Apple maps is an odd sort of problem for apple to have taken on.
First, it's Google head on. This is exactly the stuff where Google is very hard to beat. For Apple, it's a little outside their strengths. Too fiddly. Every damned place in the world has their own little public transport issues, data sources. Apple are more of a clever solution with the right compromises bunch than a "slog our way through 10 million random issues until a pattern emerges" bunch.
I like the moxy, but there's always going to be an "are we the new Bing?" cloud hanging over projects like this, unless and until they "win." All that said, I'm glad there is something out there that isn't google.
Agreed, but... they've already "won". Winning doesn't mean driving Google Maps out of existence, it just means being good enough that Google can't squeeze concessions out of Apple by threatening to yank GMaps.
A few years ago Apple disclosed that Apple Maps has 75% marketshare on iOS. [1] Mission accomplished.
Where in the linked article does it say Apple Maps has 75% marketshare?
Assuming that number is accurate, as Apple Maps is preinstalled on iPhones it means 25% of users went out of their way to manually remove it. Mission far from accomplished (and hence Apple's efforts in the OP to rebuild Maps' dataset entirely in-house.)
I'm also curious what the active usage numbers are versus Google Maps on iOS.
I would uninstall Apple maps entirely from my phone if i could but then there’d be no way to open up dropped pins from my messages. I always feel like the user is grabbed by the balls when it comes to device manufactures trying to force you to give them your data rather than hand it over to someone else, just because they know the user can’t do anything about it really.
> I always feel like the user is grabbed by the balls when it comes to device manufactures trying to force you to give them your data rather than hand it over to someone else, just because they know the user can’t do anything about it really.
This isn't a manufacturer problem, it's an Apple problem. Lack of choice is baked into their design, which is uncontroversial among both proponents and detractors; the former would (reasonably) say that there are tradeoffs that are the other side of the coin to constraining the user so heavily.
Once you could open it in google maps from Apple maps, now they removed this ability.
I wish I could use google maps as a default and get rid of that useless Apple maps.
And if only gmail would open up safari by default without asking me every single time. And yes, I only use safari on my iPhone because it’s either just safari or safari AND chrome.
Wow, isn't that the same kind of behavior/pattern that made MS target of the antitrust charges in the end of the 90s, back then with IE being the default browser?
Can I ask what you mean by "Bilbo Baggins phrasing"?
I agree with your point, and think I can guess what that phrase means, but I'm not quite remembering why Bilbo Baggins would be associated with being intentionally vague about something :)
The line he uses at his going away party is somewhat related, “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
I always assumed it was too, but now that I actually try to parse it... I think maybe it's not? But all who heard it probably assumed it was too? I think Bilbo probably meant the to be confused about whether it was or not, with plausible deniability, haha.
That probably includes embedded maps in apps. They default to apple maps and this will make up a lot of usage. Direct map usage is probably more skewed towards Google Maps.
> Apple says its mapping service is now used more than three times as often as its next leading competitor on iPhones and iPads, with more than 5 billion map-related requests each week
I wonder whether this includes all of the times where I tap an address link from Messages, Apple Maps opens as the default (which you cannot change[1]), I realize the horror of what I've done, and then I copy/paste the address explicitly into Google Maps. Count one map-related request for each!
Yea I bet if you measure by in-app hours instead of frequency, Google Maps would come out on top even though it's not installed out of the box, and even though all map actions on an iPhone will invoke Apple Maps by default.
That means 75% is an upper bound, right? It's only 75% if Google had the only other maps product, and even they have two popular ones (Maps and Waze) that are likely to be installed.
I use my phone with car play for nav, so Apple maps. Directions and time estimates are better then google. Finding near by stuff, google wins. To the other posters point, since I am a car play user, Apple won as far as that goes.
It says nothing about anything, really. There may be specific jurisdictions where Apple maps or Google maps falls over because that is an area they happen to have some bad data for - we can't really tell.
Strategically, Apple maps is in a good spot for Apple - Google's offering isn't the major choice of users for a piece of critical functionality.
Apple maps is installed by default on iOS AND is the default mapping app when you tap an address - and you CAN'T change that default on iOS. Given that, their usage numbers aren't as impressive as all that.
Seems odd to just blindly accept whatever numbers Apple provides about the usage of its own apps. Isn’t it going to be inherently at best a little biased? I guess there’s really no possible way to independently verify these numbers anyway.
What choice do they have? Maps, location data, and the services they enable are critical to mobile devices today, and will only get more so with AR and devices without screens.
“Everybody but Google” isn’t good enough judging by the current state of affairs, and Google doesn’t play by the same privacy rules as Apple, so they seem to have few options.
> * I work for Apple’s Maps team. We are interested in doing some fixes and improvements to inland water features in Australia on OSM, such as adding and improving geometry of polygons for lakes and wide rivers, fixing broken relations, and correcting alignment issues for inland features when they meet the coast.*
> Atlas [1], a tool Apple created for querying, visualizing, and storing OpenStreetMap data.
> Data Improvement Projects [2] being worked on by the Apple Data Team.
> Building Footprint Data [3] that Apple is sharing.
OSM is orders of magnitude worse than Apple's current data set in my area, and I doubt that's unusual.
So the question for Apple is why tie themselves to a 3rd party platform? If they're going to go to this massive level of effort to generate the best data set they can achieve, they'll want to control the full stack for quality and predictability.
They could feed the OSM-relevant data they create to the platform, but that means a lot more work to create and maintain the integration tools and manage the workflow, along with potentially reduced revenues if they make OSM too good.
I doubt they'll care about any threat from OSM, but I doubt they'd see the overall effort as a good business investment. This isn't as straightforward as open sourcing some software.
> OSM is orders of magnitude worse than Apple's current data set in my area, and I doubt that's unusual.
As ever, define "worse" and "my area".
OSM is consistently worse worldwide (compared to Google, TomTom and Here) for geocoding. OSM is consistently worse for lane guidance. OSM is generally worse than Google worldwide for commercial POIs (shops, restaurants etc.), but on a par with TomTom and Here, and this is very location-dependent.
OSM is better worldwide, by several orders of magnitude, for pedestrian and bicycle mapping. OSM is generally better for non-commercial POIs. OSM is very often better in all aspects (save geocoding) in rural locations, particularly in Europe.
If you're an American motorist then Google is your best map right now. If you're a European cyclist then OSM is really the only game in town. It's not a black-and-white issue.
I was about to respond to the GP asking for details because where I am and as mainly a pedestrian and cyclist OSM is really the only decent solution (unless you like walking 30minutes in a large circle rather than 5).
I think Apple sponsoring and improving OSM would actually be the smartest and best way out of this debacle.
I think a perfect example of Apple doing this is: Webkit. Webkit gets back a lot from Apple (though I'm sure there's plenty of room to be miffed at Apple for being slow sometimes, but it still doesn't disprove the point) and it's a core part of their user-facing applications.
Personally, I'd like to see them just open source what they have and let the world enjoy. Either approach would certainly remove the death grip Google has on mapping solutions right now.
> Apple sponsoring and improving OSM would actually be the smartest and best way out of this debacle
I like to be thinking that, but being aware of me liking that thought, I'm asking myself: would I actually do so being some Apple executive? And I'm not sure I would. I do think that being community-supported is really, really great, and OSM has a pretty good community too. I'm a big opensource proponent, so it's easy for me to say, but I also think having their maps (software and data) free (as in GNU, yeah) wouldn't harm Apple, given the map is not their unique product they are selling. And being a native supporter of something that could be wikipedia for maps would be huge. So, yeah… yay OSM?
But, with all that said: IMO, OSM is a huge organizational mess. Giving them money & satellites, and then just expecting it will all "solve itself out" isn't really something I would do being responsible for Apple Maps. For starters, it's not like all OSM community members automatically become Apple employees, you're basically donating to somebody over whom you won't have any leverage. What's more important, it's not clear what it the goal of the donation, what OSM is expected to do with that? And how it will serve Apple? Their priorities seem to be quite off, OSM doesn't give a shit about any "product" whatsoever, they are just guys passionate about collecting all sorts of geo-data into databases nobody ever uses (at least, as far as OSM is concerned, they are the database: they don't make apps). And it's even questinable if such way of collecting data is the way to go in the age of imaging satellites, widely accepted spyware on every phone, ML and "big data".
And it's not like this is cheap, any way it would be done. And, no offense, but "partnering" with OSM wouldn't be exactly partnering. OSM doesn't have managers, engineers or cartographers any better than Apple can hire, all they have is community, which wouldn't even be OSM community anymore, if Apple rolls out a better (and more accessible) open geo-spatial DB than OSM has. Which, I believe, they are capable of.
Couldn’t they just fork OSM? If OSM wants to merge, go for it. Otherwise we have a new opensource map project. Not sure why we care if the original project lives or dies.
I guess they could. But since they have to do everything themselves anyway, why bother? I'm not sure about the legal aspect, but even so, I'm pretty sure Apple can use OSM's data in one way or another would they need to (in fact, article states that they did use it in the earlier versions of the map). And since they are making the map on their own, nothing forces them to open-source the DB right now: should they decide that it will be beneficial they can do it any time in the future. And should they decide it isn't: they just don't.
Yes they could. The OSM licence requires a share-alike, so OSM would be able to use anything Apple add, but all that's required is a database dump. It would be up to the OSM community to "merge" it back in if they wanted.
WebKit is Apple's project. It doesn't make sense to say WebKit gets back a lot because it's their own project. It's forked from KHTML, but hey nowadays even Konqueror uses WebKit.
I think it's kinda like Google working with Android as an open source project. Google makes money on Android primarily by using Android as a means of delivering the Google ecosystem. They don't care that it's open source because they don't make money by selling it.
Apple could do the same thing with maps. Support a robust open mapping initiative to make sure their primary business (selling iPhones and other devices) has a solid platform for emerging technologies like AR. Making sure they have a solid maps offering supports the Apple (aka iPhone) ecosystem.
Also similarly to Google, they can still push plenty of proprietary things on top of the open parts of the initiative.
Yeah, I’ve nothing better to do than roam around fixing maps. It’s not like I have a daily job or anything. /s
It the same argument when someone talks about an issue with an open source software. The response is, “The source code is available, go fix it yourself.” It doesn’t work that way for anything but trivial issues.
I've fixed a few things in Open Street Map. But, for example, the city line for Redwood City CA at its western edge is totally bogus. That needs to be fixed by automatic reference to some authoritative source, like the USGS database.
i think there was an article a while ago about the OSM community not liking the idea of bots and automation, and how it’s a big problem for people “graffitiing” the maps because it’s manual effort to reset
It's not so much vandalism that is the issue, it's that rampant automatic edits can end up removing meaning from the data (by smoothing out meaningful differences and the like) or if they aren't careful enough, create a giant mess.
With code you need to be able to programme. For OSM you just need to know something about an area. Do you know what the name of that street is? That there's an italian restaurant on that corner? What the house number of that building is? etc etc
> Yeah, I’ve nothing better to do than roam around fixing maps. It’s not like I have a daily job or anything. /s
No one said it has to be your job or passion. I've fixed a couple of areas in OSM, but I've probably spent no more than a few hours working on it in total.
> It the same argument when someone talks about an issue with an open source software. The response is, “The source code is available, go fix it yourself.” It doesn’t work that way for anything but trivial issues.
Fixing a map for a locale you're familiar with is orders of magnitude easier than fixing a bug in an unfamiliar codebase potentially built with unfamiliar technology. That's assuming you know how to code in the first place.
> No one said it has to be your job or passion. I've fixed a couple of areas in OSM, but I've probably spent not more than a few hours working on it in total.
That doesn’t work unless everyone else is doing it. And for that to work, everyone should be using it in the first place. It’s a catch 22 problem. To be fair, it is possible that people do this where you live - which may be a reason why it is usable there, but I have not found that to be the case at the places I have visited.
Perhaps it is not as complicated as fixing a software bug, but the idea is same - the data is available publically, go fix it.
> That doesn’t work unless everyone else is doing it. And for that to work, everyone should be using it in the first place. It’s a catch 22 problem.
If that were actually true, Wikipedia would be no more than four stub articles written by Jimmy Wales.
The real barrier is people looking at a volunteer project and asking themselves "how can I take from this what I want?" rather than "how can I contribute to this, even in a small way?"
No one says anyone has to take on the herculean task of totally fixing all the problems they see in their area. But if you spend a little time fixing something, it will get better and perhaps even attain a high enough quality to satisfy you.
The most likely time for somebody to notice a problem is a) when they are on the move, and b) when it's a location unfamiliar to them. These are terrible circumstances to expect somebody to stop what they are doing and edit a map.
OSM is great for walking and cycling because pedestrians and cyclist are flexible enough to make small detours to map missing paths. In cities it's usually good enough if your destination is in the right spot, you can navigate by walking generally in the right direction. Finding potential shortcuts and getting to map terra incognita is just an added bonus.
And while I really like OSM I must say Apple got it right. The "report an issue" interface on iOS Map is easy to use on the go and requests are actually assigned to people who fix the map. I’ve signaled a few mistake and they all have been corrected.
It's not as complicated as fixing a software bug, but it's not trivial for the first-time user either.
Create an account, figure out how to navigate the interface, figure out what rules apply to your update, apply update, get reprimanded because you followed the explicit rule for "I'm not quite sure what to do with this".
__sr__ you're aware open source actually works. Largely because a tonne of people have entirely the opposite attitude to you for social tasks? Unless you haven't noticed Wikipedia exists... I worked on that long before it was mainstream or generally useful.
One of my besties is the OSM guru & evangelist (day job) and Ingress fanatic (that annoying friend).
He tried to dream up some notions to gamify improving OSM's data. While their current data quality trends are remarkable, better is better, right? (I don't have the gumption to find & link their conf proceedings slidedeck right now, sorry.)
I have interest and experience with GIS, location-based stuff, games. So we tried to brain storm some game ideas.
Sadly, we got nothing.
But I'm confident someone will divine a MineCraft-esque smash hit game. Something simple, fun, engaging, cultural, that with 20/20 hindsight will leave a lot of people facepalming.
For me the issue is more that they don’t seem to be able to pull it off.
Sure if they could have a super high quality dataset they build themselves it would be stupid to share it, but they don’t have that data, and I wouldn’t bet on them to have it even putting all their weight in the effort.
There is also the issue of motivation for the user to give feedback. If I do it in Google Maps I know it will benefit most users. In OSM it’s a pure gift to the community. Apple Maps ? it’s less clearcut.
The key part in what you said is "my area". There are a great many areas in which Apple Maps is fantastic - usually well-populated cities or surrounding areas in the US.
The reason to partner with OSM would be to cover the other 99% of landmass. It's very, very difficult to scale an operation like that otherwise.
They could sponsor OpenStreetMaps and dedicate resources to it
According to the article, OpenStreetMaps was one of the data sources that Apple used and decided wasn't up to snuff.
The article doesn't specify what the problems were with OSM, or if there were any problems unique to OSM, but one of Apple's priorities is rapid map updates, which is something that can be accomplished faster if it's in-house.
In addition, Apple intends to update its new maps in real-time (new road opens and 100 iPhone users drive on it, it magically appears on the map). I don't think that's possible with OSM.
The article just strikes me as plain wrong in this regard. Yes, of course Apple isn't going to use OSM in the Bay Area, but it's a big world out there.
There's no technical limitation whatsoever in the way of using OSM as a primary data source and also doing things like using phone telemetry to add roads to your local display map.
It'd likely be necessary to make that data available under the same license OSM is under, but that'd be it.
The way people use OSM, they grab a dump of the data and then load it into a database or whatever (probably processing it into a convenient schema) and then build maps from that database. So it's pretty easy to have more than 1 source contributing to the map you are displaying.
For updates, edits to OSM are available minute by minute, so if your data ingestion is up to it you don't have to put up with the stale data:
Google Maps gets really bad in rural areas, I was shocked on a recent trip in Washington state at how bad their maps are. They seemed to have half the businesses in town on the map, but the roads were inaccurate, missing, and sometimes just plain wrong.
OSM comparatively was of much higher caliber, which was surprising.
That would massively benefit OSM, and if OSM became Apple Maps/Google Maps calibre resource it would also benefit other OSM users including potentially Apple's competitors, but how would it benefit Apple?
Bear in mind if malicious entries got into OSM and made their way into Apple's data, guess who eats the smelly sandwitch for that?
Yeah, but they’re actually collecting all this new data for autonomous vehicles. Improvements to their maps app is just a freebee. For autonomous cars, mapping data this detailed is probably a several billion dollar competitive advantage that they don’t want to give away for free.
Agree, Apple should just commoditized maps with a big open source initiative to take the leverage/power away from Google. They just need a highly functional solution for their platform.
Why would Apple want to base their business on their he competency of OpenStreetMaps. As a shareholder, I would find that alarming; as a user, Apple Maps is far better as it is right now.
The usual play is "when behind, join up with others and promote openness". That's what Google and Microsoft are doing vs AWS in cloud, its what browsers did during IE 6.0's reign, it's what Apple did with it's OS kernel, and so on.
It admittedly doesn't seem like a great fit for current Apple.
The two future directions that Apple are heading in are AR (augmented reality) and AS (autonomous systems). Mapping is more than key to both of those domain. It’s a complete no-brainer for Apple.
Maps, location data, and the services they enable were available on Apple devices before this project. They outsourced to Google, like everyone else. I can see how that's a strategically concerning position, especially considering that they are in a two-horse race against Google, but... you are going to have some uncomfortable dependencies in this business regardless. I mean chips are important.. nevermind.
Google was withholding the latest features from the Apple version, including vector map data and turn by turn directions. There's also indications Google wanted access to user location data in return for some of these features, something Apple was not willing to compromise on.
This is absolutely it. Maps, location data, and point clouds will power ARKit on the phone and perhaps in glasses.
Apple’s mobile UX has always relied on vertical integration, from custom-built A* chips all the way up to iCloud-powered software. Similarly, mastering underlying AR technologies will give Apple maximal control over its AR user experience.
Originally, they couldn't license the actual data, either, because at least the road network wasn't Google's to license. It came from TeleAtlas (after Nokia had bought NavTeq), Zenrin for Japan and a few more. Things were tricky like that before the Ground Truth project (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsbLEtS0uls) covered enough of the planet.
When Google launched navigation on Android, it lost money in countries not covered by Ground Truth, which I think was everywhere outside the US. That's because TeleAtlas and co. charged N times as much when the same data was used for real time directions.
That's what the relationship was before Google withheld turn by turn directions and wanted more data than Apple was willing to give [1]:
>But multiple sources familiar with Apple’s thinking say the company felt it had no choice but to replace Google Maps with its own, because of a disagreement over a key feature: Voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions.
>Spoken turn-by-turn navigation has been a free service offered through Google’s Android mobile OS for a few years now. But it was never part of the deal that brought Google’s Maps to iOS. And sources say Apple very much wanted it to be. Requiring iPhone users to look directly at handsets for directions and manually move through each step — while Android users enjoyed native voice-guided instructions — put Apple at a clear disadvantage in the mobile space. And having chosen Google as its original mapping partner, the iPhone maker was now in a position where an archrival was calling the shots on functionality important to the iOS maps feature set.
>And this caused Apple — which typically enjoys very tight control over its products — no end of philosophical discomfort, sources say. Apple pushed Google hard to provide the data it needed to bring voice-guided navigation to iOS. But according to people familiar with Google’s thinking, the search giant, which had invested massive sums in creating that data and views it as a key feature of Android, wasn’t willing to simply hand it over to a competing platform.
>And if there were terms under which it might have agreed to do so, Apple wasn’t offering them. Sources tell AllThingsD that Google, for example, wanted more say in the iOS maps feature set. It wasn’t happy simply providing back-end data. It asked for in-app branding. Apple declined. It suggested adding Google Latitude. Again, Apple declined. And these became major points of contention between the two companies, whose relationship was already deteriorating for a variety of other reasons, including Apple’s concern that Google was gathering too much user data from the app.
I think it was a major strategic mistake on Google's part. But this was the heyday of Andy Rubin, and during that era Google was letting the tail wag the dog in trying to differentiate Android. They've since come to their senses and Android is back to being what it was always designed to be, a vessel for Google's services that actually make money. But that forced Apple to enter this business when they otherwise wouldn't have and now it will serve as a core technology from autonomous cars to AR. And since they're already sinking the capital and doing the grunt work to make Maps from scratch, they might as well earn some incremental revenue from it [2].
Apple never got data in the original deal, either. They just proxied tiles and search requests.
That story is cool, but it's missing at least an additional plot twist that "people familiar with Google's thinking" cautiously chose not to mention. I doubt the Apple side would bring it up. Hopefully in ten years someone will write a memoir about those crazy days.
I disagree that this was a major strategic mistake for Google; they had no other realistic choice. A bit of that was informed by the experience with the built-in Maps AND Youtube apps written in Cupertino. The article talks about features and data, but there are other realities to contend with. Of course, Apple had its hands tied by earlier events and choices, too. Things were already on a collision course by the time the negotiations started.
> That story is cool, but it's missing at least an additional plot twist that "people familiar with Google's thinking" cautiously chose not to mention. I doubt the Apple side would bring it up. Hopefully in ten years someone will write a memoir about those crazy days.
This sounds definitive. Is it a conjecture, or do you know something that you're not mentioning (or possibly it is widely known and just I don't know it …)?
I worked at Google on maps during those times. There was a lot going on that isn't public and some bad behaviour by Apple, Jobs very much saw Apple as the dominant partner and didn't treat the maps guys well at all. It was a very difficult relationship in which Apple was unwilling to compromise or negotiate, not even to get what they wanted.
Like the other poster, I was at Google during those days, but I do not want to say too much. I never dealt with Apple myself, but I knew people who did, for both Maps and YouTube. None of them were particularly delighted.
The All Things D article is nice when it comes to drama and gossip, but omits details behind words such as "there were a number of issues". Those twists might be mundane or boring for a good story, but made the divorce even more inevitable. The relationship was doomed to fail.
Google is doing a great job of making their mobile app a PITA to use. I just want to see a map, not a persistent screen filling list that refuses to be dismissed. If Apple were smart they would make it cross platform and strengthen their data collection with Android users.
If Apple made a map that labeled every street on the map at a certain zoom level, I'd switch today. I think I'm the only one who wants to use a map, to, ya know, see what the streets are. Maybe I'm old?
No you are not odd. Often, it's frustrating when trying to read a street name on Google maps, especially in a dense area like a downtown. Google prefers to display business names over street names. And when there are lots of businesses in an area, you won't be able to see a street name until you absolutely zoom all the way in.
This is my #1 pet peeve on Google maps. It's the non-determinism that really gets me. Maybe zooming in will get me a street name? Maybe zooming out will? Maybe if I followed the road in that direction? How about this direction? How about if I follow it a few blocks, then zoom out?
Getting a good dose of impotent rage just thinking about it.
Well now you've gotten me all bothered, too. And if I do manage to find the street name but can't quite read it because the font is too small, I zoom in and the road expands but the font doesn't. No matter how I zoom or pan, it offers either 1) too small, or 2) oops, I disappeared again.
What's even more infuriating in such a case: even many businesses are missing until you zoom way in.
On desktop, I've resorted to use gmaps with 50-60% browser zoom to get it to show a bigger part of the map at full zoom while still having full symbol density. It's crazy.
(The most ironic part is the pop-up "You should increase browser zoom level to get a better Google Maps experience!". No, Google, not really.)
Thank you. This drives me crazy as well. (Related: roads that have both names and highway numbers, but the map shows one and not the other, regardless of zoom level.)
I mean, there's other map providers as well. OpenStreetMap is generally good with providing lots of map detail (whereas they are not good as a Google at providing the sort of in-depth information like opening times or that this shop has been rated 5/5 by the owner, their mother and their alt account).
I also find it frustrating you can't tap on a place while you're in "directions" mode. If you're going somewhere and want to see if some place on the way is open, you have to exit directions, tap the place and then request directions again!
Google Maps always nags me to login to improve my experience. I hate that; hate the idea of one more entity collecting info on my daily patterns and travels.
It's annoying that notifications are on by default, but just as with any other app, you can either mute all notifications or go in and disable specific types with pretty high granularity.
To sorta the same point, I use the YouTube app on my iPad and I am logged in because I to see my subscribed channels. Now google has asked me to sign up for YouTube Red like 1000s times now in the app. You would thing after the 999 no they would understand yet....
Google maps is also very weak/nonexistent with planning a specific route, saving it, and using it. It's possible to plan a route with the web version, but there is no way to save it so it's usable past that. Sending it to mobile google maps and it recalculates everything.
I do cross country drives and love PIP on Android. I also like how I can schedule a stop at a gas station or grocery store based on how it impacts my route.
The only complaint I have about maps is that it doesn't seem to know where I'm going next. Nine times out of ten the place I'm navigating to is the same place I navigated to from the same spot yesterday.
Google Maps lets you save common routes (plus detects ones you haven't yet) and pull them up quickly... like a daily commute route. Which powers the 'warning your drive to x is 10min delayed with traffic accident' stuff on Google Assistant.
The problem is that while Google Maps is very popular, it's not easy to find and use these features. I just came across is accidentally one day. Or it's possible Google asked me if I wanted to save if when it detected I do it often. It's been a while so my memory is a bit hazy on the original workflow I took.
> The problem is that while Google Maps is very popular, it's not easy to find and use these features.
While talking about hard-to-find-and-use features: sometimes, when I try to get directions, Google offers to download them for me for offline use.
This is frustrating because it only happens sometimes, but I want it almost all the time. There's a relatively easy way to download offline directions for a specific region, but I can't find a way to download offline directions for a specific route (including, presumably, a small fuzz of nearby information—I don't know what it downloads when it offers, since I find this hard to reproduce). Just downloading all the regions involved is impractical for, e.g., cross-country drives.
Do you know how to download offline directions for an arbitrary route, when Google doesn't prompt me to do so?
Admittedly I live in a very densely populated place, but now everything is hidden until you hit the correct 'zoom zone' - I still use it of course but it's less usable and far, far more bloated...
I too live in a densely populated place and easily see the full map. Do you have a screenshot? Here's what it looks like when I open, if I tap on the map it goes to full map (no search bar, no buttons on the bottom).
What's the name of the street between Pine and Union. Seems to be an important street. But no, Google would rather display the Chipotle rather than the street name. If I'm looking for Chipotle, I'll fucking type it out in the search box. Don't display me random businesses, just show me the damn Street name!
It's not trying to hide the street necessarily, it's recognizing that it can't display the street AND the business name because the text would either overlap or be too cluttered to read. Not being able to prioritize street names over place names, or not being able to switch off place names entirely would be a valid criticism, but I suspect there's an attempt to make the "default" experience the best balance without requiring that people tweak a wall of knobs and levers. It's not going to please everyone, but that may not be a realistic goal anyway
And if you're looking for the name of the 3 other businesses in the same building as the Chipotle, good luck! You might have to zoom in another 400%, and get lucky.
Now what if you're trying to casually browse the map to get an idea of what's around you? Have fun!
If you're looking for a specific business you would type it in the search box... By default it highlights places I often go, popular places, landmarks, etc. Highlighting a lunch place at lunch time makes a ton of sense to me.
I have been to that Chipotle a bunch of times and have searched for it multiple times (to get its hours), it makes sense to highlight it on my map. I just compared on the web version with logged in vs Incognito tab and Chipotle is only highlighted in the logged in version (along with other places I like). The public version sticks to larger POIs (hotels, museums, venues, etc).
Why would you need to see the name of the street? You're much more likely to pull open a map to go somewhere instead of learning about street names in your own neighborhood. If I want to see every street labeled I can just zoom in, but 99% of the time I just want to go somewhere.
Here's a use case: I was in NYC the other day, and GPS doesn't really work on the sidewalks in Manhattan. I was trying to find the Empire State Building, but I couldn't see it from where I was. I knew I was in the right vicinity, but the GPS kept hopping from block to block and I had no idea.
I had to look at the street signs and compare to the map on my phone to determine where I was and where I needed to go.
"Why do you need to see the name of the street" is a really odd question to me.
Exactly, not showing street names presumes gps works and that its self evident where to go.
I don't get why a MAP, won't show street names. Its maddening when you have street signs and have to look around to figure out what street you're on in the application.
I'll just say Google is great at making AI and A/B testing away things that are useful and needed in a pinch.
And this is the heart of the Google philosophy: Second-guessing the user, rather than delivering what the user asked for. A map is a tool, not a guessing game.
You're much more likely to pull open a map to go somewhere instead of learning about street names in your own neighborhood.
If I'm in my own neighborhood, I'm probably not using a map. If I'm somewhere new, I pull out the map. Maps 101.
> And this is the heart of the Google philosophy: Second-guessing the user, rather than delivering what the user asked for. A map is a tool, not a guessing game.
Well this user is happy, I don't want a digital copy of a paper map. I love the dynamic aspects of Google Maps and hope they continue to evolve new ways of showing me what I want before I do anything.
> If I'm somewhere new, I pull out the map. Maps 101.
And still I ask why would you want to know that the street is named Pike? When I'm somewhere new I don't care what any of the streets are named, I care about what is on those streets. Street names matter for turn by turn navigation, but just browsing around are useless to me. Seattle could change the name of every street tomorrow without warning and it wouldn't change where I want to go for lunch.
Addresses are meant to be searched, something that Google Maps is surprisingly bad at, at least in France... Paper maps need street names, because that's how you search but that's not the case when there is a computer helping you.
As for places of interest, I've seen an article that blew my mind. By analyzing business concentration, they are able to deduce the interesting parts of a city (they are shown in a different color on the map). And it works. Famous streets tend to show brightly, and even if you don't know the name, you know there is something there.
Of course it doesn't mean that street names are uninteresting, but on a map, choices have to be made. And tbh, when we have all these powerful tools, street names are, I think, secondary. It is not that I think Google choices are the absolute best, just that what works best on paper may not be the best for computers.
If I'm navigating to an address I would put it in the search box... Who in their right mind would decide to hunt around the map to find a specific address? Pike Place Market was one of the few things highlighted on the screenshot I posted so that seems like a strange example.
Obviously we use the product differently, but I'm not using Google Maps to study for The Knowledge exam. I am looking for POIs which is what Google emphasizes, streets are
just part of getting there (and are then emphasized when you're in navigation mode).
No the street labels don't even always show on maximum zoom. Yes I want the street name even if I'm going to the Chipotle they display because it's easy to know that I'm walking to Main Street then turn left versus checking my phone every block to see if I'm there yet.
Exactly what I was going to add. Also if your battery is low, it's much better (for me, at least) to just memorize a few turns and then shut down the app. I don't need my phone pinging GPS constantly while it's in my pocket, and especially when exploring a new city, that's exactly where it should be if you want to take in the neighborhood while you get to your destination.
> Why would you need to see the name of the street? You're much more likely to pull open a map to go somewhere instead of learning about street names in your own neighborhood. If I want to see every street labeled I can just zoom in, but 99% of the time I just want to go somewhere.
Your comment literally seems to say "Why would you do this thing, since I don't?". Surely that reasoning is just as specious as (say) asking why someone would want a vegetarian restaurant, since you eat meat?
There's a huge amount of construction in Seattle right now. The streets around my office are constantly closing and opening on different days. Sometimes it is easier to just look at a map of the neighborhood and navigate from that. If Google wants the app to be used for navigation only they should have called it Google Navigation.
I like riding my motorcycle around and exploring the city. I may not have a specific destination in mind or want to take the most efficient route. being able to quickly pull up a map of my location mapped to signage in the real world is indispensable.
Naming streets is the entire point of a street map. It literally maps names to streets.
> Naming streets is the entire point of a street map
No, it's not. Showing where streets go is important independent of naming; street maps exist for places with unnamed streets (and include the unnamed streets), which would not be the case if mapping names to streets (or vice versa) were the entire point.
No. When I visit friends I go to 1432 Union St. not to Walmart. I wouldn't even know how to tell the taxi driver where I want to go if not by the address.
I think he's talking about when you are in turn by turn directions you can get into a mode where there is no way to get out. You need to throw away the app to get out.
I always understood it as avoiding a complete dependency on Google, since (some form of) Maps is a must-have feature for any modern smartphone. After the Schmidt/Android thing I think the Apple leadership basically assumed Google would screw them over sooner or later if they could.
So many folks (myself included) rely on our phones for GPS & navigation, and having the UX for that be monopolized by one player is leaving a huge use case for your phone in the hands of your biggest competitor.
I think Apple has the opportunity to make a very unique & compelling experience, with their deep integration with the OS that they don't offer to outside developers. Though we'll see if they can actually execute.
It’s already a common user behavior to type your query right into the address bar, and that’s where this is in Safari. Spotlight is just the (confusing imo) branding
Wait, isn't Spotlight the name for Apple's local search (and maybe it's now used for whatever kind of unified search iOS likes to do?), whereas Safari's feature of treating things entered into the address bar that don't look like URLs as search queries is just a common redirection feature (analogous to the Firefox Awesomebar/Omnibar/whatever it's called now) that has nothing in particular to do with Spotlight?
Search in general is _hard._ But vertical specific searches & use cases can be tackled by different apps.
I would argue that my pushing for more prolific relationships with developers, you sort of chip away at this competitive threat with more specific, vertical-oriented searching experiences.
Example: I'm searching for restaurants nearby, I _could_ open Google, or I could leverage the Yelp/OpenTables of the app store.
Same thing for travel - flights, hotels, etc. all have apps that could, in theory, better serve the user than the catch-all "Google Search" app.
Maps is a slightly different beast; it's almost as ubiquitous as the "Phone" app itself .
There are other big search engines beyond Google. And currently Google pays Apple quite a bit of money to stay the main search engine on Safari.
But I would be very suprised, if Apple had not a team working on search algorithms, so they could start a search engine of their own, if the need is there.
Apple wouldn't do search to go head on with Google. Apple's search would be very specific to the domains that it cares about businesses for Maps, music, movies, etc.
Siri search works well enough within the domains that it does directly -- restaurants (integrated with Yelp), locations, movies, movies, tv shows, sports, etc.
> After the Schmidt/Android thing I think the Apple leadership basically assumed Google would screw them over sooner or later if they could.
That's a level of moralizing that isn't really appropriate for analyzing decisions like this. It's equally true, and for essentially the same reasons, that Android as a whole exists because the Google leadership basically assumed Apple would screw them over sooner or later if they could.
Businesses compete, basically. It's a good thing and the efficiencies that result make us all wealthier. It's only "screwing someone over" in the myopic eyes of the internet fan boi.
> t's equally true, and for essentially the same reasons, that Android as a whole exists because the Google leadership basically assumed Apple would screw them over sooner or later if they could.
> Apple leadership basically assumed Google would screw them over sooner or later if they could.
This should be the default assumption for any relationship - doubly so when corporations or big $$ is involved. That's why we have legal paperwork even for inter-family agreements - your Mom & Pop may love you now but in 20y when dementia sets it, that may be out the window (or Mom dies, Pop remarries and Step-Mom hates your guts, etc etc).
Apple doesn't have to "win". Apple just needs to have something good enough for them to tightly integrate into their other services. Bing's purpose for Microsoft is both to be a revenue generator and to not be dependent on Google for search. Apple's only motivation for Maps is not to be dependent on Google for Maps and for integration into iOS.
Every time someone doesn't use Google Maps, Google loses ad revenue. If people don't use Apple's maps, Apple has lost nothing but a few bragging rights.
If people don't use the app, it gets worse for other users of the app (network effects for traffic, corrections, etc.), which means fewer people use the app, and so on. Ultimately, if the quality of the app is bad, Apple remains dependant on others for mapping services.
Maps is to Apple as G+ was to Google. Apple doesn't want to do it, they have to do it. They're afraid that without that category of data (in this case location, in G+'s case social versus Facebook), their overall product line won't be able to compete.
When Apple started working on Maps Google was the only game in town and they were certainly using that advantage. They set the terms for using peoples location, both for location awareness using Wi-Fi access points and for live traffic tracking. Also the good features were Android only (vector maps, navigation).
Shortly after Apple Maps was introduced Google suddenly came through with these features but they lost access to peoples location and being the default app for locations on iOS.
Keep in mind before Apple maps, Google maps did not exist on iOS for turn-by-turn nav... once Apple released maps Google quickly followed suite with adding turn-by-turn nav to Google maps for iOS.
At this point maps are a platform hygiene factor. If you're going to be Apple, you can't rely on Google or any other 3rd party vendor for what is seen by users as a basic feature.
I think part of the issue among users is that "rely[ing] on Google" was (and probably still is) a perfectly acceptable approach that already worked reasonably well until Apple inexplicably replaced it with Maps.
Maps is more than streets and driving directions too. Increasingly I use Google Maps to find & post reviews of local restaurants and cafes and to find interesting new places to go when I'm traveling. Google Maps is in a completely different class for this kind of thing than Apple Maps. Lately it even links to relevant web articles about the best places to visit in a local area. All Apple Maps has to offer here is a sort of half baked integration with Foursquare and TripAdvisor.
At least Apple doesn’t market to me based on places I visit. Tim Cook cares deeply about this, the folks at Google — privacy is contrary to their business model. “Security” is important at Google, but privacy definitely isn’t.
Apple wants to allow users to make map data requests anonymously using a random identifier that changes frequently.
Google wants to link the device requesting map data to a particular user account.
Google was playing hardball and refusing to provide turn by turn directions (as they did on Android) unless Apple stopped protecting their user's privacy.
Rather than give in, Apple decided to roll their own mapping service.
It's all about the difference between how the two companies make money. Google chooses to monetize their users' data. For instance, using their location data to tell it's advertising customers that a user has entered a store that sells their product. More recently, they have started buying credit card purchase data from third party data brokers so they can go farther and inform an advertiser that someone who saw their ad ended up buying the product advertised.
This was not the point of creating Maps at all. It was to be able to approach the negotiating table with Google over maps from a more favorable position. Google was making certain demands to add turn-by-turn directions to the original maps app that Apple didn’t want to concede to.
If your going to talk about abusing people's privacy then perhaps you should also mention how Apple abuses the privacy of their Chinese users by allowing the Chinese Government to have unfettered access to all of their cloud data.
There is nothing Apple can do to preserve their Chinese user's privacy against their own government. Either they stay in China and allow the government to access their citizen's data, or they leave China and another phone manufacturer will allow the government to access their citizen's data.
Google on the other hand is under no such pressure to violate their user's privacy. They could stop at any time, but have decided that the increased revenue and margins they can extract from the data is more valuable than their user's privacy.
This seems so obvious to me, I don't understand why this false equivalence is brought up so often.
> There is nothing Apple can do to preserve their Chinese user's privacy against their own government. Either they stay in China and allow the government to access their citizen's data, or they leave China and another phone manufacturer will allow the government to access their citizen's data.
Apple could absolutely leave China if they really cared about privacy; the backlash against the govt would be huge - your argument "but if we're not abusing your privacy, someone else might instead!" just backs the claim that Apple is doing it by choice, and their own free will. Both are doing it for money.
There will be no “backlash” against the government. China is not a typical democracy.
And do you really want a corporation to have the ability to hold a nation state hostage? What’s next? Allow us to sell our stuff without taxes, or we’ll shut shop and let you handle the outcry? Allow us to circumvent <insert a corporate
unfriendly law here> or we’ll let you have it?
For better or worse, a corporation can’t be allowed to dictate the policies of a nation state. Yes, it is sad that the Chinese don’t get the same privacy rights as citizens of other countries, but that is a problem with the law of the land, not any company.
Actually, there is something Apple can do. They can start by not offering iCloud services in China. Sure, it would be an inconvenience for many, but at least they would be protecting the privacy of their users by not sharing their data with the government.
>Google on the other hand is under no such pressure to violate their user's privacy. They could stop at any time, but have decided that the increased revenue and margins they can extract from the data is more valuable than their user's privacy.
There is also no pressure on Apple to violate their users privacy. But, they do it because China represents a large percentage of their revenue growth. If it were not for their cooperation with the Chinese government their stock would tank. China is one of their largest markets, if not the largest, so of course privacy was always going to take a back seat.
>This seems so obvious to me, I don't understand why this false equivalence is brought up so often.
Probably because of Apple's hypocrisy on privacy and human rights. It's absolutely disgusting to listen Tim Cook preach about human rights and privacy, with every interview he does, considering their business practices in China.
That is one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard. Apple (or any other company) can’t refuse the law of the land. Had they refused, the Chinese government would simply have told them to pack their bags. Someone else would have replaced Apple and the users would still be in the same position.
Apple can go against prevalent business practices, other companies etc, but they can’t go against the law. And they shouldn’t even try! Do you really want a corporation having enough power to go against the law? If you live in a country where someone (including the government) can legally force you to forego your privacy, there is literally nothing you can do - except try and get the laws changed - something you may not have the power to do - even in a democracy.
The difference between Apple and Google is that Google is doing things which may not be desirable despite no law compelling them to. If the US government (or any other government) manages to pass a law which says that Apple must turn over all the user data they have - or that they must collect certain types of data, there is nothing Apple can do other than comply - or shut shop. The sole reason other Apple can resist other countries’ governments is because no one has passed laws similar to China yet. There are people who resist the passage of such laws - something that is not the case with China. Apple (or any corporation) is not going to war with a nation state over the rights of the said nation state.
Your defense of Apple's cooperation with the Chinese government is repugnant. Apple could have easily decided not to open data centers in China if they really valued the privacy of their Chinese users. Tim Cook said that privacy is a human right. Apparently, Tim Cook doesn't believe Chinese citizens deserve privacy because they happily hand over all of their data to the Chinese government. It's quite clear that that the additional revenue generated by the Chinese App store and iCloud services far exceeds the human rights of their users.
>The difference between Apple and Google is that Google is doing things which may not be desirable despite no law compelling them to.
No, the difference between Apple and Google is that Google decided to leave China rather than cooperate with the government.
>If the US government (or any other government) manages to pass a law which says that Apple must turn over all the user data they have - or that they must collect certain types of data, there is nothing Apple can do other than comply - or shut shop.
I am not defending Apple. My point is that no corporation an (or should) is above the law. If the law is problematic, it should be fixed. But no one can be allowed to go against it.
Let’s say Apple leaves China. So what next? Do you have any contingencies outlined where the people of China get their rights?
And by the way, it’s not about Cook. Decisions like these are made by the board with shareholders’ agreement. I recommend you learn how things work before you go bashing.
There is a simple fact here you seem to be ignoring. If you want to do business in China, you follow Chinese laws.
If you have issues with China's human rights, you should encourage your local government to take up that issue. Your post reads like a bunch of raw emotion and statements like "Tim Cook doesn't believe" that which are just impossible for anyone BUT Tim Cook to know. Relying upon supposition of what you think a person thinks, and extending that to a company to arrive at a conclusion of: money > human rights is... pretty sad as arguments go.
I must have missed the part where Google is letting state run Chinese companies run their data centers and sharing the data with the Chinese government. When that happens then Apple and Google will be on equal footing when it comes to China.
>If you have issues with China's human rights, you should encourage your local government to take up that issue. Your post reads like a bunch of raw emotion and statements like "Tim Cook doesn't believe" that which are just impossible for anyone BUT Tim Cook to know. Relying upon supposition of what you think a person thinks, and extending that to a company to arrive at a conclusion of: money > human rights is... pretty sad as arguments go.
What's really sad is that Apple's revenue from China is far too lucrative for Tim Cook to really care about human rights and privacy. Tim Cook knows he'd probably be ousted as CEO if he ever tried to exit China.
> I must have missed the part where Google is letting state run Chinese companies run their data centers and sharing the data with the Chinese government. When that happens then Apple and Google will be on equal footing when it comes to China.
Are you suggesting Google is being allowed to store Chinese citizens’ data on servers outside China? If the servers are within Chinese territory, it doesn’t matter who is hosting them - they are subject to the same laws.
I thought it was pretty clear. Google has no data centers in China which means they don't subject their users to unfettered government searches of their data.
Google has been trying for years to get back into China and they have no problems acquiescing to whatever the Chinese government requires to do so [1].
I think you've nailed this on the head. I can't help but feel the whole "random huge messiness" of maps data must drive Apple to distraction, they're dealing with something that they can't control when their entire ethos is about fine tuning products to the nth degree...
I really don't think Apple is either capable or comfortable with dealing with the kind of messiness maps data represents vs google, who is essentially an expert on wrangling such data.
I think you underestimate Apple as an engineering organization. They have repeatedly pulled off stunning technical achievements in widely disparate domains.
Apple makes phones, what are phones used for? Messaging, phone calls, maps, and cameras. Everything else is noise.
Of those four things, which has the most potential to monetize? Maps.
People look for restaurants, for gas, for hotels, for rentals, for real estate, Etc. All of those things are being offered by a vendor who would love to know when you're looking and would love to be able to put their pitch in front of you when you are.
Maps is to phones what the browser window is to laptops.
I routinely come across people who claim they are using google maps when they don't even have it installed on their phone. They call apple maps => google maps.
For majority of those people Apple maps works good enough and for other there is always Google maps. Apple does not have to beat Google maps out of existence, that is not the Apple's objective. Their objective is to make sure they are not dependant on Google for maps. It is easy to build that kind of product.
I just want to second your comment because I can't stress enough how badly I want anyone who hasn't read it yet to read it. The week he published it, I must've shared it with every single person who I felt might even remotely care for it. It's a phenomenal piece.
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If you compare the article, the main takeaway is that Apple seems to be starting to use some of the improvements that Google has been adding to their map program the last several years.
-Satellite imagery to generate build footprints.
-Lots of human intervention
-Land based car imagery
Which is both a good and a bad sign. It's good that apple is doing these things, but not encouraging that a year after a blog post highlights some of the more interesting things google is doing, apple starts doing them. Apple maps isn't catching up, they're just barely keeping up with Google maps. And their PR people are doing a big push to brag about it.
TFA clearly states that these changes have been 4 years in the making. You can’t roll stuff like this out a year after reading some article on Hacker News.
i dunno; their “street view” vans are purportedly far more advanced than the google cars, and their privacy features seem pretty damn excellent.
the article mentions being able to create a 3d, textured world and do some pretty interesting localisation (street signs that look like local signs, fonts that match local fonts etc) that shortens the gap between the real world and the map.
id say that from a UX perspective (even if their core data isn’t quite as good, which we really can’t comment on yet) they’re doing a lot of interesting things that google isn’t doing.
that’s not even to mention that they’re doing it all while respecting their users’ privacy... something that google will likely never do any more than obligatory hand waving toward.
it think they’re doing quite a lot better than google maps, but it’s just not data related.
A point that I often see missing is that Niantic (Ingress then Pokemon Go) historically is strongly bound to Google.
The get people’s real world movements for long periods of time, it’s even included in the game mechanics where you see path with consequent flow of people. Coupled with all the user submitted and user validated “places of interest”.
Overall it’s a tremedous amount of data of pretty decent quality.
Something that drives me nuts about Google Maps is how much of it leads you to non-spatial lists of data. We are spatial beings asking spatial questions. Don't make me do the work of linking a list of restaurants to dots on the map. This is a significant cartographic challenge but I think it's key to making map software a joy to use.
I don't have an iOS device so I can't comment on current state, but I hope this gets first class attention.
That is a very jarring experience. I'd much rather get the pins and have to click to see what they are rather than losing half my screen to the list.
Another problem is that it loves to move your viewport -- sometimes just a small zoom out or something, but sometimes moving you entirely, or searching around your current location instead of in the selected map area. I would prefer it if every viewport move had a prompt saying "Hey, I'm going to move your map to some other area" and give me a chance to complain, or have some sort of seamless "save this view" thing that goes into a stack in the corner so I can go back to the view that I was looking at.
I'm amazed at how long this particular behavior has persisted...how often does someone search for a local business 5000+ miles away without being explicit about it (ie moving the map to that far off area, or putting it in the search query itself).
Agreed, the amount of times it defaults to finding something a thousand miles away is significantly more infuriating than the rarer case when I want to specifically do that.
If its a fairly fresh app launch, default to around me
Every time I try to search for Asian, I get sent to Asia while my location is in the US. I have no idea how anyone would find that sort of "typo" correction and redirection halfway around the world useful.
1. I'm perfectly fine with "Asia" redirecting me to the continent, which is generally expected behavior. I don't understand why a word that clearly means something distinct needs to redirect there as well.
2. The lack of consistency is especially annoying. "Italian" redirects to Italian restaurants in my area, and the same goes for "Chinese", etc.
I was in NYC 2 weeks ago (live in Miami). If I search for "Walgreens" the first 2 autocomplete suggestions are still locations in Brooklyn, and the third is the general text search for "walgreens". Options 4, 5 and etc onwards are local stores, but also not sorted by distance.
Critically, that option only appears after Maps hijacks your view to wherever it pleases. The same applies to other filters too, such as "open now."
I'm stil amazed how hard Maps makes it to view a street name. I can fill my screen with a street and nothing else, and I still won't see its name. I feel like they actually do it on purpose to breed dependence on Maps for navigation references.
> I'm stil amazed how hard Maps makes it to view a street name.
This is one of the reasons I prefer Apple Maps to Google's -- because IMO they do a slightly better job of that. Still wish it would be better, it's a daily nuisance for me.
Yes, but it doesn't show up until after you've done a search, which means the damage may have already been done.
Suppose you want to find things that match X near some landmark Y. As far as I know, you have two options. One is to search for the string "X near Y" and hope Google parses it correctly. The other is to search for Y, memorize its location on the map, search for X (which has a good chance of moving the map view to some random location), pan and zoom back to Y from memory, and click "search this area". It's a huge pain.
Yup. If the app was map-centric you wouldn't have to ask. Just start showing more markers.
If each query was a layer, you would also have a basic GIS. You could allow the user to start asking spatial questions, such as, "Show me where all the Chinese food restaurants (layer 1) Best Buys (layer 2) are.
"Hmm. I need to go to Best Buy but I'm flexible about food. Let's tap X on the Chinese food layer and search for Poutine restaurants instead."
I think it should be "Yes | No (auto selects in X seconds)".
I think changing from your current plan unless you panicedly (and in my jurisdiction, illegally) press a button to stay the course is just generally bad UI.
Part of this is I just don't trust Google Maps' new route to actually be faster. It seems Google Maps doesn't properly weigh the cost of these items, which leads to it's suggested route usually being slower:
* Crossing bridges during rush hour.
* Making a left turn without a light across 3 lanes of traffic.
* Going down small residential streets that are too narrow to safely drive the speed limit.
* Routes that require turning onto a busy road without a light and the corner having really poor visibility.
Oh yes. I've been a designer for a (locally) competing maps service, and I failed miserably at convincing the PM and devs that we should do quite a lot of work (changes to already established behavior) to make sure we aren't ever moving a map viewport user has set up, and that violating this rule makes people angry.
This was a constant source of frustration when I did a trip to another country last year. Adjusting the viewport when the user doesn't have data is a bad idea because you can't load assets for the new view. Yet, Google Maps did this all the time.
It's a mix. I like having a list I can very quickly scroll through and filter. Clicking places one by one when there's 20 isn't that fun. You can also slide down the list and click on the map once the results appear though.
Apple has the luxury of not needing to shove ads in their mapping application. Google needs to show you a list so they can put ads there or shuffle the priority for a high value advertiser.
Apple Maps also heavily relies on lists because lists work really well on mobile devices (infinite scroll!). And as spatially aware as a few here on here, the majority of people do much better with a list of nearby spots.
Yes. I'd much rather get a list of restaurants within a certain radius -- assuming the list shows me some basic summary information like price, rating, the distance, and whether it's open -- than get a map with a dozen mystery pins I have to tap on one by one:
[tap] Oh, sushi. Not in the mood for that.
[tap] Oh, that's closed.
[tap] Oh, that's too close to the one I already tapped, let me zoom in...
[pinch] [tap] Oh, sushi again.
I'm genuinely surprised at how many people here apparently consider that a better user experience.
> I'm genuinely surprised at how many people here apparently consider that a better user experience.
Or that Google (of all companies!) hasn't rigorously tested this and found that lists work better. They convey so much more information and the whole reason you're using a map is because you don't know where stuff is, so you're going to need all that information.
I'd assume it depends a lot on what you're searching for, and also what mode of transportation you're using.
If you search for something like "McDonalds", you care about which McDonalds is easiest to get to, and you don't really care about anything else.
Even if I'm looking for something more vague like "restaurants", I still usually prefer to see everything laid out on the map, but that's because I usually walk places, so location matters a lot to me.
Something that drives me nuts with maps is when zooming in/out the map often jumps - very quickly - to a region off screen. Seems like an easy fix. Does anyone else experience this?
I've only experienced this on the iPhone X, after iOS 11. It happens in many apps, not just Google Maps, and constantly. For example, pinch-to-zoom in Adobe Lightroom often has it jump to a random place in the image. Since nobody seems to be talking about it (and my friends haven't encountered it) I've suspected it to be some kind of physical fault with the touch screen, or perhaps an interference issue with my screen protector, not necessarily a bug in iOS. But who knows.
I'm a person without disabilities, rather slender fingers and quite some savvy w/ computers and I have difficult time not tapping stuff by mistake, not sloppily fat-thumbing stuff when I didn't even mean tapping anything or accurately tapping smallish things from among many others. I'd rather not deal with trying to not hover random stuff on top of that.
The Blackberry Storm (and Storm 2) made clicking in the screen the "tap" action and tapping (but not clicking) the screen the "hover"-equivalent action.
I really liked the idea (and thought the hardware was pretty good on the Storm 2), but was too unusual on too-unpopular a phone to do much of anything.
I worked on BB Storm. It was created by request from 'the major carrier that didn't get the iPhone contract' as an 'iPhone killer'. It was done with haste, and with specific, ugly requests from 'up on high' and was rolled out too early.
BB never really understood how to do 'experience' - except in things at their core like battery length and keyboards. As nuanced and insightful as they were there ... it's like they considered everything else a joke, or didn't want to go deep.
The whole screen on Storm moved - neat idea - should have never made it out of the lab. Or at least, not in the manner it was. It was possibly ahead of it's time as I could feasibly see Apple doing something like this - the new MacPro trackpads are very, very nice. So subtle.
It doesn’t make perfect sense, though, and (possibly because of that) doesn’t quite act as it now.
With a mouse, the 3 actions
- hover
- click
- double click
form a sequence where each action is an extension of the previous one.
Ideally, the actions triggered by them are extensions of the previous one, too. With the mouse, we have that:
- hover = tell me more, but don’t really do anything
- click = tell me more and select this item
- double click = look, select, and open this item
A big advantage of that is that it allows the interface to be faster. A GUI can react to a click by selecting an item without having to wait whether it will be part of a double-click, for example.
⇒ if we can’t get a real hover, in an ideal world, a softer or shorter finger tap, not a long one would mean “tell me about this”. I doubt we can shoe-horn that into the UI this late in the game, though.
If Apple staff are reading this - please fix this ridiculous issue - the fact metro stations show up at arbitrary levels of zoom. Zome show up at level x, some show at x+1, and some dissapear at x+1, meaning at many levels, you see some, not others.
Also - an option to basically always show metro/subway locations.
You jam the map full of stuff I'm not interested in - when I'm basically trying to find the subway stop.
A lot of people use the metro in cities. Almost everyone.
It's like the absence of a subway in the Silicon Valley makes you oblivious to 'master use cases'?
Also - I want to get rid of the address taking up a chunk on the screen but I want the pin to remain. Can you get that? So simple. Maybe leave the last few things pinned.
More generally the ability to have 'default' filters for the kinds of things you show and don't that are perhaps relevant to what I'm looking for.
So many nuanced rough edges, I feel you're going to have to spend some time in the field and spend time with users in a very, very detailed way to capture these little things to take it to the next level.
WRT the metro issue, have you tried switching the map into "Transit" view? Hit the information (ⓘ) icon and select "Transit" under map settings. That shows all the transit lines & stops.
As you zoom out, the subway lines do disappear, but are replaced with national rail lines, and then keep zooming out and it shifts to showing major international rail terminals.
It doesn't hide all of the other stuff shown on the map, but it does effectively highlight each transit line, so it's easy to find the closest line and then scan it for nearby stations.
I have the same issue with Apple maps (chicago). If we (tech community) can't figure this out or its a painful UI for us; what hope does Jane Doe have in middle america? Google makes it super easy to find and navigate our train system.
How does Google make it easy to find and navigate the train system?
Don't most people look for directions from a to b, by a certain mode? I've extensively used both Google and Apple maps for this and found very little difference between the two when doing this. I tend to use Google more when traveling because it supports more cities, but when I use Apple Maps in a supported city, I find it tends to give more useful information (like what line to catch, or how many stops) easier.
I live 2 hours south of Chicago, and am planning my first trip there (as a destination). I just set Apple Maps to ‘Transit’ mode and the overlays look useful. I will know after my trip.
... but in regular map view, metro stations should all be visible on the same zoom level and beyond. Not this whack-a-mole thing of zooming in and out to find stations. No settings should be needed there.
I found it odd during Turn By Turn nav that google told me to "Take a right after the Taco Bell."
Navigating by landmark is natural for humans, and it's cool to see Google moving to this approach.
My wife and I traveled to roughly the same area, and solely based on that one instruction we were able to go by memory, because of this new approach to nav that Google Maps is taking.
Google is well positioned to support it--between their business information + data from Android devices, detecting the closed places wouldn't be intractable.
> If Apple staff are reading this - please fix this ridiculous issue - the fact metro stations show up at arbitrary levels of zoom. Zome show up at level x, some show at x+1, and some dissapear at x+1, meaning at many levels, you see some, not others.
If you really want it fixed, give some proper examples with pictures.
Is the consensus that Apple Maps _still_ sucks? Sure, the launch was horrible, but it's seen years of progress and nowadays I find it perfectly usable. I use it over Google Maps without hesitation.
Now I'm scared they're gonna break it again by rebuilding it. If it ain't broke (any more), don't fix it.
One of the most frustrating things for me with Apple maps is having a view of the city I’m in and searching for something like ramen restaurant and it takes me to another country like Singapore and says there’s a restaurant named “the ramen restaurant “.
however google maps does this to me all the time too. But is happens in the opposite direction. I have the map opened to a place on the other side of the planet, and cant find the landmark I'm looking for manually, so I punt and search for the name of the land mark and it takes me back to a local map and shows me close (usually not very close) names locally.
My personal feeling is the extents of the map window should be immutable and sacrosanct.
I think some video games have this solved quite nicely: for an offscreen point of interest, show an indicator at the edge of the screen. That way someone knows that it's there, and they can click to jump to it (or pan all the way there if they'd like). Definitely, never take away control of the map.
Furthermore, Google insists on using the location of my VPN entrypoint onto the internet instead of my location (despite repeated attempts at telling it where I am). Apple Maps seems to get where I am regardless of the VPN.
At some point google maps did that too - it was especially bad if your partial string as you typed something in resolved somewhere else, then you would keep typing and be searching the complete string in some completely different region. I think it was fixed. But if you type fast, or always have a good connection, it might never be seen.
Makes me wonder how stuff like this makes it past QA. I bet there was a low-paid QA engineer or college intern who pointed this out to their supervisor and they were ignored.
I don't understand the point you're making. Are you saying that we have it all backwards, and that the wrong people get promoted, while the smart prolem-solvers get stuck in low level position and ignored?
Because in that case I have sympathy for your plight, but would still like to ask:
Are you actually trying to make that argument by pointing out how counter-intuitive a story is you just made up?
As to the actual problem: It is both well known and not as easy as some low-level interns think: Fundamentally, Maps only does this when it finds absolutely nothing relevant at the user's location–these are almost always (really bad) typos.
In that case, the only alternative is to completely ignore the far-away match, frustrating users' #1 expectation of how a search engine works. Or to present the user with some dialog "oh but that's far away!"
The latter doesn't help anybody, because the user can return with the back button, just as easily as by declining the notification. Yet the user who actually intended the search gets inconvenienced.
I'm just sharing how many times I've heard management dismiss issues raised by subordinates.
Let's hear you explain away Apple maps' 2012 snafu where they f-ed it up so badly that they dropped the NYC subway stops. Was that "not as easy as it sounded" to keep the product features that worked fine in a previous release? Could they just "hit the back button" and use the old maps that, you know, worked ?
The problem is with arrogant product managers that don't give 2 fucks about the UX. "Oh they don't need the subway stops, I mean come on, we have a release schedule to make or I won't get my bonus!" "Their time is ok to waste, they can just hit the back button!"
Users never care how easy - or not - something is.
They only care if a feature gives them a good experience, or distracts them with nonsense.
This should probably be the Number 1 rule in UX camp. No one cares if you're a wizard. No one cares if you've perfected the ultimate software moonshot, or if your architecture is a twinkling diamond of executable and perfectly maintainable perfection.
They only care that your product works and makes life easy for them.
If it doesn't, it's somewhere on a scale between irritating and crap. They either won't use it, or - if they have no choice - they'll use it and hate it.
>Are you actually trying to make that argument by pointing out how counter-intuitive a story is you just made up?
No, he is making what is called an "assumption" about what might have transpired.
He's not using the made up story as a chain in some larger argument.
Strangely, it's you who makes up a whole argument that the parent supposedly implied: "Are you saying that we have it all backwards, and that the wrong people get promoted, while the smart prolem-solvers get stuck in low level position and ignored?".
In fact the parent doesn't make any such argument, just asks "how this made it past QA" -- and then makes an guess/assumption about what could have transpired.
>In that case, the only alternative is to completely ignore the far-away match, frustrating users' #1 expectation of how a search engine works. Or to present the user with some dialog "oh but that's far away!"
Assuming a user wanting to find a POI thousands of miles away from where they are is rare, then the latter would be better than wasting their time, and changing their selected area on the map, with an irrelevant result.
I have never experienced this, and I almost exclusively use Maps for this very purpose (never for directions; only for finding places nearby of a specific type).
Well, for example, I won't use Google Maps for driving directions because of a chrome issue: The voice they use is about the same pitch as the background driving noise in my car, so it can be difficult to understand if I don't really crank the volume.
Apple Maps doesn't always find the fastest route, but at least I can understand what it's saying.
You must mean the UI - although that's debatable, in my experience.
Personally I won't use Apple Maps while driving, for example, because Google Maps lane hints provide a much better experience - although when I was out of the UK recently, I wad disappointed by how poor Google's routing was on some journeys.
But even if it were true - what's the point of a good UI if it displays bad data?
At least in the US when I've used it, Apple's lane guidance is pretty comparable to Google's (i.e., mostly but not always on target).
I suspect "bad data" is both a little subjective and, as I mentioned in another comment, very location dependent. It's quite possible that one of the reasons Apple is starting to build their own location data set is because relying on other providers leads hasn't worked out so well for them outside the US. (Although I suspect they're going to still be dependent on those providers for years to come.)
I find Apple Maps to be more usable in terms of UX, how it gives directions, and how it displays information.
Their data still isn't as good though. For the most part, as long as you're in/near a population center or sticking to major highways it's fine. But it still makes a lot of minor errors when you're out in the hinterland. When I'm going places I'm not familiar with I still default to Google Maps since it's more reliable. This is especially true in countries outside the US.
Google also does a way better job at address verification. Apple Maps tends to take the names I type very literally while Google is pretty uncanny at being able to infer where I'm actually trying to go. For example, if I type the name of a local French restaurant, I can't count the number of times Apple Maps defaulted to showing me a restaurant by that name in Senegal or France or something.
This is especially weird in light of the fact that it's Apple, not Google, who has access to my chat logs and calendar appointment data and I have location services on by default for Apple Maps.
Really depends where you live. We live North of Boston and still countless times run into issues where the dot is the wrong place, or the location data for the place going is wrong, or Google maps provides extra relevant info like it will be closing before I get there, or when the store has special hours google maps knows and Apple maps doesn't, and countless other differences. I still use Apple maps mostly because the integration with Apple Watch and iOS (getting back to the app) and notably using Siri make it for a better experience and if going somewhere new ( a long drive) I check with Google Maps first to avoid any major issues. If Google Maps on iOS was allowed to be deeply integrated like Apple Maps wouldn't touch maps with a 10 foot poll, but that will never happen. So any improvements to Maps data will be a welcome improvement and while hard to imagine them beating Google Maps they only have to be good enough to beat them in the long run.
I haven't bothered to check in detail, but I assume that Apple Maps does a better job at respecting the user's privacy than Google Maps. That's an important point in its favor that doesn't seem echoed in sibling comments. (The article seems to echo my suspicion.)
As of a year or two ago, Apple Maps now consistently performs as well as Google Maps (as measured by its ability to route around bad traffic). At least in my area. So given their equivalence I always opt for Apple Maps these days to help preserve my privacy.
Of course, as other have already said, Google Maps has had a number of UX failings over the years (doesn't Google always?). But what really frustrated me was their handling of toll roads, at least a few years ago. They updated the app and then suddenly the Avoid Toll Roads setting was tucked away, hidden behind layers of obscure and opaque minimalist UI nonsense that Google so loves. As if that wasn't enough the setting would constantly revert.
So there you are scrambling to bring up directions in the car while running late. If you're lucky you recognize that Google is routing you through the toll roads. So you burn precious time trying to remember the arcane recipe of nameless shapes that you have to press to find the setting. And then re-find directions.
If you're not lucky, you forget to check the directions for toll roads, and now you're barreling down the highway, surprised to suddenly see the traffic cleared, only for horror to dawn on you shortly thereafter as you realize you're about to enter the toll road and there's no escape.
Over the years Google has screwed with their handling of toll roads a number of times. Why they have such a penchant for dark patterns surrounding toll roads is beyond me. Maybe some Google employee is on the take with the toll road companies? (mild sarcasm)
I have not experienced these issues with Apple Maps. Another point in its favor.
P.S. It's interesting to have watched this evolution. Apple Maps came out it seems like forever ago. Wikipedia says ~6 years. The growth since then has been incredible, but I don't think any of us have forgotten that Apple Maps was, frankly, a laughing stock. The village idiot of mapping. I'm glad they stuck with it though. It's nice to have alternatives. Whether you're a fan of Google or Apple, I hope it's appreciated that options exist. Because let's be honest, before Apple Maps, was there a real competitor to Google Maps? (Though I'm always silently rooting for OpenStreetMaps.)
Google Maps has more accurate and up-to-date data, while Apple Maps has more accurate drive time estimates (Google always underestimates).
However Google Maps has an incredibly obnoxious UI pushing me to enable more data collection. The largest text on the search surface is "You're missing out" (by not signing in). If I do sign in, a search for "Home" pops up a modal dialog "Turn on Web and App Activity to search for home and your other personal places". This occurs despite setting an on-device Home location, which GMaps supports.
Apple Maps doesn't ask for sign-in, and a search for "home" uses the location stored on-device. Privacy is why I prefer Apple Maps.
IME Google is really bad at traffic drive time estimates when there are situations where different lanes have different traffic. E.g. two lanes of the road are moving fine, but the left turn lane is backed up like crazy. Or the fast lane is fine, but the freeway on-ramp and exits you need are horrible.
I think whoever cracks lane-aware positioning, mapping, and routing could make some big improvements.
But mainly I just want a big button that says "don't make me make unprotected turns across multiple lanes of traffic" - Apple Maps seems less aggressive in that regard than Google Maps, which is why I prefer it.
This drives me bananas with Waze. Even with its option to decrease the number of left turns, there seems to be no concept of "prefer left turns onto multi-lane roads at controlled intersections."
I quit using Waze for exactly that reason, after being a happy user for years. I wonder who thought it would be a great idea to have me make an unprotected left turn from a side street onto a major road with no signal at rush hour.
>IME Google is really bad at traffic drive time estimates when there are situations where different lanes have different traffic.
Exactly, that's the one case where Gmaps gives me bad estimates, as there's something like that for me on my drive to work. The rest of the time, its estimates are very good.
If someone is a slower than average driver, they should realize that Google's estimates target average speeds (since they're aggregating data from lots of drivers), and take that into account when looking at Google's estimates.
I guess it'd be nice if Google over time determined if you're a faster or slower driver than average and adjusted accordingly.
Google's estimates seem most accurate for me if I can consistently break the speed limit by about 15 mph. If I get into a bit of congestion and get stuck at the speed limit then it misses the mark.
I also find it perfectly usable. Does it sometimes suggest a longer route than Google Maps does? Sure. That could be partially attributed to the sheer number of drivers Google Maps has, though.
I think search is almost certainly better on Google Maps, but that's no surprise. I think Apple Maps is the better choice for iOS users, though, if only for the tighter integration with the OS itself and reportedly better battery life.
For one example: I believe this is no longer the case, but for a long time 3rd party mapping apps could not display route information on the iPhone lock screen.
Last time I checked, one of my favorite apps for routing me on back roads, Scenic, still can't use my Watch for routing.
Why would your phone be locked while you're driving and trying to use it for navigation? Surely you're not looking down and locking / unlocking it every time you want to look at it, right? You just have it mounted on your dash and it stays on.
>if only for the tighter integration with the OS itself and reportedly better battery life.
So, gmaps is more accurate and overall better in execution, but you recommend an inferior product because of OS integration and battery usage? Makes no sense to me. The number one priority is getting the best directions to where you want to go.
The google UI paradigm is utterly bewildering and foreign to me. I would probably give Google Maps a chance, but every time I open it, I feel lost. When the maps are good enough, the other stuff matters.
The Google Maps app doesn't follow any of the iOS UI paradigms, so any time I want to do anything beyond what you described (like transit directions, bike directions, etc), I have have a hard time figuring out how to do that.
I was recently on vacation and Apple Maps provided a poor experience, including but not limited to telling me to take a right where there was no road and into the ocean.
Google Maps to the rescue; it gave me 100% accurate directions 100% of the time.
It really depends on where you are. If you're using it for car navigation in the US, it's probably fine. When I need a map on a hike in rural Germany Apple Maps is completely unusable. Google Maps is much better and OpenStreetMap is even more accurate.
I like the usability of Apple Maps a lot, but just this weekend it took me to the wrong part of town. I put the same address into Google Maps and it took me to the correct place.
It seems to depend an awful lot on where you are in the world. I've rarely -- not never, but rarely -- had problems with Apple Maps, and I tend to prefer it to the Google Maps iOS application. But, I also live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which almost certainly makes a difference. To be fair, I've also had no problems with it in Portland, Seattle, Kansas City, Lawrence (Kansas), Eugene (Oregon), St. Louis, and around Tampa Bay. But it's not lost on me that all of those are not only in the United States, they're all pretty urban. (I've heard anecdotes of Apple screwing up in urban areas, too, but for me it hasn't behaved any worse than the other mapping apps -- Google has sent me to a few weird places.)
I think on the whole it's good for Apple to be taking control of their mapping back end, although I suspect it would have been better for them if they'd started by, say, buying Here (the former Nokia mapping unit).
I’ve tried to transition from gmaps to Apple maps a couple times in the last few years. It’s not broken anymore, but it’s still sufficiently inferior that attempting to switch was painful and I ended up going back. This despite wanting google and it’s snoops firmly out of my digital life.
I use Apple maps because my car has Carplay and apple doesn't allow any other map provider. It still has issues finding locations and maps me to the wrong location. In LA, being a mile off can easily result in 1/2 hour delay or more. It also lags on construction closures updates(eg: exit closure) which are common in LA, unlike google products which gets up-to-date data from Waze. Apple maps needs to be perfect all the time to be viable.
Until Apple fixes all their issues, they need to allow other map providers for Carplay.
I also prefer it over Google Maps when I'm in an area where I know Apple's data is good enough. I simply find the UI simpler, easier to use, far less cluttered, and downright faster. Apple Maps is buttery smooth whereas sometimes Google Maps is pretty choppy (admittedly, its performance on iOS has improved a lot over the last year).
The only two google products I still use are Gmail (for work) and Google Maps.
Apple Maps has improved since it launched but its far less accurate for me than Google has been despite that its integration is far tighter including CarPlay.
Your results may vary but I am very happy to hear they are doing a ground up rebuild. I won’t miss what they have today at all.
I resisted for a long time, but when I got my newest car it came with CarPlay and so I started using Apple Maps because I had no alternative. Now I see that iOS 12 is going to relax that restriction ... and I am going to stay with Apple Maps. Works fine for me, and nice to know Apple is not tracking my every move.
I've deleted Google Maps and Waze from my phone (moving away from Google products) and now only use Apple Maps. Works pretty well for me but occasionally has some bad data (freeway exits that didn't exist due to construction). I'm in the bay area so I can't speak for other areas.
For me Maps is consistently less accurate than Google Maps. However, the Google Maps UI bothers me just the same as everyone else here. I'm hoping that the improvements continue to roll in on Apple's version, because I'd much rather just use theirs.
I even walked into an Apple Store, found an iPad, and submitted a correction request once. That was almost two years ago. For a long time, every time I'd pass that Apple Store, I'd walk in, go to an iPad, and search my house on Apple Maps to see if they accepted my request. They never ever fixed it. I don't think they ever did, though it's been a few months since I gave up checking so who knows.
Until Lyft banned Apple Maps, I'd have to call drivers in advance to make sure they weren't using Apple, and if they said they were, I'd cancel on them (I still do this for Waze users, because Waze can't path to my house).
They still don't have bicycling directions or transit directions in many cities. They still show businesses that were demolished years ago. They don't have indoor maps of anywhere near the number of places that Google has.
I dunno- this might be an edge case but I was going hiking and was trying to get to a trailhead a month or so ago using Apple maps, and I ended up quite lost in the fireroads of the buckhorn wilderness. Spooky.
I would never trust Apple or Google maps to get me anywhere more complicated than a local restaurant. If you're wandering out amongst the logging trucks (or anything that isn't paved, for that matter), try something like Gaia GPS. Gaia allows you load whatever maps you want, including USGS Topo maps. On the dirt-road-loving motorcycle, I paid the $50 (or whatever it cost) to get the topo dataset on the Garmin that rides on the dashboard.
EDIT: BTW, if you're on anything that might be labelled "fireroad" you don't want to be depending on a map app that needs a connection to begin with.
I tried using Apple Maps on my iPhone to navigate to WeWork in San Francisco last week and it sent me three blocks off target with the exact street address entered. I switched to Google maps to find it correctly with the same street address. YMMV, single data point and all that.
I've also used Google directions going through Los Angeles (from San Diego to San Jose) and it told me to exit the freeway for some reason in Los Angeles and get back on, which I followed blindly but wasn't too bad a diversion.
I used it a year ago and it still sucked. From an stability standpoint it was fine, except it had plenty of terrible ui decisions. Take driving in manhattan for example. A driver would like to glance at the directions and see turns and the directions the road is turning. However, this is not possible. 3d renderings of the new york skyline block the roads on the map so you cannot see in the app any further than you can outside your front window.
It's been mostly fine for me, but their database of places isn't as complete. I recently tried to look up a restaurant that opened two years ago and it was completely missing, had to use Google Maps to find it instead.
If you're looking for walking/hiking trails, Apple Maps has pretty much nothing. Google certainly isn't as good as a dedicated trail map app, but at least they try sometimes.
I always use Apple Maps first, and sanity check what it gives me. In my area most mapping solutions work, but Google Maps will frequently give me difficult (though not wrong) directions. Such as going down three blocks instead of two, skipping an intersection with a light, and instead asking me to turn left across 4 lanes of busy traffic, for no evident reason.
I have to use Apple maps regularly due to the iOS<12 CarPlay restrictions, and it regularly gives me bad instructions. Even though I have “avoid tolls” turned on, it consistently tells me to take the Triboro bridge in NYC (an $8 toll) rather than the Queensboro. It also frequently tries to send me the wrong way down one-way streets in the Bronx.
I loved it even when it launched and everyone was complaining about data and it was hyped up. A brand new app had data problems but the user experience was, in comparison to its peers, quite excellent. I still find it my preferred map especially on iOS/MacOS, even though nobody beats Google in certain aspects (functionality for one)
I've found Apple Maps caches the maps around my area so I have been able to use it in areas where I have no wireless reception. Not as fully detailed but they seem to cache the main roads and landmarks at least. I recall Google Maps just failing to show anything but that was a long while ago, so it sounds like things have improved.
It's given me completely day ruining, terrible directions within the past month. Like "go to the street outside this complex" rather than "go to building 5" and them i'm stuck on the phone trying to find someone to explain this, when google maps finds it correctly instantly.
If a map is correct 95% of the time, then one in twenty leads most people to feel like its "always" broken. Edge cases are so frequent that I think it's impossible to get right without a "team on the ground," which it sounds like Apple had finally accepted.
It might depend on where you live. I've been driving around Copenhagen with a group of colleagues and we had to ask the one with the map to switch to Google maps because Apple maps seemed determined to give us a city tour rather than lead us to our destination.
Meh, I usually look at my route ahead of time with both google maps and apple maps. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other is better. Apple Maps is good enough for what I use it for, and it does integration with iOS better.
Google Maps are slightly more detailed, probably since Google is generating the maps automatically from satellite imagery, but for going to one point of the city to another I feel that the two apps are essentially equivalent!
Something is showing Apple that it is broken. I am betting it is user rates. Google has taken over iPhones for so much of it and I am sure they don't like the fact that Google Maps are used more then Apple Maps.
On my imperical evidence side, my daughter uses Apple Maps and I can tell you it gives back mapping when we are less then an hour away but more then 20 minutes. For example the way i drive isn't on Apple Maps and it adds 5 minutes to the trip and Google Maps has the trip 5 minutes faster. I don't know if Google is getting that data from my driving or from better algorithms but it has happened for then a few times.
As a long time Google user who, for privacy reasons, migrated most of my stuff away from Google I welcome this effort. I've been using Apple Maps for some time now and it's better than it was at launch, though not as good as Google.
I hope their renewed effort to improve Apple Maps pays off mainly because of their privacy-first mentality.
Also, I've noticed that whenever I submit a request for them to fix something, say, a business that's not listed I get a response and the item fixed within a day or two.
I have been using Michelin maps for traveling in Europe and while the app fails in many regards it's really so much better in terms of useful data visible on the map and the maps are so nice looking.
We really took a big step backwards with Google Maps and the maps that are trying to be Google Maps. The maps are garish and have no useful details. I have to scroll and zoom around until the name of the street I'm currently in decides to appear.
And then those huge swathes of nothing. Random stores being indicated. But you always get an incomplete set of data. Not every store on the block or nothing.
Labeling in general is incredibly problematic in Google Maps. It's amazing to me that I can do a search for restaurants, hover over a shopping strip that I know has 5 restaurants, and only one of them shows up no matter how far I zoom in. I'll wonder if Google just doesn't have data for the other four, do a direct search for one of them, and then find that it actually has loads of data, 100+ reviews, links to the menu, photos, etc.
Of equal annoyance, I've discovered searching for food on Google maps doesn't include the best and closest local pizzas joint, it'll only show if you search specifically for pizza
This is a road through a forest [0]. Good luck seeing anything while using your phone outside in the sun. I use other maps when walking or biking, Google maps are almost never the best option.
This is something that completely baffles me. Why the hell does Google Maps completely hide vegetation when zoomed in? It's incredibly confusing that forests look exactly like urban areas.
> zoom around until the name of the street I'm currently in decides to appear.
This is especially bad if you're on a bus and want to see where the stops are, so you know when to ring the bell. GMaps makes you zoom so far in that you're constantly scrolling the map to keep up with the bus.
You've made me curious. I'll download it next time I go someplace.
This is totally off topic... Michelin have the same old school European thing for travellers that Guinness have for drinkers, a cause for those with a cause. I like the idea they pulled off an app that's good. I bet the Guinness app is shite.
Also check out Mapy.cz (for iOS, Android, web). I find it much better than Google Maps for the hiking / walking use cases. It sucks for the "looking for a nearby restaurant" use case though.
I honestly think this is a hidden gem that more people should know about.
One of my gripes with iOS is the ability to select a default maps app. It bothers me that when I try to share my location through iMessage, it forces me to view the information by opening apple maps and you cannot copy and paste the location into another mapping app. I believe this was a terrible strategy to get users to use apple maps.
The one view that both Apple and Google seem to promote is the 3D geometric view of buildings and other large fixed objects like trees. While the technical achievement of generating these views impressive, I don't find them useful, and frequently find that it makes viewing the satellite view more-difficult to perceive. Google still provides the "flat" satellite view, but it's somewhat buried in the menus. Bing Maps used to provide very high-resolution 45 degree shot photographed from airplanes, but this is no longer available.
>Bing Maps used to provide very high-resolution 45 degree shot photographed from airplanes, but this is no longer available.
Bing still has this feature, though they've updated it (made it less discoverable, I feel) and removed older photos. If you go to https://www.bing.com/maps and point at the "Road" menu on the upper right, you will see "We have updated Bird's Eye. Learn more", which gives you the following information:
>Bird's Eye has changed
> New and crisp Bird's Eye imagery is available in many metropolitan areas. There are two ways of viewing the new Bird's Eye.
>1. In cards
>2. Right-click on the map
>Note: Bird's Eye may not be available in your area as outdated imagery is no longer available.
If I go to central San Francisco or Seattle, I can right-click the map as indicated and select "View bird's eye", and the picture will show up.
Google and Apple are not the only players in this game.
As, relevant to this story is the announcement today that Microsoft / Bing has just released 125,000,000 building footprints as open data (i.e. suitable for OpenStreetMap)
Apple should really make a web version of maps. iProduct exclusivity is not going to help them with Maps. Having another web alternative to Google maps could even help with iProduct sales.
They just did. It’s called MapKit JS, though currently it’s only available for inclusion into third party websites. But Apple could offer their own website for it if wanted.
I'm very ready to move off of Google Maps, but as of yet, I can't emulate the biggest feature it has for me elsewhere: a spacial bookmarking system. My primary use of Google Maps is to remember places that I've been recommended by other people, and then when I go "I'm traveling to Portland, what places should I go?" I can check Google maps for everywhere I've tagged before.
If Apple Maps gives me that, especially if it syncs from a webapp to my phone, I'm in.
If you click on a pin and scroll down the card, there is a “Favorite” button. Clicking it will add it to your Favorites list which can be accessed at the bottom of the search results list. The list syncs to your Mac Maps app too.
The interface is not the most intuitive but it’s there.
ive been moving away from google the last few months as well and i was surprised how good osmAnd is considering its open source. i think the bookmarking in osmAnd should do what you need. it also has a wikipedia and wikivoyage layer which you might find useful when travelling.
there isnt any web version of osmAnd though but you can sync the osmAnd folder to a pc and open the bookmarks in any gps app. ive never tried editing them there and syncing back to the phone so youll have to experiment yourself on that one
In order to satisfy my desire to rage against the machine, I like to set a destination in the opposite direction of where I'm driving, and listen to the voice navigation system desperately try to talk me into making a U-turn. It would be even more satisfying if the speech synthesizer's tone of voice grew increasingly frustrated and baffled, as I ignored its futile pleas while driving further away from my stated destination.
With Waze, the ubiquity of Google Maps, improvements in city traffic data and AI tech, I'm genuinely surprised Google still uses 1km as a measurement form versus prioritizing time in minutes.
In my urban driving experience I rarely consider distance over other factors, such as time and/or comfort of the drive.
In my city I will often make alternative choices not based on distance, but on the amount of effort I need to put into the ride itself. Right now I'm just waiting for my lady and when she gets in the car I'm not taking the fastest route at all, but the most leisurely route to our brunch.
Am I alone in feeling these are two different yet valid (more than just me) forms of user experience?
Will they finally create a map app that shows street names? Even Google can't seem to accomplish this without a ton of scrolling around and zooming in and out to get the name to show up.
These apps are really more for navigation than maps in my experience.
I'd love it if any of the map makers had a button for "I am on a bus", which then i) sent a ton of data to them to improve their maps and ii) provided a more useful map version.
one common comment is how the traffic data for google maps (and waze) trumps the quality of other map alternatives because it has the most users and therefore the most data for real-time traffic.
could anyone with map/traffic experience please comment on when data scale overshoots functional requirements? that is, what is the user threshold (e.g., 1,000 users in the same 5 mile radius) above which traffic accuracy stops improving?
Google Maps is definitely better in terms of completeness and updatedness for iOS, in all regards: what places there are, what roads there are (esp. in rural areas), and the arrival time estimator is just better-informed.
But for me, that is not all there is. I want an app that feels light and responsive, when I'm on say a bike, or in traffic. It needs to be reliable and not get forced to shutdown due to memory constraints. It also should not sell my data to the devil. All of these are ways in which Apple Maps is better.
It Is a little hard to understand, how 6 years went by and they still have nothing to show for. The only map I find that that good enough is in China. Mainly because there are only a few Data Sources and they are all backed by government. Other location, I have yet to hear a case where Apple's Data is better then Google.
It has been going for long time. For example in Japan, where Apple has 50+% market share, has a Mapping services that is utter crap. Ata Distance [1] has been covering everything Apple in Japan, and I think they are doing fine there because everyone uses Yahoo Map.
My problem is these sort of rebuilding from ground up ( Which they state started 4 years ago ), is going to take years before it is any good. I doubt they could get it near to their current 3rd party Data sources within 3 years. And possibly another 3 years before it reach better than current solution.
>Other location, I have yet to hear a case where Apple's Data is better then Google.
Given the locked-in nature of iOS and proprietary integrations, Apple Maps doesn't have to be better than Google, it doesn't even have to be as good as Google. It just has to be okay.
Interstingly, Apple maps has my subdivision but google maps doesn’t. I have even submitted feedback to them about this. Which means whenever I want to give someone my address I need to tell them to use Apple maps.
The one thing they would have to add to get me to change is adding an option to cycle. Living in a city with reasonable bike facilities makes it particularly grating that the default is suggesting that I want to drive everywhere. I know it’s US focused and you guys are car centric but come on, it’s been years!
I think bicycling directions might be the hardest thing. Google has it but it's pretty bad. It often tries to send me up routes that are shorter but MUCH too steep [1], or up an off-road trail on which bicycles are forbidden [2]. They should combine their data with Strava global heatmap to work out which routes are actually used by practicing cyclists. You can see from Strava[3] that all three of the routes in [1] are ignored by all cyclists, who choose another route that isn't presented. The routes given by Google are very difficult for even strong athletes to climb.
Anyway, it's possible that Apple sees it as just beyond their capabilities at this time.
Interesting. Your routes are much worse :-/ From downtown Berkeley to Grizzly Peak it routes me up Marin Avenue, a 30-degree slope that nobody would willingly bicycle up.
One sensible plan would be to make Apple Map available on Android so they could capture twice as much data and user feedback than they can today. I hardly can see Apple winning that big data game vs Google. What's next? Fixing Siri and launching a better search engine? What a waste of talent time.
.. there is a big difference between maps-for-consumer appliances and maps-as-fundemental-plumbing. Many comments and such will not make much sense if they are viewed only from a "consumer" point of view.. Spatial data is too important for only that..
> The maps need to be usable, but they also need to fulfill cognitive goals on cultural levels that go beyond what any given user might know they need. For instance, in the US, it is very common to have maps that have a relatively low level of detail even at a medium zoom. In Japan, however, the maps are absolutely packed with details at the same zoom, because that increased information density is what is expected by users.
I hope it will be customisable. I'm in Europe and basically every map app has this bug that at a certain zoom level useful data isn't visible (even though it could easily fit on the screen) while a closer zoom requires a lot of annoying scrolling.
There is only really one big company on earth that owns an entire map stack from the ground up: Google
Here Maps still exist... you might not have the app installed on your phone, but they provide map-related data, software and services to car manufacturers.
I use Apple Maps as my default map. The privacy stance is a strong enough sell, particularly for something as sensitive as mapping. I think I've had to jump to Google Maps once in the past few weeks. (Caveat: I don't drive.)
One of my favorite features of Google Maps is the one-finger zoom: Tap anywhere on the map and then make the scroll guesture (it feels like a double-tap, but the second tap is a swipe up or down guesture instead).
Because I usually operate my phone with one hand only the "pinch-to-zoom" guesture is just a pain (especially when you're carrying something in the other hand) and zoom buttons are easy to miss (e.g. while walking).
This guesture also works to zoom in and out in Google Chrome, yet I don't think I've seen it in the Apple world yet (except of course in products made by Google for Apple devices).
Apple realizing this was important makes me think it is even more important for all of us to have the same kind of data in the public domain.
If someone can pony up 100K (what it costs to retrofit a car like the one pictured in the article) I could fund someone to drive it for 6 months around Barranquilla, Santa Marta and Cartagena in Colombia and put out an open dataset. I promise return the heavily used hardware after the 6 months and work with archive.org to publish it for posterity, then someone else can do the same in another country. Even if it takes us 30 years, it's worth doing.
well there is always mapillary which only requires a single smartphone camera at the least. some people go the extra mile and mount a camera pointing each direction, others use 360 cameras. you can also upload dash cam video and it will extract photos from it.
its sort of like quantity over quality. google/apple map cars record great quality but there is too much area to cover so they can only update maybe every few years. (some places still arent on google street view yet).
whereas most people have decent cameras on their phones these days so the area they travel around could potentially be updated more often, just with lower quality
the photos are analysed in much the same way as described in the article... faces and licence plates are blurred, a (rough) 3d point cloud is made, street signs are analysed and objects are segmented (which they will be using for.
unfortunately mapillary is not public domain but its still a better system than each company recording their own streetview data and keeping it to themselves. it just seems ridiculous for each company to put so much effort into creating a full detailed map of the world when they could all just be contributing to one map (like openstreetmap)
I've been saying this for years now. I want Apple Maps (cartography) with Google Maps search, and navigation. For example bike directions would be really nice.
Have been in the US and CA for a couple of weeks lately and used both Apple Maps and Google Maps. And I have to say that Apple Maps was way better during my stay. The navigation was more precise, even telling me the exact lane to stay in. And it was more human-like, Google Maps seemed to sound unfriendly and very much like a computer (hard to describe).
Just a personal opinion, though, I expect things to be different in other areas.
The specific lane guidance in Apple Maps beats Google Maps hands down at the moment. I can finally just listen to directions without ever referring visually to the map. The announcement timing is earlier than Google Maps (which you can hear if you run them both simultaneously) and more information rich, for instance telling you the subsequent-after-upcoming turn direction, which helps you get over in time. Google Maps always leaves me scrambling at the last minute. And Siri's voice is definitely less robotic as of iOS 11.
I still often have to use Google Maps (or Waze) to find directions to a location in the form of "Albertson's on Tropicana." Google always gets this right, but Apple Maps only gets this only if you're close to the location. Same thing with intersections. Google Maps is always right, but Apple Maps requires you know and provide the full street name, including Blvd, Pkwy, Avenue, etc, which is infuriating.
Lastly, Siri's speech recognition often gets place names badly wrong, recognizing them as generic sound-alike nonsensical phrases, ignoring travel context, where as Google tends to get them right as local location names, somehow factoring travel context into the recognition.
If I can get the destination into Apple Maps easily, I prefer Apple Maps, if not, I go with Waze/Google Maps.
Ironic that Apple introduce improvements to Maps just as they open up Car Play to Google Maps and Waze. Maybe it's because they think they're on par now (or will be) and don't need to block everything else.
Our car has Car Play so I've been using Maps exclusively up to now and whilst I think I still prefer Waze overall, Maps is perfectly fine and I've gotten used to its rough edges.
I don't accept the thesis that Apple locks third-parties out of things like CarPlay out of a desire to lock their users into more of Apple's services. I think it has more to do with wanting to do things right and ensure a consistent user experience.
(I'll admit that it's sometimes hard to square this viewpoint with the level of brokenness they ship)
My biggest problem with Apple Maps (or maybe it's Siri, not sure) is search. I ask "give me directions to the Apple store in DC" and it returns a single entry for the Apple Store that happens to be closest. The algorithm appears to weight current location to the point that searching for anything outside your immediate vicinity is useless.
I don't drive as much as a lot of people, but I have never felt that Apple Maps was really lacking. The only issue I've ever had with it was in Chicago once, where it directed me onto Lower Wacker, but then gave me directions as if I were on Upper Wacker (arguably a weird edge case anyway). Aside from that one issue, it's been rock solid for me.
I've got 100s or possibly 1000s of place markers in Google Maps. I wonder if it's time that mapping apps start developing a standard for exchanging data? The GDPR mentions data portability. If I can't import my place markers (with notes and categories) it would be as bad for me as not being able to import my contact list into a new email client.
Any idea if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_(company) would have made a good acquisition for Apple...instead of rolling their own ? Several billion was /is nothing for Apple, and smartphones without maps are quite useless for a lot of things.
I’ve had plenty of experiences comparing google maps and Apple maps in turn by turn directions, and found the Apple version always took a detour to get to the same direction. This, combined with further antecdotal experiences like friends getting lost with their Apple map app open leads me to steer far away from Apple maps (atleast for walking)
Man, I can't even count the number of times that Apple Maps has sent me to the wrong block for a business. I give up, open Google Maps, and figure out exactly where I need to go. When you live in the suburbs, with giant shopping centers every block, and 30-40 stores in each, it does get a little old.
Since people are asking a lot about Google / Apple Maps differences -- how does Apple Maps handle elevation? Google Maps often seems to send me up and down the same really steep (and often poorly maintained) narrow streets when I'm driving, which is more dangerous and stressful for me.
I work in a mapping related field and I’ll be honest I’ve never considered that part of navigation. That’s a really interesting idea for making navigation better. Taking into account elevation and quality of road.
I believe Google Maps cycling and walking directions take this into account, but not driving directions, because typically cars and motorcycles have 0 issue with up and down grades; poorly maintained and narrow should be taken into account in Google Maps directions for cars, though.
I'm not 100% sure how much Google Maps Cycling directions try to avoid hills, but they DO list the elevation change in the sidebar, at least on a web browser, so they're aware of the concern over elevation change.
The narrow part is mainly because of cars parked on the sides, so I can see why maybe they wouldn't consider that. The poorly-maintained part, though, I don't know. I got nothing there.
EDIT: I also wish Google Maps would take into account that your average person will walk slower up tall hills. In my experience, it doesn't seem to do that.
Living in the United States both google and apple maps have been really good for a long time. After moving to Vietnam I’ve found both to be not accurate. Many times I’ll find a place on google then have the map show a completely different address and street then the actual address.
Like most I prefer Google Maps, but having a car with CarPlay, I either want Google Maps to have access to it (you can jailbreak, but it just puts the app on the screen; it doesn't provide the CarPlay specific functionality) or get Apple Maps to "good enough".
>It’s doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy-first methodology
what ? Do they ask user to opt-in into this ? Because otherwise that sounds impossible to achieve (I am not against anonymous data collection but most people coalesce this with losing privacy)
Google Maps, last time I checked, is extra bad in third-world rural areas. Next to useless when the pavement disappears and it's all dirt roads, which is a lot of the world in poor countries. I guess there are no Starbucks, i.e. not enough people to sell stuff to.
I don't see the article mentioning the Apple street view car I saw driving around my neighborhood in St Louis. I guess that's a different initiative....? Seems like a pretty big deal for them to try and have their own version of Google's street view.
third, high speed internet in your vehicle where you can surf the Web. Location will be a huge deal.
Apple needs to master this space, Maps is just a client consuming data and displaying it in a form of a map. Geolocated data is where the money will be.
This is may be a silly question to ask. Apart from Google, and Apple. What other Mapping solution are there that has its interest to be the best Mapping services? OpenStreetMap is good but far from competitor to Apple or Google.
I like Apple maps and use it instead of google maps for most of my things. Yeah it has its problems and I sometimes need to fallback to google but for most of my uses it’s good enough.
I hope Apple will put a bit more love into maps going forward
I just wish we had a real choice. Maps seem vendor lock-in especially when you use carplay or android auto. I want to use Gaia for offroading but can't use it while in auto mode... really sucks.
I'm sad about this. It was my impression that Apple had decided to use, and _contribute back to_, open map data sources. Now they have decided to just silo all their data like everyone else?
Using car play as nav the one thing I want more then anything else is the equivalent of the google offline maps download. Sometimes there is no signal and that sucks..
just recently Google Maps on Android started acting like its clueless about its location for the first 100 feet of travel. God forbid you pull up to a gas station on a corner of an intersection. No way in hell it will figure out which way to go to get back on the highway. Must drive for a minute in a random direction for Google Maps to figure out where you are, which way you are headed and which way your destination is.
I think Apple Maps is the ideal piece of software to open source and make available for free if the goal is to not let Google dominate geolocation data.
Although, if you are willing to check out android and a Google service fan, I highly recommend the pixel 2 or upcoming pixel 3. I tried the HTC one and a Samsung galxy s4 and switched back to Iphone due to shovelware/inevitable slowness in the past. The pixel 2 though is just as fluid though as my iphone 6s and every Google service works better since it is designed by Google through and through. I cannot confirm it won't slow down like my past phones in a few years so take my opinion with a grain of salt but I am super happy with my decision so far.
Also, considering that android is much more open to choosing app options, Apple definitely seems like the predominate shovelwarer company if you prefer Google services since Apple tends to force their own apps onto you in their ecosystem.
The article said they’re using computer vision for that stuff. Between how good CV has gotten, the other data sets they’re comparing to, and having human editors hopefully they’ll be able to do a pretty good job.
Maps are one of many examples where users are needlessly required to adopt a particular UI to access particular data.
I’m tired of having to accept Google’s clunky apps and stupid UI changes just because their data is better. I want somebody to be able to buy Google’s data (say) and decouple it. And that’s not a new problem (I don’t want to have to use Microsoft Word either).
I reckon they'll have a hard time taking on google maps. Google maps is for all intents and purposes a complete solution. Does what it says & has no obvious shortcomings.
Baring some massive leap in AI I don't see anyone gaining market share against a well known perfectly good solution.
Glad to see a company can basically copy what another company has done to be successful without fear of reprisal. This is not sarcasm (it's how we all get better), but it is hypocrisy.
I would like them to rebuild the Macbook Pro from the ground up. It's a much more critical element in my life. If they keep producing inferior notebook hardware, I'll change platforms. If I change platforms, I'm less tied to macOS and iOS, if i'm less tied to iOS I'm more likely to change to some other platform. If I change to some other platform, it won't matter if they made Maps useful or not, they'll have lost me because of a more important element in the ecosystem failed me.
Oh, you think Apple only has 30 engineers and that they have to choose between the MacBook Pro and Maps? They don't. Apple is trying ver very hard, and very intelligently, to build both platforms optimally.
Please consider the quality of your comment before you post it, plus its relevance to the topic.
I, like many, rely on HN for high-quality news and high-quality perspectives on those topics. I'm frankly more and more dissuaded by low-quality, hardly-on-topic comments like yours. You appear to enjoy co-opting the topic to gripe about the MacBook Pro. Please do that somewhere else.
Well that's just like... your opinion man. I, like many apparently (judging from the activity on the thread), feel like the commentary around communication involving commitment to different technologies feels misaligned, and this seems like an example of one. I felt like this perspective was fair game for the discussion. I can empathize with your desire to have explicitly defined and targeted discussions that meet your individual needs, I get how that would be a wonderful thing, but I politely decline your request to take my thoughts elsewhere. You can certainly get more engaged with the community and earn enough Karma to downvote discussions that lack value in your eyes, that's completely reasonable.
I wonder how many Apple engineers read HN--like is it rare or fairly often. Pretty much every Apple related thread has comments about the MacBook line suffering. Heck, I've been one of those complainers. I think the MacBook Pro was the best circa late 2012-2013. If my current MacBook Pro dies, my replacement won't be another Mac like it has been. I'll sadly have to jump ship for a while.
I imagine many apple software engineers read hacker news. I don't think hacker news is as popular with the computer engineering crowd though, but I would wager there is a decent amount of them that still reads it. But the apple designers, product owners, and other people that have a lot more say on the direction of a product probably don't read it at all.
While I think there is a 0% chance we will see a Macbook Pro redesign similar to the 2013-2015 15" rMBP that is so coveted by a lot of devs, I would certainly love it if Apple released a proper mobile workstation (which will not happen).
If Apple released a mobile workstation with the same (or similar) form factor as the 2015 15" rMBP with the same keyboard (and obviously get rid of the touch bar), same 99.5 Wh battery, same port selection (except replace TB2 ports with TB3), same Magsafe charging port, updated internals with non-proprietary, non-soldered RAM, SSD, and wireless card, I would pay whatever the hell they would want. It won't happen, but a man can dream.
The hardware could not be updated for years and I would still use the Mac because OS X is just so damn useful for me. The SSDs alone are so fast and the design is amazing. The keyboard is shit and ram could be improved but the OS is awesome, well only because of brew
This & please replace the keyboard, touchpad (bottom half) with full retina touchscreen, dual graphics, bezeless, fanless, and add in apple pencil with a laser, microphone, and twisting/push in eraser (for presentations).
You're right about the incentive, but it's an insult to their users from a company that claims to care about UX so much. They should just be ashamed of it and try to get something better out as soon as they can.
Sorry for ranting so much about iTunes in this thread, and from some other comments maybe I don't need to use it as much as I thought I'd have to. But then again, why do I have to use third-party apps for e.g. podcast client and music player. Those are such a central appliances that they should really be served well by Apple, who even include things like iMovie and Garage Band with their OS.
Yes. I don't get why Apple is often praised for getting UI "right", when iTunes, one of the central components of their system, is clearly a design gone bad.
iTunes was pretty essential to interacting with the iPhone in the past. Backups and such. I am not sure this is the case in the present with the reliance on iCloud.
Honest question, how do you use iTunes match without iTunes? I thought you'd have to add music to your library first in order for it to be matched and available on mobile?
My original comment was about iTunes on desktop, although the mobile version is also confusing and counter-intuitive, but much less buggy.
True. My hatred for iTunes involves syncing with iOS devices. I don't mind iTunes for music management. You still can't create smart playlists and do some of the advanced music management stuff on the iPhone but you can sync playlists etc. without connecting your phone with it.
I never knew exactly what type of catastrophe would happen to my iPhone when it "synced" with iTunes.
The most blatant annoyance is that UI-wise, it consistently makes the wrong, unexpected choice in response to user interaction. And it behaves likes a blocking single threaded app that cannot download something and handle user interaction at the same time.
In addition, it's terribly buggy. Some things just go wrong from time to time with no apparent reason, and without non-cumbersome ways to recover from. There's lots of issues in the Apple support forums where the answer is just 'yeah, this sometimes happens, you'll have to delete this or that and re-add it'.
iTunes was great up through the iPod. Adding the iTMS wasn’t bad.
Movies was not a good idea. Apps was too far. Music (the subscription service) was stupid. Then they forced UI changes on the old/working stuff because of the new garbage.
I really hope the low level rumors that a rewrite/breakup is happening are true.
I used to use iTunes extensively, but have since switched to Vudu (Walmart), Amazon Digital, and Play/YT for my digital rentals because I'd prefer to watch them in a browser or on a Roku, neither of which are possible in the iTunes/Apple ecosystem.
One big reason why is that browser video streaming is extremely reliable on a reasonable connection, but iTunes' rental buffering was a huge headache last I tried to use it (and the data usage significantly higher than browser video for some reason, even at the same resolution).
Spotify and Google Music comes to mind, but I guess it depends on what you use itunes for - which is also probably the issues with iTunes.. it does too much too poorly.
It's like the shabby gate to Apple's walled garden paradise. You need it to get data into and out from your iPhone, iPod, iPad, to access Apple Music, and probably other things related to iCloud services.
It took 2 years after the first abomination to realize they needed to start over? For a company that has almost a quarter trillion in capital in the bank, yes this is slow and overdue and a bit embarrassing. Maybe navigation directions will appear in the touch bar though. Im being a bit snarky but this isn't a proud moment for Apple.
I'm not sure if Apple Maps rewrites "code from the scratch". From the article, it seems they are building "Maps from the scratch" with some code reuse.
Not really the same thing here, this is the about the underlying data and control. Since Apple now own the data, it can make changes quickly and don't have to rely on a 3rd party to do it for them.
This just seems like a huge waste of money for Apple. Smartphones need maps, I get that, but a huge chunk of Apple's customers still use Google maps anyway. Why not draw up an SLA with Google and just use them? There's the privacy angle, but Apple rarely mentions that with regards to maps and, come on, look around, average Joe just ... doesn't ... care...
I'm glad they're wasting the money, though. I like options. And they have the money...
> It’s doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy-first methodology
Does this seem contradictory to anybody else? Kind of like "anonymized data collection" that turns out to be not-so-anobymous when it invariably leaks?
No, it doesn't seem contradictory, and it sounds like Apple is doing this the right way. If identifiable information never actually leaves my device then where's it going to leak from?
No. If you read the article they explain that they send segments of your trips, and never the start or end segment.
So even if they could find all the segments from YOUR trip (which they can’t, according to what they’ve said) they couldn’t even reconstruct what you were doing, only a few small stretches of road you were on.
That is not new. And it's still not enough, because it's not impossible to reconstruct someone's route if they drive in areas where they are the only ones (or among the few) to send segment data.
That's why you need to do more work, as in two of Google's patents:
By anonymized, I would take it that they mean no user or device-specific details are linked to the data when it's persisted. So when it's leaked, it's not as though someone can say "this iPhone was at this place at this time".
I wish they'd just sign a deal with Google and be done with it. The problem is less with the maps app and more with their source of data. OSM is neat, yay competition, etc etc, but the quality is just not there.
Did you read the article? They’re not going to be using OSM or TomTom anymore, they’re taking it all in house preciselynso they can fix those kind of issues.
its a bit vague. they are not using it as a base map any more, but they might still be scraping certain details off of it. they would be stupid not to since osm is more up to date in some areas than even google.
Yes, I read it, and that would be strictly worse. Apple does not have the reach, or infrastructure, or anything to be handling that degree of data on their own.
Honestly, I think Apple is wasting resources at competing with other companies by providing mediocre solutions.
For example competing with Google at big data and AI with Maps and Siri, or competing with Microsoft with iWorks. Keynote is great, but I'd rather use Google Docs or Open Office than Pages and Numbers.
In contrast, today Logic and FCPX are very competitive in their market.
>> Honestly, I think Apple is wasting resources at competing with other companies by providing mediocre solutions.
The fact that Apple Maps exists forces Google to dedicate resources towards keeping Google Maps decent on Apple's platform. Competition is good, even if you don't use the competing product.
I think it's too easy to see the way things are today as the way they will he forever. I've made this mistake too often myself, so I find it generally useful to overcorrect and assume that over long periods of time technologies/companies/people can get far better than you expect.
Yeah, I think it's important to remember this. Remember when MySpace dominated social networking, and MapQuest dominated online mapping? Google Maps kinda came out of nowhere and blew MapQuest away.
I think my claim is a little different. I've seen quite a few comanites/technologies/people that I basically wrote off initially become fairly impressive over time as they continue improving while I'm not looking.
What choice do they have? Maps, location data, and the services they enable are critical to mobile devices today, and will only get more so with AR and devices without screens.
“Everybody but Google” isn’t good enough judging by the current state of affairs, and Google doesn’t play by the same privacy rules as Apple, so they seem to have few options.
First, it's Google head on. This is exactly the stuff where Google is very hard to beat. For Apple, it's a little outside their strengths. Too fiddly. Every damned place in the world has their own little public transport issues, data sources. Apple are more of a clever solution with the right compromises bunch than a "slog our way through 10 million random issues until a pattern emerges" bunch.
I like the moxy, but there's always going to be an "are we the new Bing?" cloud hanging over projects like this, unless and until they "win." All that said, I'm glad there is something out there that isn't google.