with the attributes
already attached to them. So that is what you work with.

Google has an entire army in India, using Google-made custom editing tools
that do these things. Unless Apple builds the same, they will always be
behind. Can Apple do it? Sure! They have the cash and the talent. Will they?
It is up to them to decide if investing 400 million into their mapping
infrastructure is worth it. I think it is.

~~~
tesseractive
Personally, I certainly never supposed that the current version of Apple's
maps somehow proved that Apple had incompetent people on the problem.

At the same time, Apple has a carefully cultivated history of not shipping
half-baked products. They famously worked on tablets for years before they
built one that they were happy enough with to ship.

Now, for reasons that the end user surely does not care about, they have taken
a product that was missing a key feature or two (navigation, street view) and
replaced it with something that is much less reliable even for its fundamental
task.

Yes, making a really good mapping application is hard, and requires many
people on the ground, around the world. So either you need to make the
commitment to do what it takes to deliver that app, or you should outsource
the whole thing, and use Nokia Maps or Bing Maps or whatever. The third
alternative -- doing it yourself and shipping it to end users before it's
ready and without having done all the due diligence -- is likely to be
embarrassing.

------
lhnz
It seems like the quality level maintained by Steve Jobs is quickly
deteriorating in favour of business moves designed to wrest more control off
Google. They are operating in a very similar way to other companies now.

Google executives must be laughing very hard right now. If I was Google I'd
avoid releasing a Google Maps application for at least a year and let the
Android handset manufacturers ruthlessly exploit Android's superior maps.

~~~
jad
> It seems like the quality level maintained by Steve Jobs is quickly
> deteriorating in favour of business moves designed to wrest more control off
> Google.

This stuff gets so tiresome. Apple has been buying maps companies for _years_.
Steve Jobs personally ran acquisitions at Apple. He decided which mapping
companies to buy and when he did he probably had a good idea of how they would
fit into the platform. Development of the new Maps app was surely underway
when Jobs was still alive. What do you think happened? Jobs died and the
executive team was like, "Alright everyone, we've got 6 months until the iOS 6
beta is out. Let's cancel our contract with Google and get this shit maps app
in there pronto!"

The reality is that Apple has been dependent upon their biggest competitor for
a strategically important smartphone feature. The Wall Street Journal
reported[1] months ago that Google initially balked at letting Apple have
access to Street View, and didn't allow Apple access to turn-by-turn data. If
the issue was only quality, Apple could have turned to Bing or Yahoo. They
didn't because owning this technology is a strategic necessity in the
smartphone market as it stands today. Having features dictated by competitors
is not an option.

It's true that the quality of the maps app isn't great. I get looney search
results (even when tapping on their search suggestions) and it's extremely
frustrating. But there is something to be said for getting it shipped and
starting the process of refinement and improvement. It only becomes a
strategic problem if the quality doesn't improve noticeably with time.

[1]
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FwvSLvr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FwvSLvrrgcwJ:online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304543904577398502695522974.html+http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304543904577398502695522974.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
qq66
It's not that tiresome. Jobs would have clearly done things differently. He
would have either 1) paid retail prices for Google Maps API access until Apple
could build a shippable product, or 2) Gone on stage and painted Google as a
big evil bully who was stealing good Maps from iPhone users -- the media
headlines would read "Google Reneges on Loyal Apple customers" or something
like that. Notably, the second option is not available to Tim Cook.

~~~
jad
> Jobs would have clearly done things differently.

What's almost as tiresome as the now persistent refrain of "this wouldn't have
happened if Steve was still alive" are claims to know what Steve would have
actually done if he were still alive. Your second option is ridiculous on its
face.

~~~
qq66
Look at what happened with the iPhone 4 antenna issue. He just went on stage
and said, "This isn't that big of a problem, and if it really bothers you, put
it in a case." That is clearly not an option for Steve Ballmer or Larry Page
in the same situation.

------
lbotos
So I've been seeing all this hatin' on HN this morning so I figured I should
check it out on my device. I mapped my commute (1 hour) and the only oddity I
saw was the waviness coming off of a bridge. Beyond that Philly's buildings
were all rendered correctly and my route was exactly the same as Google maps.
YMMV

P.S. I must say It was really cool to see Cira Centre (The Amtrak Building)
rendered in 3d. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cira_Centre>

~~~
misnome
Try living somewhere that isn't a big US city. Of course the major population
centers are going to be highly worked on. It's elsewhere, that google maps has
gotten so good on, that people are complaining about.

The satellite imagery is as bad as googles was, but more than six years ago.

~~~
akoumjian
Actually, even in big US cities results are really bad in some cases. in
Seattle, for example, searching for common well known intersections brings up
results halfway across the country.

~~~
mikeash
I hit a maps link for a restaurant in the Maryland suburbs of DC, _which had
latitude and longitude in it_ , and it still took me to the wrong place.
Removing the restaurant name and just leaving the lat/lon showed the right
place, but of course I didn't figure this out until I had already driven past
the wrong place and wondered where the restaurant was.

It's just atrocious. OK, so you have some bad POI coordinates, that's bad but
somewhat understandable. But how do you prefer your bad POI data to the
correct coordinates that you're given? It boggles the mind.

------
laacz
What actually bothers me the most, is poor quality of iOS6.

It has several bugs (excluding maps and unfortunate wifi bug), which already
have affected me and users around me. Some most notable include following.

* Sometimes iTunes update screen does not refresh,

* You can't disable vibration for notifications per application (i love my email in notification center, still - i do not need it to vibrate; in 5.1 it worked).

* Also, phone from time to time vibrates, though nothing has happened (no new notifications or alerts).

* Most annoying one is that they changed keyboard input, so you can't enter special characters (common in Latvian) by holding and swiping left/right. You have to swipe up and then left/right. Makes big deal, when typing.

I know it all will be fixed in 6.0.1, but still - there is visible decline in
quality of provided software, which actually makes me very sad as a user.

~~~
kalleboo
Apple's 1.0 release are always kind of buggy. I remember iOS 5.0 was really
buggy, and OS X 10.X.0 releases are notorious.

------
dr_
To be honest, despite its flaws, it's going to be ok for most of the people,
most of the time. Navigation is going to be a big boon. Using it I haven't
noticed major differences personally. Some restaurants are in the wrong
location, but on the flip side I like the yelp reviews. I'm sure they will
improve on the areas that are flawed.

~~~
AJ007
Directions being ok most for most people, most of the time, is hardly
acceptable.

Google Maps had a tendency to drop pins for locations on the wrong spot. That
meant I always had to confirm the location with street view, 100% of the time.

Going to the wrong spot can be catastrophic in some instances (wrong or non
existent hospital.) In others it can be really bad (missing a critical
meeting, walking in during a wedding.) I don't need to give more examples.

Google giving not so great search results is one thing. I can look at the page
and quickly tell that its wrong. When maps are wrong, it can add another 30
minutes between figuring out you went to the wrong spot and getting to the
right one.

If Apple's management thinks its acceptable to roll out beta products on all
of their users, I'll be moving to Android.

~~~
batista
> _I'll be moving to Android._

Google's Android? As in Google, the inventor of the "perpetual beta"?

~~~
icebraining
But they don't usually revert in quality.

~~~
batista
The Google Reader redesign fiasco? Google Wave to Google+ transition?

It's not like Apple "usually reverts in quality" either. This was a business
decision, probably forced. They had to create something of their own for maps
from what they could license and buy quickly.

Goes to show that you should not depend on your competitors for core
technology. Which Apple always tries to avoid, but probably in 2007 (when the
iPhone come out) the didn't think of Google as a competitor. They weren't in
the phone business back then...

~~~
icebraining
They weren't?

 _In what could be a key move in its nascent wireless strategy, Google (GOOG)
has quietly acquired startup Android Inc., BusinessWeek Online has learned.
The 22-month-old startup, based in Palo Alto, Calif., brings to Google a
wealth of talent, including co-founder Andy Rubin, who previously started
mobile-device maker Danger Inc._

\-- BusinessWeek, August 16, 2005

[http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-
buys-a...](http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-buys-android-
for-its-mobile-arsenal)

------
jws
It isn't as much fun, but the imagery of the places I care about is better
than google, in some case dramatically better.

Their place data needs a lot of help. e.g. If you look for the nearest
hospital from me it will take you to a new retirement community built on the
site of an old hospital. It is easy to report the problem, now to see how long
until it is fixed.

~~~
stephen_g
Yeah, it seems to really vary. In my short time of playing around, I haven't
noticed much reduction in quality at all around my city (Brisbane, Australia)
over Google Maps.

The only thing I noticed so far was that St. Lucia Golf Course was incorrectly
labelled as Indooroopilly Golf Course (which is a few kilometres away). I
reported it.

I'm actually fairly impressed with the number of businesses from Yelp - I
wasn't aware that it was available in Australia, but it has all of even the
most obscure little cafes and shops I've searched for around town.

------
glhaynes
I'm clueless about mapping/geocoding/etc (it's amazing I make it to the
grocery store and back) but I keep hearing that Apple needed to get this out
there so that they could start getting data feeding back from the millions of
iOS users, and thus (presumably rapidly) improving the quality of the maps. Is
there any truth at all to that? I don't quite understand where they'd be
getting that data back from - e.g. if I search for the hospital and I
eventually find it 3 miles down the road from where the map took me, how would
Apple/their mapping partners ever know that the POI should be moved?

~~~
sillysaurus
_e.g. if I search for the hospital and I eventually find it 3 miles down the
road from where the map took me, how would Apple/their mapping partners ever
know that the POI should be moved?_

One possibility is that the phone keeps track of the fact that "you drove 3
miles past where you were 'supposed' to stop, and then stopped at some other
(specific) location."

As more and more people do that --- search the hospital, drive past it, and
stop at the _same_ specific location != the phone's predicted location ---
then, statistically, we can infer that the "specific location" that everyone
eventually stops at is, in fact, the location of the actual hospital.

Interestingly, this implies that the current mapping problems will eventually
sort themselves out... after annoying a sufficient number of customers!

~~~
rmc
There are lot of privacy problems with essentially having every iphone phone
home with where it is all the time.

~~~
sillysaurus
I'd wager that the phone sends back "areas" rather than GPS coordinates. So
rather than the phone reporting "My owner was at (lat,long) at 3:21PM!" it
would instead report "My owner came within range of Starbucks' Wifi Hotspot at
3:19PM, and left at 3:23PM!"

In reality Apple has been doing exactly this type of thing since iOS 4 was
deployed[1], so unfortunately the privacy problems are apparently very easy to
sidestep.

[1]
[http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+is+Tracking+its+iPhone+iPad+U...](http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+is+Tracking+its+iPhone+iPad+Users+Every+Move/article21429.htm)

~~~
aspratley
Weren't they going to use user locations in their traffic update service?

------
hnriot
With maps.google.com (html5 version) I get some of the old functionality back,
but the thing I miss most is street view. Having flyover is very pretty for
demos but completely useless unless in real use. Street view, however, is
actually very useful and I use it on a regular basis. As far as I know there
isn't any work around to that. I will try ios6 again, but for now, I'm going
to restore my backup until (if) google come out with an iPad version of maps
and YouTube (instead of the iPhone only)

~~~
shinratdr
TomTom vehicles with StreetView-style 360 cameras have been spotted around
Toronto. I have little doubt Apple is pushing TomTom to compile that data and
it will be the first billed feature in iOS 6.1.

------
mullingitover
The beauty of this: Apple is definitely going to sell record numbers of the
iPhone 5, shitty maps or not. And when they eventually do claw their way back
to being on par with Google's maps, people will act like they invented maps
themselves and all will be forgiven.

------
insickness
While we are ragging on maps...

I live in New York City. Sometimes Google doesn't put the street names on all
the streets. I often have to scroll left or right or out to see what street
it's on. Obviously you can't list the names on every street when it is zoomed
out, but even when there aren't more than 4 or 5 streets on the map, the
street names still don't appear. It's like they'd rather list local
restaurants than street names. Has anyone else experienced this with Google
maps?

~~~
tayl0r
Happens to me all the time here in Berlin. Very frustrating. Sometimes I have
to scroll 2 screens away before I find the street labelled.

------
ilaksh
But you're still going to buy Apple because that is what all of your rich and
trendy friends use.

I have never owned an Apple product. The main reason for this is related to
class and/or culture and financial circumstances. My family was always very
frugal and on the lower side of middle class.

And honestly I'm frugal and so when I buy devices I am focused on value and
bought a laptop with a good graphics card and other features that I put Linux
and Windows on. Also I am not comfortable around people so I have pretty much
no friends. If I had more friends in web development I might have felt an
overwhelming peer pressure to buy a Mac.

The point is that these decisions are not actually based on technical merit,
not for me or for Apple fans, because that's not how humans make decisions. We
need to be very careful to take a step back every now and again and make a
conscious effort to correct trends towards a more rational basis.

The Apple ecosystem is generally more polished, that is true. However, its
also very much closed compared to other systems like Google's and outdated in
some ways. For example, Objective-C is a ridiculous over-complex relic and it
is very embarrassing that so many people waste their time with it.

Its obvious that we need to focus our attention and money on more egalitarian
and open businesses. And pretty soon, even the most open and inexpensive
products and services are not going to be a good value as better knowledge and
data sharing becomes more practical and popular.

The future is open, knowledge-based (some derivative of KR) operating systems
where machine code isn't even allowed. The future is knowledge-based
programming language and platform development and evolution. The future is
ubiquitous open cross platform applications. The future is content-oriented
peer to peer web knowledgebases and applications. The future is open source
phones that you print out in 3d on your desk.

The future of technology is open, distributed, cohesive and yet decoupled,
mature, substantive, and egalitarian. Apple is none of these things.

~~~
bluthru
>And honestly I'm frugal and so when I buy devices I am focused on value

The iPhone is $200. You still can't get a tablet that matches the iPad 3 for
$500. Saying Apple is expensive is like making one button mice jokes.

Value is a product of usefulness and longevity, plus resale value. It's
ridiculous to proclaim that Apple products aren't high on value--I still use
my 2007 MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion. It works out to well under a dollar
a day and I didn't have to make any compromises in the process.

>The future is open source phones that you print out in 3d on your desk.

The future is also a Star Trek replicator, and just as relevant to the
discussion.

>Apple is none of these things.

Because talented people want to be paid for their efforts, and I'm fine paying
people for doing great work?

~~~
fpgeek
> The iPhone is $200.

The cheapest new iPhone on sale (the iPhone 4) is $450. If you think it costs
less, that's because you have let Apple and the carriers fool you.

The cheapest Android, meanwhile, is less than $100. Even better, you can even
get a new Galaxy Nexus for $100 less than the cheapest new iPhone.

~~~
bluthru
Fool me? What are you talking about?

If I get a S3 or an iPhone 5 via AT&T, the cost will be the same over 2 years.

So what you're really saying is, if I get an iPhone on contract, I'm getting
more hardware for my dollar?

~~~
fpgeek
First, I'm saying that the number you cite is not the true cost of the phone
because it does not include the subsidy that AT&T pays the manufacturer on
your behalf.

Second, I'm saying that the true cost of an iPhone is usually greater than
they true cost of the typical Android phone they're matched up against. In
AT&T's case the apparent cost of ownership looks the same because they pay
larger subsidies to Apple than they pay to Android OEMs. This works
differently on other carriers (especially prepaid and overseas carriers) where
the headline cost-of-ownership changes depending on the phone you buy.

Third, I'm saying you end up paying the true cost of your phone one way or
another regardless of what the headline prices look like. In AT&T's case, I'd
say they recoup the larger subsidy with things like stricter unlocking
policies and changing app restrictions (e.g. FaceTime, tethering, ...).

Fourth, I'm very much _not_ saying you get more hardware for your dollar by
buying an iPhone. From what I recall of the estimated component costs, I think
the hardware costs are roughly equivalent between competing phones (and if you
insisted on picking a "bang for the buck" winner, you'd end up on the Android
side most of the time). Apple's high margins and profits come from somewhere,
after all.

~~~
ryanpers
The subsidy rate is the same regardless of which phone you get on AT&T/vz.
This means the logical course of action is to choose the phone that gives you
the most backend subsidy amount, which happens to be the iPhones. Apple gets
paid handsomely and a lot more than android makers. Therefore the best deal is
an iPhone.

The argument you SHOULD have made is "tmobile lets you sign up without a
contract at a discount without subsidy baked in".

Now, on a more "touchy feely" note, I owned 4 android phones (moto blur you
sucked!), but they have all been crappy in comparison. Hardware build quality,
software quality, general "polish" etc... My 4s has been better in every
single way. Oh and my personal data on the phone more secure to boot!
(iPhone's hardware encryption is VERY good) Life is too short to worry about
saving $200 every 2 years, fuck that shit and go with the better device.

Being frugal is a fine trait, but it can be "cant see the forest for the
trees". Don't pull the fucking poor card on me, I came from extremely modest
background... And even when I was poor I knew the value in buying, well,
VALUE.

~~~
fpgeek
The frontend subsidy rate isn't the same, at least according to AT&T's stated
online prices. The price difference for any on-contract vs off-contract iPhone
is $450. I couldn't find another new phone (Android, Windows Phone,
Blackberry, ...) with a on-contract vs off-contract price difference of over
$400. Most were $350 or less.

------
Aloisius
Since Apple doesn't have a website for their maps, just knowing what is broken
is going to be a problem for them.

I wonder if they will put in a map editor in their next version to crowd
source fixes or at least bug reports.

~~~
ehamberg
It already has that, to some extent.

When you click somewhere, one of the options you get is “Report a Problem”
which lets you say that something is missing or indicate where a point of
interest _should_ be by placing a pin.

------
grey-area
For those who think this is just a problem with the 3D images, or are not
convinced there are serious problems even after seeing this tumblr, try
looking outside of California, at both satellite and standard maps. Some
example searches:

"Brighton, UK", Satellite - a major UK city is so blurry you can't see
streets.

"Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands" - ends up in the middle of the sea, and no
roads on the islands at all.

"Colchester" - satellite shows clouds, in B&W

"Senkaku Islands" - compare satellite with standard to see duplicates of these
disputed islands.

"Puno,Peru"- in lake Titicaca

etc.

They probably had to rush this out, but it's really not ready for widespread
use in some areas; they'd have done better to cut back the features and
massively extend their testing (or use a crowd-sourced alternative). Given how
extensively this is used in iOS, both by apps using Mapkit and by customers
every day round the world, it's vital that is it correct, and getting it wrong
in such obvious ways is a massive strategic error on Apple's part.

~~~
shinratdr
Arguable, but there is something to be said for pushing it out there. Maybe it
would have been better as a staggered release, but it's not like they need to
wait for the next update to solve these problems. These are all issues with
server-side map quality, which can be updated on-the-fly.

We can only hope they're aggressively removing dead POIs and adding new ones.
If it has been a week and nothing has changed for anyone, I would start to
worry.

------
outside1234
iPhone 4S with iOS 5 > iPhone 5 with iOS 6

Nice work Apple - that's going to save me a few hundred dollars!

~~~
headShrinker
Your comment is relative and adds very little to the discussion here.

~~~
outside1234
Sorry - my point is that (minus sarcasm), for the first time, Apple has done
something to discourage folks from upgrading both on the hardware and OS
fronts. Not a great move.

~~~
redcircle
I agree: I am not installing iOS 6 until I can install a Google mapping app
(besides their Google Earth).

------
guilhermetk
I'd really like to know where the data from Brazil comes from, specifically
Florianopolis, SC. The first thing I did when I updated to iOS 6 was testing
the maps app. The building I live is at least 5 years old, but the map shows
it under construction

------
stephen_g
I really hope that people are using the 'Report Problem' feature in the app
every time they post a screenshot here. Because that is one of the biggest
things everyone can do that will help the map data to improve.

~~~
cooldeal
As Gruber likes to remind us at every chance, Apple has more than $100 billion
cash lying around. How about they use a little of that to license some half
decent maps from Google or, failing that, Nokia/Navteq?

Even Amazon(that Gruber sneered for making far less money than Apple [1])
managed to license Nokia maps and wrapped a nice API around it, and you think
the iPhone buyers have a responsibility to work on making Apple maps better
after paying for Apple's high margins so that Apple can make even more money
on selling "premium" phones? Give me a break.

[1] [http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit-
corr...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit-correction)

~~~
jpxxx
There is no possibility that this platform change was over Apple's inability
to come up with the cash to license a competitor's dataset. Their move was
political, strategic, or both.

~~~
fpgeek
Then they could have spent the money hiring armies like Google's to get the
map data right.

------
dm8
Looks like it works well in bay area but outside bay area it's pretty bad.
Apparently, Redditors are pretty pissed off -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/106rvw/new_ios_6...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/106rvw/new_ios_6_apple_maps_app_angering_users_and/)

Looks like AAPL tested it in Cupertino and worked well. Thought it will work
well in rest of the world too. Classic mistake?

------
ernestipark
I just upgraded to iOS 6 last night and just used it to get around downtown
Boston. It was unusable. It had some incorrect data about some locations, it
was confusing to use, and when I typed in a location, it would look in
different cities instead of the one I was currently in. Unfortunately, one of
the biggest apps I use regularly has taken a big step backwards.

------
acomjean
I just use Waze for turn by turn (iphone 4s) available for blackberry and
andriod. Plus if you go to google on mobile safari, it basically pesters you
to install a google map shortcut on the "desktop". This works very well.

I'm sure apple maps will get better, but seeing as they're not a search
engine, I don't think they'll ever get quite as good at finding by location
names.

------
DigitalSea
I think my favourite image was the state park with this caption beneath it,
made me laugh out loud: "Valley Forge State Park became Valley Forge National
Historical Park a few years ago… in 1976" in all seriousness Apple's maps
offering quite clearly isn't up to scratch in comparison to Google's maps
application.

While Google have made mapping look easy for a long time now, it quite clearly
isn't as easy as Apple thought it was. If Jobs were still alive, maps would
never have been released in the state that it currently is. Seems like Apple
rushed the release of maps, I wonder what the real agenda for moving away from
Google maps in the first place was here? It quite clearly wasn't because Apple
had a superior maps offering than Google could offer.

Way to force us iPhone users to use an inferior mapping product. Luckily
Google have submitted a maps application to the maps store, but it'll probably
get rejected for competing with the iPhone maps application.

------
shriphani
And I thought I had it bad with Bing Maps on WP7. Well, goes to show that
lower-bounds exist to be breached.

------
mapgrep
Funny subtitle: "The Apple iOS 6 Maps are amazing. Not."

People seem to think "amazing" == "cool". Not so! It just means astonishing or
surprising. Which makes the word so much more interesting to use. "We charge
$9 for a bottle of Corona." "That's amazing!"*

So the iOS 6 maps really truly are amazing :)

*True story

~~~
josephcooney
Same thing goes for the word 'incredible'.

------
CoachRufus87
Why did they stop using Google Maps?

~~~
acomjean
Probably a business decision.

Apple probably decided that having core phone functionality in the hands of a
competitor wasn't such a good idea. Also Apple users were helping the
competition with all the information they were uploading about geographic
data.

When the original iphone shipped with google maps (and the Google CEO on
hand), Apple and Google were partners, now not so much.

~~~
CoachRufus87
Do you think Google will eventually release a 3rd party maps app?

~~~
redler
Google using Maps exclusivity as a lever to drive the sales of Android
hardware doesn't really make sense. Google's goal is to place Google
properties in front of as many engaged eyes as possible.

Sure, there's a cohort of iPhone users at the margin who may now choose
Android over this issue (and we're hearing from some of them in this thread).
But there's no leverage Google can apply with Maps that will significantly
diminish the growing bulk of tens of millions of iPhone users. And Google
surely wants that vast army of iPhone users to be engaged users of Google
properties, including Maps and related features. Google Maps on iPhone is a
net win for Google, and does nothing to diminish Android, where Maps will
always be one step ahead and better integrated.

Of course Apple may have something to say about Google Maps for iOS 6...

~~~
discodave
The key is to remember that android is the trojan horse to get maps in front
of eyeballs not the other way around.

You could even go as far as saying that mobile maps was the most important
reason to create android.

------
derfclausen
In regards to "Where did my university’s buildings go?"
([http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/post/31928845471/where-...](http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/post/31928845471/where-
did-my-universitys-buildings-go)), it does bother me that so many universities
have provided specific map details to Google (see [http://google-
latlong.blogspot.com/2012/02/map-your-campus-a...](http://google-
latlong.blogspot.com/2012/02/map-your-campus-and-win-announcing.html)), but
not OSM.

------
edoloughlin
This [1] made the news in Ireland today, when a city farm in Dublin called
"Airfield" was labeled as an airport. It was thought that pilots in trouble
might attempt to land there, but I can't see why checking maps on their
iPhones would be part of emergency procedure.

[1] [http://searchengineland.com/irish-politician-calls-apples-
ne...](http://searchengineland.com/irish-politician-calls-apples-new-maps-
dangerously-misleading-after-farm-is-labeled-an-airport-133842)

------
jguimont
Google spend much time organizing the name of the cities and road in a
particular way. Now Apple has another way of doing it, the maps at higher
level show less information. Some city name are picked and some are not, but
at a closer level, the cities are there. Their algo to find what to show on
the map is just different from Google. I'm not saying it is better, but
different. I am pretty sure the same comparison can be made between google
maps and let's say bing maps.

------
antirez
I think Apple did the switch with bad timing, before having a good solution in
place... but in the end maybe facing some _real_ technological challenge can
be good for them? Every time they have to do serious software / infrastructure
stuff they seem to be weak, even with iMessage that is not exactly that super-
hard thing to do, there are reliability problems. I hope that this map stuff
will make Apple a bit more CS oriented, but not as much as Google is.

------
Jarihd
How can someone release a product like this !!!

What were the PM, team manager, technical architect, developers and QA doing
!!! Didn't they observe this !!!

Is this a deliberate product release ???

------
leephillips
Note that you can still go to maps.google.com in Safari. Give Safari location
permission and it works similarly to the old maps app, but a bit slower.

------
jarospisak
Relevant: how Google test maps <http://youtu.be/49JepTyK0NA?t=36m57s>

------
ForrestN
It's obvious that Google withheld or made it prohibitively expensive for Apple
to pay for the liscence to google maps.

It does retroactively make the case for handling these things in-house,
especially when the partner is a competitor. After years of giving Google
valuable data to the point where it becomes a major competitive advantage,
google presumably says "go to hell."

~~~
enraged_camel
I don't know why you got down-voted, because you're most likely correct. A lot
of people blame Apple for making this move out of pure spite (and perhaps some
grudge), but they probably did a huge cost-benefit analysis to be able to
justify the switch.

------
finkin1
Can't wait to see the consequences of this. I hope Google delays their iOS
maps a while so people can get frustrated with Apple.

~~~
ralfd
I don't understand your giddyness. It would be better if there would be
competition instead of Google having a map monopoly.

~~~
finkin1
I'm of the opinion that many things Apple does stifle competition. This is
enhanced by the "Apple can do no wrong" bandwagon.

~~~
v0cab
How do you feel about Samsung's behavior?

------
pbreit
I was expecting much worse. I don't think the problems with the 3D are that
big of a deal. And things like the Washington Monument being off by a few
dozen feet are fine.

What I will say is that Google for the longest time did not locate properly my
home or my store in the middle of downtown San Francisco and Apple's maps have
them correct on Day 1.

------
rabidsnail
The mapquest app is better than this. I wonder how much it would cost to
persuade AOL to part with the mapquest division.

------
leoedin
I love the one of houston highrises with gas stations on each one (they're
actually the corporate headquarters of oil companies).

[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mantx26oqv1rhptwbo1_1280.p...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mantx26oqv1rhptwbo1_1280.png)

------
mtgx
Seeing the poor state of the Apple Maps, I think Google can wait 2 years or so
before even considering releasing Google Maps for iPhone. More people will
want Android phones as they can't leave without it, just like some can't live
without the Gmail app for Android.

------
albumedia
The iOS 6 Map issue is nothing more than a PR stunt from apple.

I think it's brilliant. What's the best way to get people talking about their
new map feature?

Release a map product that is inferior to Google maps then push a major
update.

Everyone will be surprise how good iOS 6 map will be in a few weeks.

------
hackermani
Umm well Google maps are waaaaay superior. Apple give us the choice to use
what we want, till you get your act toghether. Spend some of thoese billions
and drive a bunch of cars around or heck buy a few satellites

------
rkrkrk21
Its now very clear that Apple is loosing its direction after steve jobs gone.
People who used to get crazy about the release of apple products will no loose
the passion if apple follows this path.

------
mikeleeorg
Are there alternate map apps on iOS that anyone could recommend?

~~~
MaysonL
Apps+ - it's free Google Maps basic, with a 2.99 unlock for added features.

------
dude8
I just got a Mac but this is the first time their closed source monopoly crap
has bit them in ash. The more it happens the quicker they will change. It's a
good day.

------
tsahyt
This is bad.. really bad. I'm not sure whether Apple screwed this up so badly
or Google really did a brilliant job on Maps.

------
white_devil
_"ZOMFG APPLE SUCKS!"_

There's a new _huge_ undertaking of making a modern, competitive "Maps"
product. Who'd have thought that when the first version ever is released, its
data is not as accurate as a _seven-year-old competitor's_?

This is fucking ridiculous. Let's see how long it takes for Google to replace
everything it has with vector graphics. You know, to _get even with the iOS 6
Maps_. Who's the incumbent in two years?

~~~
Simucal
I could be mistaken but I've read that Android has had vector based maps in
its app for awhile.

~~~
white_devil
The Maps app on my phone is still based on tiles. But you're right, there's a
new version with vector graphics.

------
homosaur
This thing is an AMAZING atlas, especially on the iPad. It's a horrible
navigation tool though.

------
dakrisht
Wow. That's all I have to say. WOW.

------
dumb_dumb
The Amazing Parchment Maps 6

1/100 of the cost of an Apple device.

Thinner.

Lighter.

Faster.

Powered by clean, green energy.

No Chinese workers exploited.

------
arunoda
ddsfdsfdfdf jjjj jj

------
brudgers
tl;dr

"iOS 6, Navigate Differently"

[At least I find it amusing]

~~~
mbel
"Navigate Different" -- remember the details, Apple loves details.

------
lucian303
Amazing? This is old tech. Google maps. Perhaps you've heard of it?

------
ledlauzis
Apple made this decision just to dump Google and try to gain more control.
Apple dind't want to use OpenStreetMap because its open source solution and
Apple never uses open source solution. Yeah, its iOS and OS X is based on
Linux (sort of) but they will never tell this to anyone. iOS 6 Maps sucks just
like the App Store on the New iPad. Maybe it is just me but I found it very,
very slow. It's better on iPhone

~~~
nicholassmith
I've said this a few times (as have others) but it seems it could do with
repeating.

Unless you've got inside information we have no idea who dumped who, all we
know is the contract expired and it wasn't renewed. Google might have applied
financial pressure, Apple might have thrown their toys out of the pram. It's
unknown.

------
sidcool
I hope this is meant as sarcasm. I cannot open the article from workplace, but
I truly hope it's derision.

EDIT - People are downvoting without reading it entirely. I have mentioned I
CANNOT ACCESS THE ARTICLE. So the only truth available to me is the Post here.

~~~
pdaddyo
Tagline is "The Apple iOS 6 Maps are amazing. Not."

~~~
sidcool
Did you even read my entire statement?

~~~
tdfx
I think that's why he posted the tagline of the article for you.

