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Comment by yellowbkpk | Hacker News Reader

This entire article boils down to one sentence "According to trusted sources, Apple has an incredible headline feature in development for iOS 6: a completely in-house maps application."

The rest of it is speculation about what might exist.

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The headline is obnoxious too. It hasn't happened. It might happen, but the way they wrote it makes it sound like Tim Cook got on a podium and announced that to the world.

As speculative as it seems, this coincides with that mapping company Apple bought in recent times. Forgot the name of the company, but they had some beautiful 3D views of select cities. For all you know Apple might make 3D maps standard in iOS 6. Damn, wouldn't that be something :).

That would be Nokia. See:

http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/

Apple bought a startup focused on mapping but it wasn't Nokia. I don't remember the name of the company...

It was this:

http://www.slashgear.com/apple-acquires-c3-technologies-for-...

It looks a lot like Google Earth. Google can just integrate Google Earth into the mobile maps to compete. They've already done it on the web version.

That's what I keep thinking every time someone talks about Google getting beaten in maps. They've had the "eye candy maps app" available for download for seven years now.

That said, having some competition in the market is a good thing. I do wish more of it was concentrated on free products like OpenStreetMap though.

There's a distinct difference, as far as I know: the C3 solution can do large-scale automated rendering of 3D terrain based on aerial photography, and Google Earth's geomodeling is done by hand. That means that Apple can, effectively, render the entire world in 3D if they choose to, limited only by money and computing resources. Google is limited by manpower.

That would be Placebase http://blogs.computerworld.com/14835/apple_purchased_mapping...

Honestly, the utility of 3D maps is way overblown. Even satellite map tiles are too- way too much extra, unimportant information.

That depends on what you are using the map view for.

I've often used the satellite/hybrid view to help orient myself in unfamiliar cities or areas by finding reference points (coloured buildings, obvious statues or landmarks etc)...

If you just want to know that a given address is on street X between avenues 4 and 5, then sure, but that's not the only use for a Maps app..

> Even satellite map tiles are too- way too much extra, unimportant information.

They're great for geocaching though.

So true, saved so much hunting time by using the satellite maps! Especially the nano's in the middle of cities etc!

I uprated you, but honestly it's incredibly useful to see the satellite details for several things - find a kids park with good greenery (or extensive playground) via satellite map as opposed to Google/yelp directory information is a hell of a lot easier. If you're looking to buy a house, you can easily determine if the location is close to any undesirable looking areas. Some minor landmarks (say, a parking lot) are also visible to satellite that may not be shown or easily inferred without imagery.

A picture (tile) is worth at 1,000 words indeed.

Maybe I'm just an excessive planner, but I like satellite maps and google's street view for things such as: locating parking lot entrances, locating exactly where a business I'm visiting is, scoping out street parking, getting an idea of the neighborhood's look, and, of course, seeing if my car is pictured anywhere.

Apple bought three geo-related companies in the last few years. My guess is C3 Technologies for 3D/"satellite" layer, Poly9 for the street maps layer, and Placebase for the POI. I imagine they've been working on unifying them for a while now and we will see the fruit of that labor soon.

And yet there it is on the front page of HN.

In particular, the breathless "Video: What the Hoover Dam will look like on the iOS 6 3D Map mode".

That's the Apple's distortion field in action.

No, it's shitty journalism in action.

There's nothing wrong with speculating based on facts, as long as you make it clear that it's speculation and not reality.

They're not speculating based on fact, they're speculating based on an anonymous source's tip, which may or may not be true. In fact given their history of posting about every Apple rumour that exists, I wouldn't put much weight onto the accuracy of this rumour at all.

This doesn't mean I don't think a new maps app is coming, I just don't think 9to5mac's sources would know about it if it was.

I think the primary component of Apple's distortion field is shitty journalism.

The RDF gives free license to shitty journalism. Trendy subjects makes SEO-obsessed content mill writers happy. Just read Techmeme - the content is almost all trendy garbage.

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