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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

I find it interesting that Apple is adding driving navigation with no transit or bicycle directions (apart from third-party apps) while Google seems to be really putting a lot of effort into public transit. This is all while car ownership is plummeting among youth, the people who I thought were Apple's core user base.

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This stuff is hard, Google has been doing it for years. Apple is just getting started.

With iOS 6, Apple released Transit APIs that let third party devs (read: public transit providers) add public transit data themselves.

“The new Transit APIs, referred to by Scott Forstall at 108:58 in Monday's keynote, allow developers to register their app as a directions provider for routing directions for a particular set of coordinates. It will then be displayed in the list of available third-party apps for transit. Clicking a transit app launches that app, passing the start and end values to the app. Contrary to other analysis, transit routes can't be displayed inline from the Maps app.”

This seems to me like a clever move, this way Apple won't have to collect all the data.

http://waxy.org/2012/06/busting_the_ios_6_transit_map_myths/

How many quality transit applications are out there and maintained enough by their public agencies?

I predict that Apple's API cop-out goes precisely nowhere.

I don't know about the situation in the Midwest, but where I live, all the public transit providers offer excellent apps (and they're free!).

Hopefully Google Maps will be the best provide for this data in any given location, once they make their own iOS app.

Why would they do that? Google stands little to gain and a lot to lose by offering a good Google Maps app for iOS.

Many of the features they offer for Google Maps on Android haven't been implemented for iOS (turn by turn navigation, interior views, floor plans, 3D models, etc.)

Google is already polluting the iOS Maps app with sponsored listings, degrading the user experience severely. I doubt that a separate Google Maps app for iOS will be any better.

Seems like you answered your own question there. Why would Google make a good maps app? So that people on ios use it and they can show them sponsored places.

IMO, a Maps app with ads or ‘sponsored places’ is a shitty app. I will always choose a paid app without ads over a ‘free’ app with ads. That's also the main reason why I backed App.net.

When I wrote about a ‘good Google Maps app for iOS’ I meant one that has feature parity with Google Maps on Android and contains no ads. Up until two years a go, the Maps app on iOS was such an app.

This could be an opportunity for Google to leverage the strength of their maps product. Why not just ignore the iOS Google maps app? This would motivate me to switch to Android since the Google maps app is in my top three. Perhaps only second to phone and email. I'm feeling apprehensive about the iOS 6 update given what I've heard about Apple's maps.

When I mention this I receive the response "Google will just make their own iOS app." I'm skeptical given the history of their Gmail app.

> Google is already polluting the iOS Maps app with sponsored listings, degrading the user experience severely

Google and Apple are in a fight, but Google has little to do with the map app that comes on every iOS device. Much like how they came out with Chrome for iOS (despite Apple's crazy limitations) I expect a very nice Maps app as well. One that they control and are allowed to update.

Yes, Apple built the Maps app for iOS, but Google puts its ads in the results. No doubt it was one of the terms for Apple to use their map data.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmygunz/7161691115/

It's also clear that Apple would've loved to implement features like turn-by-turn navigation in the Maps app, but Google wouldn't let them. With iOS 6, Apple says goodbye to Google Maps and voilà: turn-by-turn navigation.

It's not clever, it's a kludge. The map can pass start and end coordinates to a third party app that can't even show the route _on_ the map that called it? If Apple is not able to get transit data (which it's not, Google has been at this for years now and started with only a couple cities), then the right solution would be to still leave it to third-party apps, but have some better integration. The apps should be able to draw the route on the Apple map, add stop/route information, etc. Right now, it's barely better than just searching the App Store for "[Your city] transit directions".

“Apple is not able to get transit data”

Anyone is able to get that data. In the US alone, hundreds of transit agencies publish it online in GTFS format. For starters, look at this coverage map: http://bit.ly/gtfscoverage

“The apps should be able to draw the route on the Apple map, add stop/route information, etc.”

I agree, but who's to say that they won't be able to? The first version hasn't even been released yet, and we all know how Apple likes to iterate. Its main focus right now is to not need Google's services anymore and to strip those from the OS as soon as they can.

I think its more an issue of platform maturity. Google has years on Apple in terms of building up these data sources. Apple (I believe) will be licensing map data, whose cost is not cheap. Google uses mostly their own maps, and have spent years and $$$ building data.

A good portion of the transit data is open; Google defined a transit-route data format (GTFS) and encouraged agencies to publish such data publicly, which a number did: http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFe...

I'd guess they might also have private arrangements with additional agencies, but a good amount of the data is available to anyone.

Fair point. But having said data is only the first step. Routing and directions based on the data is another.

That list looks really short though.

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