Hacker News Reader

Comment by andreyf | Hacker News Reader

the old Maps app was perpetually stuck in 2007 while Android phones gained 3D views and (much more important) vector maps and turn by turn navigation

I don't need or care about 3D view or vector maps or turn-by-turn navigation (although I see how the last one could be useful for a lot of users). I, like most city dwellers, need directions that take public transit into account. I can't believe Apple released an "upgrade" which downgrades such critical functionality.

View on HN

The whole point is they may have had no choice. Yes, it sucks, but if they don't have a contract, their choices are very limited.

Then why didn't they move to OSM or Bing Maps?

They're using OSM - as for Bing, they'd be trading one headache for another. The notion that Apple is doing this to take control of a core aspect of iOS seems to make historical sense given how Apple likes integrating and controlling popular functionality into their products.

Maybe they felt that the data wasn't sufficiently better and that they wouldn't have enough control to make that data better over time. Maybe Bing is profited from licensing the data in a way that would accomplish what Apple wants to accomplish (like the rumored ban on turn-by-turn that caused Google to drop telenav in favor of creating their own dataset).

There are few times that I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in Cupertino. This is one time I wish I could have. The discussions and reasoning that went into this decision must have been fascinating because there is no way Apple was thinking, "Maybe they just won't notice". There were undoubtably a lot of tactical and strategic decisions that went into what we see, and being party to that would have given a lot of insight into Apple as a company.

A couple of points spring to mind: 1) public transit is not a very big advantage. It is useful only in the handful of US cities that have decent public transport. In Paris, one of the great public transport cities in the world, google still doesn't provide public transport information. In 2012. Apple's solution, to rely on 3rd party devs for this has every chance if providing a solution to iPhone users before Google.

2) But even assuming you're one if the lucky few for whom Google provided public transport information, you can still use Google maps from the browser. You can even add an icon in Springboard for it, giving you full access to google itineraries. The only thing that has really been lost is street view.

In my experience, Google Maps' Transit coverage is far far greater than "a handful of U.S. cities". It's worked everywhere I've been in Japan, in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, London, Athens...

The beauty of Google's Transit compared to apps maintained by the transit companies themselves is that it supports cross-company travel.

Cross company travel may not be much of an issue in the longer run, as the transit apps are not restricted to be offered by the companies themselves, so the apps offering an integrated view should win out.

Hoever, planning e.g. a trip from London to Paris, with local transit on both sides, may be difficult.

Not Paris, not Rome.

Found the list of cities. It's massive. It's true no Paris or Rome, but many other cities in France and Italy. http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/text.html#eu

Could it not be said that, "Turn-by-turn is not a very big advantage. It is only useful for the handful of people who are too poor not to have a navigation system built into their car?" It seems like the divide between the "iOS 6 maps suck!" crowd and the "iOS 6 maps are awesome!" crowd is whether a private car or public transportation is the primary method of getting around.

I don't think the iOS 6 Maps are too bad, walking directions have been good. I use public transport heavily but Google's public transport stuff didn't work for my area of England, so you don't miss what you never had.

If by a handful of US cities you mean 500 cities around the world, you are correct:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/

Millions of people relied on transit directions from their iPhone every day.

Both turn-by-turn and transit directions are available as 3rd party apps. Transit directions apps are free while turn-by-turn are fairly expensive (though I haven't checked recently). Despite having an iPhone I still have a GPS in my car, and since I started using iOS 6 in June turn-by-turn has become a staple of what I use the iPhone for. Apple is taking a short term hit in order to serve users better in the long term. Though maybe it would have been wiser for them to wait a year before switching. I expect this problem will be solved in 6 months but time will tell.

I agree with this. The blogs mocking 3D view (clearly a gimmick) or missing campus buildings are missing that Tom Tom turn by turn has an incredibly amount of real world knowledge and usability baked in for the larger market.

Apple customers use public transport?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com