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Comment by natesm | Hacker News Reader

Typing "21st and 6th" gives me an alert that says "no results found". I am about 500 feet from 21st and 6th. Other intersections have jumped me to Texas and South Carolina.

I can't believe this is something they're actually going to release. I hope that it might be better on release, but it seems like the backend should be continually upgraded.

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Google has spent a long time pouring a ton of money and manpower into their geocoder and the data behind it. It's completely unsurprising that Apple is not able to match their quality. It will be an iterative process that improves as they get more usage data to leverage.

That said, your example is pretty shocking considering Apple's historically stringent quality standards.

I feel dirty playing the J card, but...

It this something that would have happened with Steve at the helm? I mean, the business case for moving off of your competitor's flagship map product is clear. You want to get them out of your product development cycle, you want to deny them revenue, you want to dilute their brand. I get that.

But still, Apple is ultimately achieving this by pushing what seems to be universally regarded as an inferior product out to its customers. It's basically a downgrade. When has Apple ever done that before?

Ping?

To use ajross's term, Ping wasn't a "downgrade". Ping was more of a lead zeppelin.

MobileMe

Mission Control

iTunes

iTunes may have become a bloated mess, but it's one of the key reasons for the success of the iPod and by extension the iPhone.

say what you will with iTunes but I don't really find it so bad as all the hate being written about it would seem to suggest. yeah it could be slimmer but it runs well and relatively flawlessly, and does a decent job of organizing. and I have to spend less time configuring it than foobar.

iPhoto however, I think, could use some rethinking...

As a non transit user, I see the addition of the turn by turn (especially with Siri integration) as a plus and don't miss the transit at all. So I wouldn't say it is universally inferior.

I agree. I'd add that on the iOS platform, there are significantly better transit apps than the maps app for the bigger European cities like London etc.

"It this something that would have happened with Steve at the helm?"

Do you think Apple hasn't been working in this direction since before Steve left the helm?

Placebase acquisition: Jul 2009

Poly 9 acquisition: Jul 2010

C3 acquisition: Aug 2011

Yes, but when do you declare the quality high enough for release?

Ok we're ending random speculation territory but it was widely reported that the Google Maps agreement expired this year so there was no huge decision about when to release -- it was always going to go live with the 2012 phone.

I mean obviously if it was a disaster they would have to go back and cut another deal with Google (or Nokia/MS) but it now becomes obvious why they held back turn by turn from the old Maps app for so long. Because you can legitimately argue that 6.0 Maps with some weak spots that can be improved over time but with turn by turn plus possibly Google Maps in the App store is better then 5.0 Maps powered by Google's superior data but without turn by turn.

Wasn't the agreement renewed at the late-in-the-game last year? Is there any reason to think Google would have turned down a renewal (on the previous terms, we know there was friction over new features) this year?

I'll plead ignorance if it was up last year although just shifts the thinking above. So let's say Apple Maps was planned for 2011 but by wwdc they realized releasing in 2011 would be a huge disaster so they had to go back to google for another year.

As far as Google I'd guess they would have been fine to continue powering the default Maps app. Google's price might have gone up from 2007 but the quality increased by a similar amount.

Apple has done it a lot of times before (like most companies).

I think the maps feature that Apple believed they could produce, at the time they made the decision, was probably very different from the maps feature they were actually able to produce.

That's a fair point, software projects have schedule problems all the time, even for Apple. But if anything it's an even more serious indictment of the executive decision making: the product didn't work out the way they hoped, and they shipped it anyway. Again, would that have happened in the days of the reality distortion field?

Final Cut Pro X was panned by many professional users as being a downgrade.

The same thing happened to me recently on Apple Maps on iOS 5 (Google data) in Chicago. ORD plotted a course to Ord, Nebraska, not O'Hare.

I'm in California, and typing "ord" (not even uppercase ORD, mind you) in the (Android) Maps search bar brings up Chicago O'Hare International Airport-Ord, Chicago, IL as the second suggestion. I'm going to say it's probably not (Google data)

Out of curiosity, what would you expect to show up? If someone said they're going to ORD (I live in California, too) then I'd ask if they have a connection in Chicago.

They're providing a counterpoint to the poster that said "google data" pointed them to Ord, Nebraska.

Probably Fort Ord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ord)

Worse for me was realizing that when you click a map direction on a website it no longer brings up The map app with directions to your destination from your current location.

Now your are taken to some dead end Google MaP in the browser that does nothing.

WTH Apple?

iOS badly needs something like Android's Intents.

Absent that, surely you see the problem with a maps.google.com link taking you to Apple's Maps app (no longer associated with Google in any way)?

No surprise that a Google Map link on a website doesn't open Apple's iMap app. More so for me who clicks map links on sites frequently being brought to a dead end in the browser Google Map is a terrible user experience, especially when for the last four years or more the experience has been very useful.

I have that happen with current iOS (Google) all the time.

Don't type: "21st and 6th", type "21st and 6th, CITY".

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