Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

This is especially galling for the Japanese. Not only are they valuable customers due to their frequent cell phone purchases and rabid desire for brand-name products (including Apple, of course), but a quarter of the Japanese population (and the main target market) lives in Tokyo, where people are almost entirely dependent on public transit to get around. With iOS 6, there are no built in directions!

Of course, Apple apologists will jump to say that you can just get a 3rd party app, but that simply doesn't cut it. Google Maps provided a door-to-door solution for directions, which makes a big difference when you don't know what the closest train station to an address is. Moreover, the ability to see the total door-to-door time and compare it to the cost of the trip made it easy to select the optimal route (based on a combination of price and time).

And here are some of the amusing mistakes in the database[0]:

* "McDonalds" and "Pachinko Gundam" train stations

* A station not attached to any railway lines

* No Osaka station (this is a really big station)

* Place names in Chinese and Korean

* Haneda Airport (busiest airport in Japan) is mislabeled as 「大王製紙」 ― "Great King Paper Manufacturer" (this one has gotten a lot of laughs)

* Narita Airport (2nd busiest airport) completely missing

For those who can read Japanese, there's a good 2chan thread archive[1] of Japanese netizens taking the piss out of Apple Maps.

0: http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2012/09/ios-6-maps-fail-in-ja...

1: http://gahalog.2chblog.jp/archives/52132765.html

>"Pachinko Gundam" train station

Wow. You couldn't make it up, could you?

For those unaware, "pachinko" refers to a form of gambling, gaming machine, comparable to the Western "slot machine".[0]

"Gundam" is a popular anime series in Japan.[1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam

Pachinko Gundam is a thing, too. (Panchinko machines, like Vegas slot machines and Zynga products, are often themed to stimulate additional interest over the base Skinner box gameplay. Unlike Vegas slots and Zynga products, the core pachinko customer is a Japanese salaryman, so most of the themes skew in that direction. The most popular, by a wide margin, is about a chesty mermaid and her under-the-ocean gal pals.)

Right, one of the (many) things that Japan takes to the point of absurdity is brand licensing. If any sort of media content becomes successful, particularly anime/manga or J-pop artists, you can be sure that there will be branded drinks, foods, restaurants, toys, outfits, even red-light district "services".

Maybe it's just that coming from suburban America, I'm used to spending more time in a car (isolated from the visuals and sounds of ads) and the population density is lower, but the advertising/branding just seems that much more intense in Tokyo. Then again, I've been to NYC, and it didn't feel like that - for example, the train stations didn't have ads.

> Of course, Apple apologists will jump to say that you can just get a 3rd party app ...

I don't think Apple "apologists" will be jumping in on this one. In this particular case, Apple has, objectively, significantly reduced (or outright eliminated) the usability of a core feature of their phones.

Anyone in a significant population center will find this to be incredibly irksome, and by the very definition of population centers, there are a lot of people in significant population centers.

Just look around this thread. Apologists abound. HN isn't immune to worthless fanboy comments.

I completely agree, the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you should be discounted as a worthless fanboy comment.

If you think iOS 6 maps are in any single way an improvement over Google Maps, or anything other than a power play in general, you're pretty damn likely to be making a worthless fanboy comment.

I think anyone who calls someone else a "fanboy" is not worth listening to.

So the word "fanboy" is not an accurate term to describe anyone or the level of discourse about a subject?

You think that everybody on this website is engaging in rational, high-minded discourse?

It's easy to assume every mind is a willing convert. It takes a realist to understand that many minds are already made up based on bullshit and bad logic and you will never change those minds.

You're just as closed-minded as the "fanboys" I decry. Don't take the easy way out.

"fanboy" is a cop-out term that means that you aren't willing to accept that someone else has a different experience and opinions than yourself. By using the term "fanboy" you are very clearly signaling that you are discounting anything and everything the "fanboy" says. This is the textbook definition of close-minded.

Far more often, the person slinging the word "fanboy" is the person who refuses to accept new ideas, to accept that other people's differing opinions may be just as valid as their own. This is what close-minded is. And quite often, the person who is tarred with the word "fanboy" is in fact quite rational and has good reasons for their opinions, and may very well be open to differing opinions. But you'll never find out because you immediately labelled them as a "fanboy" and shut down the discussion.

And thus, the simple rule. Anyone who uses the word "fanboy" is not worth listening to.

Obvious troll is obvious, but I'll bite.

Here's a single way that iOS 6 maps are better: 3D flyover. It's fantastic for trying to navigate around a city while travelling, which I used today.

I like it better than Street View - though Street View is better when you're on foot and need to find the entrance to a specific street address.

So, overall iOS 6 maps aren't as good as Google Maps, completely agree, this is a debacle. But there's one feature I like.

Abound? ... I've just scrolled up and down and see nothing. I didn't even see many of them in the thread about the Swiss watch. But snarky anti-Apple-fanboy comments? Dozens of them.

It's official: Apple fanboys are the vegans of HN.

Also, the lack of block numbers and no labelling of "landmark" shops - eg Lawson, Mosburger, KFC etc. - makes them impossible to navigate.

Osaka can't feel to bad - Tokyo station is also missing. I guess the Shinkansen plowed through them both last week...

> the lack of block numbers

This is another huge factor. Because of the unusual addressing system, GPS directions are even more valuable in Tokyo than in western cities. There are plenty of native Japanese who have resided in Tokyo all their lives who have really come to rely on GPS directions to get around since smartphones became common.

Not really an apologist - I think the new Apple Maps are definitely a step backwards for many - but, I've exclusively used my iPhone for directions in the Bay Area, Vancouver, Chicago, and London - I'm directionally challenged, and don't drive - so I rely on my iPhone to get anywhere - and it wasn't until the new IOS 6 was released with all the furor, that I discovered you could get transit directions through the map app. I've been using iBart, iCaltrain, The Tube App, The El Maps, --- all these third party apps.

In four years of traveling to all these major cities, and using my iPhone to get around nonstop on mass transit - never once occurred to me to use Google Maps to get transit directions.

[EDIT: I just tried a pretty simple trip that I use iBart and iCaltrain all the time for - My Office in Redwood City to Lake Merrit in Oakland - Consist of a 15 minute Walk to Caltrain, Transfer to Bart, Get off at 17th and Broadway. Should be simple - Train to Bart, Bart to 17th.

The answer in Google Maps: "Directions Not Available. Directions could not be found between these locations.

I guess I haven't been missing much - or maybe Transit Directions aren't fully available for the Bay Area.

Edit 2: Tried this with the new Map App on IOS6 - It brought up CaltrainMe and "HopStop Transit Directions" - downloaded HopStop (Free) - HopStop provided me with a full Mass Transit route from RWC to Lake Merrit - "Walk to Caltrain, Caltain to Bart, Walk to Lake Merrit"

Actually - looking closer - it gave me Five different Mass Transit routes - Some of them using Bart+Caltrain, Others using Light Rail. This is pretty cool, actually. :-)

So - for my limited example, getting to Lake Merrit in Oakland from My office In Redwood City - Google Maps didn't work, the IOS 6 solution did.]

In NYC, Google Maps is king, at least on Android phones/tablets (I don't have any experience with iOS devices to compare with). It will provide door-to-door directions, including the trip time, and will base its directions on the current time and timetables.

In Tokyo, it will also specify the total cost for the journey, which is very handy when walking for 5 more minutes can save you a few hundred yen.

I just tried getting public transit directions from Redwood City to Lake Merrit, and this is what I came up with: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Redwood+City,+CA&dadd...

I can't comment on how good the directions are, but it definitely doesn't say "directions not available". From the map route, I'd say it looks pretty reasonable and is what I would use if I had to travel from Redwood City to Lake Merrit.

Interesting that the maps.google.com web site gives a different answer than the Google Maps application.

I just confirmed that I get the correct answer via the website in mobile safari, but "Directions Not available" through the application.

I guess the good news, is that (at least for people in the bay area trying to use Caltrain/Bart) - the change in the Mapping Application doesn't appear to be a regression - you already have to go to the website.

More informed minds than mine can puzzle out why the website is giving back better transit directions than iOS App.

> More informed minds than mine can puzzle out why the website is giving back better transit directions than iOS App.

Probably because the Maps app on iOS 5 and below was made by Apple, not Google. There are no such issues with the Google Maps app on Android (made by Google) - it gives the same results as the website. In fact, it prominently displays several route options, along with their times and costs, just as in Tokyo. This is a little more obscure on the Google Maps website, although the information is still present.

I searched for the airports, the search is still borked for non-Japanese but they're on the map and show up if you search in Japanese. Airport codes are a mixed bag, 'NRT' returns narita airport correctly but 'HND' gives me a Nevada result. So I don't know if the claims above that they aren't even on the map or return factories are inaccurate or they've already started fixing the more egregious results. Probably fixes I'd guess.

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