Google Maps becomes the App Store’s most popular free app in 7 hours
thenextweb.com
thenextweb.com
As a developer in the App Store, I really hope they do something to fix the abysmal searches in it.
If there is one thing Apple truly fails at, it is search.
On a side note, and this might titillate you; I am seeing serious cracks in Google's search skills as their other assets lack search or it is rather clunky. Now if Bing just didn't suck so bad, there might even be a challenger.
Example: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=child+books&c=apps But I agree, Google Play's search can still be improved. Currently a search for GTA vice city [2] places the actual game in third place behind other related apps. These apps are The important thing to note is that both these apps have 100,000+ downloads while the game is <50,000 right now. So the number of downloads is given a higher weight than name (as it should be.) But the actual game should get a better rank than other things. As time goes on and more sites link to the game and more people download it, this will improve.
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=%22child+books%22&... [2]: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=gta+vice+city&c=a...
Looks like that's already changed in the last 3 hours. Now shows up in first place for me.
Third place is currently some ripoff scam app, which is another problem. (Is there any way to report clear ripoff/spam apps from the web storefront? Had to into Google Play to report "objectionable content", which was the closest I could find to a fraud report.)
It's the same reason simply owning 'thing.com' doesn't make it your rite to be ranked #1 in google for 'thing'.
Ever notice when you were doing the turn-by-turn directions that there is a lag in the marker that leads you to miss or almost miss turns, especially in complex intersections....that lag was a huge issue 8 years ago, as it is today. In all that time, Navteq did very little, it seems, to improve routing, maps, or navigation. I was just using Apple Maps yesterday (I'm a very patient and open minded person that gives several unbiased opportunities) when I was told to go around this very short road segment. Turns out it was probably because the segment it marked as "No Thru Trucks". Those Navteq annoyances are what made Magellan GPS horrible and after who knows how long of doing nothing to improve them, Navteq has brought Apple to its knees.
Try searching "Pier 39 San Francisco". The query can't be any more specific, and it's the most iconic location for tourists, and Apple Maps will bring you to a pretty shady area of town, only a mile or two away from Hunter's Point, one of the more violent areas of SF.
It's a wonder a human being ever found a hospital before Google saved the human race from it's own helplessness!
If you don't have a map, you might ask a local for directions or take a cab if you're in a hurry to get somewhere that you don't know the location for. If your map is wrong, you are more likely to actually end up in the wrong place -- and then become that much more confused and make poor decisions while trying to find your way without it.
The proper response to bad search results is not to talk about how you can still manage just fine with paper maps, unless you're implicitly proposing that we give up on the electronic maps completely.
Once there's an alternative, it's a flame-debate, where each side gives itself a pass. Controversy drives page views. Nobody wrote about how bridges mapped to 3D terrain in Google Earth, but we get a Tumbler of iOS 6 3D bridges examples.
A smartphone is not a replacement for common sense. In Apple Maps, you can clearly look at your destination and say "Hmm, wow, that doesn't look like sprawling medical complex, perhaps this tiny out of the way building isn't a hospital".
People have been misled by Google Maps and MapQuest and Tom Tom for years and years. How common are stories of people driving off of cliffs or other such nonsense because a GPS said so?
Yes, Apple Maps isn't perfect, but it's a long shot better than Google Maps and MapQuest were six months into the product, and is actively providing superior maps to the baseline of a decade ago, or even five years ago.
But aside from that there's also the lost-time factor. If Apple Maps misleads me far more often than other products (which it does), then I waste far more time (and gasoline) using it. That is a real problem with it, and one that cannot be answered with "ALL Mapping data is imperfect".
As for Apple Maps being better than the baseline from five years ago, is there a way for that statement to be useful that doesn't require access to a time machine?
We've really only had mobile mapping for about 7-8 years now, it's amazing how quickly people have forgotten how to get places without it.
The question is not what they did BEFORE the smartphone, but what they do now. What they do now is to use the maps application that came with the device they bought.
There is a lot to it and to make such a blanket claim with nothing to back it up is pretty weak. The questions were meant to point this out.
We have given Apple so much money THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH IT. They have $120B in the bank, more cash than any other company has ever had. They can buy very famous companies for cash, like Cisco, Dell, Facebook, etc, and even banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, etc. This is a crazy amount of cash, and they are clueless as what to do with it.
I know what I would do, I would throw some of that money to improve the quality of my product for the sake of my hundreds of millions of customers. I would admit defeat, and I would pay Google for a license in perpetuity for Google Maps to be on iPhone. I would engage in some sort of rev/data share with the Maps app and throw them a few billion. Win-Win-Win for everyone.
Sure, maybe Apple doesn't extract every single red cent from the deal, but money is of secondary or tertiary importance here. Their money is already relatively useless sitting in a bank account making 0% interest. And sure, maybe they left money on the table, and maybe Apple overpays and gets the short end of the stick for once, but it's called taking one for the team. Customers get the very best maps technology and a permanent agreement to always have access to it, and Apple can stop being distracted by one of the most important aspects of a smartphone experience, which is location services. They can continue innovating in things that will make them money, like newer designs, etc.
How can you possibly say that? How was Android 1.0 compared to what it is today? Or Windows 1.0? In your view no one should start anything if they aren't immediately good at it.
What should be questioned is Apple's dedication to Mpas. If they're not interested in creating a high-quality mapping solution then they should give up.
What Apple should do is buy a company to provide the mapping solution for them. The same goes for Nuance. Core technologies of your OS should not be left to a third party.
A few bugs here and there is understandable, of course. Any honest person looking at the situation knows that Apple's Maps app was not just a matter of a couple semi-serious bugs; it was practically unusable for a large portion of people, and it's an application where unusability could create real safety issues. Completely unacceptable handling on Apple's part. They could have pushed it as a "beta" or "preview release" or other "help us work out the bugs" thing, but they decided to force all users to engage it as their only maps experience. Apple is responsible for this severe oversight in judgment.
no, the CEO has a fiduciary obligation to the shareholders to increase the market value of the company. If that is through implementing better features then fine, but don't think for a second they would do it for the "greater good" or some principled and un-business like reason.
Things evolve over time, you have to give it a bit of running room to see how things shape up before you simply label it a failure. Besides, competition breeds innovation and innovation is great for the consumers.
They already have Google Maps, and the money.
If everybody just "shut it down" every time things went pear-shaped, we wouldn't get very far as a species.
At this point, many people will ditch Apple Maps for Google Maps. And because of this, they will suffer from having less crowdsourced error reporting.
By the time it's as reliable overall as Google Maps, they will need to have a clear advantage for users to switch back. Deep integration with iOS maps might be the key, but lots of apps will now be integrating with the Google SDK because of user preference. Tricky situation.
There are a huge number of un-tech savvy users with iPhones that barely download any 3rd party apps at all. Those of us who have been voicing our opinion about Apple Maps and anticipating Google's new app are the vocal minority.
Don't forget how valuable it is to be at the top of the "free apps" section in the app store, too. If/when people discover the app, they might like it more than the default app.
Horses for courses, if Google Maps scratches your cartographic itch then go for it but please don't say things like "shut down the entire Apple Maps division" as some of us are using it very happily and are watchfully waiting for Apple to start pushing their datasets forward.
Do you mean apple will stop supporting it?
I'm having trouble seeing why you can't stop using it for a year until it gets better.
I'm guessing it varies by city/state/country, no idea how apple is actually vetting the reports but I've had no issues.
For giggles, if only 10% of people with iphones report one error a week, calculate how many full time people it would require to process them.
In reality, their biggest problem is probably operator (IE people reading reports) time, not lack of error reports. I would take a massive data entry operation to handle them all.
If they are smart, they will have realized by now that relying on user reports to correct things is basically impossible, unless it's an automated system, which has it's own issues.
In short: If you think crowdsourcing is the way they will solve their data/data quality issues, you are probably wrong.
When Google Maps was getting spun up, they relied on people adding POI, reporting issues and so on. This was a long, long while ago but it's still possible to report concerns to Google. Crowdsourcing will not solve it, but it will become a big factor in determining what they need to do.
Lets say 10% of people report an issue, and of those 10% there's 2% reporting really specific issues in one specific area of the globe, that allows Apple to then understand a key facet of the dataset and where it can be improved, that gives them knowledge of what issues exist in the current dataset and gives them the opportunity to see whether they can apply that on a larger scale.
More data, more input, faster the problem is solved. Everything I've reported has been sorted, things I've not reported but are in the same generalish area have been fixed. I'd assume Apple is running essentially a massive data mining operation to work out where needs work. If everyone jumps ship I'm sure Apple will continue to improve it but it'll be much, much slower.
In short: if you think crowdsourcing is useless, you are probably wrong.
I think developers will care more about better data than about the time it will take to import a framework into their X Code project. It's very simple to integrate either type of map.
Apple's main issues are with their location information from TomTom. If apple is able to partner with a company with better data, these types of problems should not be nearly as bad.
Here's where Apple's maps product is better... The maps are vector based so there is not such a huge dependence on a data connection. I live near the pine barrens in NJ and google maps is mostly worthless when I venture into that abyss. Apple maps has worked flawlessly for me there. Locations where data connections are poor, apple maps will probably be a better solution. Plus, Apple maps look nicer, but that is hardly a critical feature.
To say apple should just give up is silly. I've used google navigation since the first day the alpha was leaked. It has only been in the last year that nav has gotten so good (used to have maddening ui problems with the zoom going crazy). Apple's initial maps release is much better and more refined than what google initially release. Fortunately for apple, I think they'll get their data issues mostly fix in 2013 and have a very nice alternative to google maps.
The ability to zoom to arbitrary levels with no pixellation seems to imply it most definitely is vector.
Satellite views are obviously bitmap.
Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
It's the same reason that fonts and icons are brought up when people espouse the "vectors will save everything"! They do a lot of nice things but for something like Google Maps, I can't imagine how they'd implement "true vectors" in a practical phone-applicable way.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/google-maps-is-now-av...
Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
I don't see these blurred pixels on my phone, but note that this kind of rendering can also happen with a vector based map: The application has to convert the vector information to a bitmap anyway, for a given zoom level. When zooming in, it is possible that the app shows a zoomed-in version of this bitmap while it is generating a new one in the background.
By the way, it is not necessary to answer every single comment with a link to your screenshot. It is annoying to see the same thing repeated 5 times when reading the thread.
I answered all the relevant replies individually because I thought that would make those people more likely to see it. Sorry for annoying you.
Same version here though the UI looks very different. I can actually reproduce what you describe but only at low zoom levels, which makes sense: the temporary display of a bitmap at the wrong zoom level is more apparent when the phone needs more time to render a lot of vector data (there is less data to render when zoomed-in).
Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
Regardless, your screenshot shows no evidence that the maps aren't vector based. You simply don't have the high-resolution data for that area and Google's UI is showing that to you by burring it. Apple Maps doesn't blur, it just doesn't show you any details. I like knowing that there is information I am missing, the blur is handy.
Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png
Also, even though it's vector-based, there's still different tiles for different zoom levels. For example, with different levels of detail.
Google refused Apple access to both of those features in the original "Maps" app (in iOS <= 5), but they conveniently included them in their new Google Maps app. :)
src: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/google-maps-is-now-av...
Search is Google's domain expertise. Apple needs to basically start from scratch and figure out how to create a search engine that will return relevant data based on queries.
It's the same thing with Apple's App store search, it's also terrible. But because we have no choice, we are forced to use it, and hopefully it will improve. But because Google's is so nearly perfect and getting better all the time, why would someone go ahead and use Apple's terrible search engine to help them improve their search?
My first attempt is inspired by Peter Norvig's spelling corrector using a corpus built from the places2k.txt file, but it gets confused when the words are transposed. My guess is that Google is using some sort of n-gram based approach for maps and search, where as their little sidebar map is similar to what I built. (Or only applied to the most clear-cut n-gram—a little while ago there was a search for the movie "The end of the world" that would return a definitive date, which went slightly viral.)
Try searching in Google for "San Francisco" versus "Francisco San." Maps is fine, the search is fine, but only the first version brings up the little related info sidebar on the search page.
I'm surprised that Apple had such a hard time dealing with search, since they have some experience with Siri. I should have trusted this guy's opinion more:
http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2011/10/siri-techn...
On the other hand, that's not a mistake you can make, because "San Francisco" in the minds of people really is "Sanfrancisco", a single word. Why would anybody spell "San Francisco" as "Francisco San"? In fact Google should differentiate heavily between these 2 terms, as they aren't similar at all.
Google also does a lot of other neat things, like translations for city names. Searching on google.com for "Bucuresti" (my town) brings up the sidebar for "Bucharest".
And on GMaps, I'm never afraid of using "str", "strada", "soseaua", "sos" which are different Romanian words and abbreviations for "street". The results aren't the same in these cases (nor they should be actually) but because Google also searches within the addresses of businesses it's usually able to give me an accurate answer to what I mean.
It gets more complicated when you realize "oh, yeah I need to add 'NE' because it's in the Northeast part of the city". So now it's "Portland 4485 Belmont NE". If you were to think about it before you started typing, it'd be "4485 NE Belmont Portland" but correcting on a phone is so painful that you want to just keep typing.
I'm using a Galaxy Nexus and have been very happy with the standard Maps app. Last weekend the family was walking on trails and it got us back to the trailhead using walking directions. Neat. I've been less than thrilled with how poorly the phone seems to do with finding and keeping a GPS signal, particularly in a car on the freeway in areas I don't know.
That is on top of the issue of searching for something like "1st and University", which takes me to some L'ecole in Paris, France rather than the intersection that is a block from me. It's as if they don't factor in your current location at all. I know on the desktop I frequently look at maps of faraway places, but I'd suspect that people tend to look for things near them while on mobile devices.
This isn't a pass for Apple Maps- the last 1% is the most difficult and it's the difference between so-so and great. Apple has in the past been known to make things with the ultimate attention to detail and things that "just work" so if anything you could argue that they shouldn't have launched something that was below this bar, but apparently there were other business considerations.
BTW: From the Pier 39 website, "If you are using a GPS Navigation System, input: 2 Beach Street, San Francisco, CA 94133" http://www.pier39.com/Information/index.htm
I don't know why people continue to believe this. Apple has released versions of the Finder with amateurish bugs that delete files[1] and versions of Mail that randomly delete messages[2]. Several versions of Mail on iPhone send hundreds of copies of a message when emailing a link from Safari[3].
The Maps fiasco is not a departure from software excellence on the part of Apple, but just more of what we should expect by now: shiny stuff that doesn't work.
[1]http://tomkarpik.com/articles/massive-data-loss-bug-in-leopa... [2]http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12758081&... [3]http://lee-phillips.org/iphoneUpgradeWarning-4-2-1/
Give me a break. Name an international company with 100% success in user happiness and usability with their product(s). Go ahead, try it.
Also, don't act like Android hasn't had faults and failings on their own. Or Windows.
Things aren't ever perfect. The only time there is a real binary system is CS. The world is gray, and Apple has been consistently better than bad. They've been good for me for the most part, with some minor annoyances sure, but to say that their software is "shiny stuff that doesn't work" just shows that you aren't really well versed in the domain that the hyperbole is supposed to explain.
"Apple has been consistently better than bad"
I think my links show that this is just not true, but that might depend on what you mean by "consistently".
Their track record shows a cynical, almost sinister pattern of choices on their part: hoard $120 billion in cash while shipping software with a beautiful visual design that, under the glossy surface, is unreliable, inadequately tested, and, in some cases, demonstrably hobbled together by inexperienced or incompetent engineers: shiny stuff that doesn't work.
This is a deliberate choice, since with all that cash they could hire the best talent and make it policy to ensure that nothing gets out the door that would earn a CS undergraduate a failing grade. Instead, they've chosen to invest in maintaining the illusion that their software "just works" and is empowering, while harboring an increasingly obvious contempt for their customers.
And?
"ref 2 is an isolated 'bug report' which no one else seems to corroborate"
It's one link to a report of a well-known, real problem. Apple Mail botched IMAP semantics just as the Finder botched file copying semantics. Both problems are reliably absent from real, mature software. And even in the one link I provide, several users are reporting disappearing messages. I would call that "corroborated", wouldn't you?
"ref 3 seems to be written by you"
It was, so you can be sure it's true.
For example, a month or so back a search for "Northern Brewer" (homebrew store chain) made when I'm physically only about 2 miles away from their Milwaukee location would return only the location of their flagship store in the Twin Cities. Which I suppose is technically a correct result, but it's a little galling to have regressed to a mapping app that doesn't even understand concepts as basic as, "When I just enter a business's name all by itself, it just might be reasonable to assume I was looking for a local place."
Some are still really bad. A search for the Miller Brewery's bar, Miller Inn, produces a single result for a business called Fabric Inn in Miller, South Dakota.
Because at the end of the day I want to make choices that result in more flexibility down the line. I do not want to live in a world where Apple is the only OS provider for mobile devices. Likewise, I don't want to live in a world in which Google is the only reasonable choice for map searches.
Markets work this stuff out, you don't necessarily have to balance market share and consequences in your head (not that you as an individual really matter that much in the end anyway!). Just enjoy the products you like.
I wouldn't make fun of someone for making the other choice either.
[0] Semi-related: whoever decided to stamp street names into SF sidewalks: thank you.
It seems to be both. I tried two locations in the Apple store, and the data for both was incorrect:
* One gave a location about 10-15 miles away (with a pop-up showing details of the correct venue). I checked the correct location, and nothing was marked on the map. (Image: http://i.imgur.com/FHVax.jpg - the proper location is just above the 'd' in Cambridge)
* One was found correctly, but the listed information (phone, website etc.) was mostly incorrect.
* Satellite images are of a much lower resolution than Google Maps in some areas (e.g. my house!)
It is then able to do routing on that data for both walking and going by car, both from search and random positions pointed at on the map. Not to mention that it has information about resturants so that you can plan where to stop for lunch when going on longer trips, all of which without a data connection.
On Android, you can select regions of the map to save for offline use and the file sizes for entire cities are only a few MB.
I don't believe a "save for offline use" option is available for Google Maps for iOS yet.
There is none. As far as I know, there are two major providers for map data. One is TeleAtlas, which is now owned by TomTom. The other one is Navtec from the US. TeleAtlas is considered slightly better in terms of quality, as far as I know.
Google Maps used to use a combination of both providers. However, now they also have their own data from street view cars in many places.
At least, on Android.
(I can't change my route mid-trip, which was maybe what you were saying.)
Also gmaps (for android at least) allows you to download map data for offline/online use. So to say theres a huge dependence on data connection is not true.
Really? I thought maps was better in iOS 3 than iOS 5. Maps in 3 was optimized to be quick even over EDGE and never let go of a set of directions mid trip if network was flaky. iOS 3 maps was actually faster and more reliable. (Still had my original iPhone)
1. Apple Maps are introduced and nobody likes them. Google Maps are nixed and some bullshit reason is given for not letting them back into the ecosystem for a while.
2. A bunch of people see an opportunity to create something that Apple will buy. They drop everything and get busy.
3. 3-6 months later Google Maps are allowed back into the ecosystem. 99% of the newly minted startups go bust.
4. A year later Apple actually makes Apple Maps usable in iOS 7. The rest of the startups go bust.
There are already niche apps for things like public transport, though you may need an app per city/region. Even those niche apps aren't always accurate -- the NYC transit apps (2 or 3 different once) I tried while there earlier this year didn't pick up on station closures due to maintenance.
Maps/transit routing/etc is an interesting problem, just one that seems difficult to do right as a startup (on the scale of ios or google maps).
So first there is raw data collection. That is a pretty capital intensive process and its never really 'done' because the world changes a lot, so you need a data collection 'process', sort of like building a really complex software product that you can periodically 'tag' as a release and push out. The capital costs from either on the ground surveying, or aerial imagery. Its not acceptable to put a circle on the map and label it "Tokyo", there are streets and houses and buildings and parks. So the capital intensive part is taking aerial photographs, or satellite imagery, and post processing it into your tile layers. And that just gets you to one level of gross detail, there is so much more than that.
Because of the intensive capital investment folks who get map data understand they have a valuable bit of information. Its one of those things where it would cost big bucks to acquire it so you can sell it to others who want it.
Then there are points of interest, who are all the businesses in downtown? What are their hours? Are the streets one way? paved? gravel? private or public? Are there travel restrictions? All of this data can be gathered by on the ground vehicles but that takes time. (or a lot of money if you do it in parallel) and all that data has to be fused together into something which associates places with data. So think about how you would represent that vector from lat/long pair A to lat/long pair B was one way on weekdays and not on weekends?
One of the things that is really clear is that Google benefits Hugely from having their own in house search capability. That provides a treasure trove of points of interest. But did I mention search is hard? So any good mapping solution ideally has an in house search engine associated with it. Look at MapQuest, one of the originals, it was a search engine getting traction as a mapping application. Look at Microsoft, look at all the data they populate in their maps from Bing.
So there are at least three really really hard problems to solve before you can even worry about the user interface and how to interact with maps, data collection, data fusion, and web search. I'd be surprised if anyone felt they could just 'jump in' from a standing start and build a maps application in less than about 5 years these days.
There is no win here for Google! Less users (not everyone is going to install it), less data coming in, more money spent, having to hire more dedicated iOS coders inhouse at Google...
People have a weird definition of "win".
Now they have a mapping application, which means now they have users.
I still have a standalone GPS in the car which we will definitely not need once we all upgrade to phones with turn-by-turn directions. I have relatives that pride themselves in not needing smartphones, but seeing turn-by-turn was very compelling.
My question which I haven't seen a definitive answer on is if Google had the ability pre-iOS 6 to do turn-by-turn? They already had it on Android. Were they slow on iOS, or were key APIs missing?
The original Maps app was written by Apple and consumed data licensed from (and presumably hosted by?) Google. Apple wanted turn-by-turn on iOS, but the data required was not part of their original deal with Google. Google was willing to license it, provided that Apple give Google additional data: presumably anonymized data about where users were for Google to use to provide better AI. Although it's quite possible Google wanted better hooks to serve ads as well. They couldn't reach a deal, so Apple went their own way.
Apple and Google were certainly technically capable of building Google-backed turn-by-turn into iOS 6, if not much earlier.
Yes it's far fetched, but not beyond possible.
Let's say Apple tried. They didn't know how hard it would be, so they bought all the companies they could. They realized, "shit--this still won't be good enough, but we can't give in to mountain view." Their only move? Release 98% done maps anyway and hope Google misses the iOS map spying ad traffic. iOS maps is perfectly usable, but it's not perfect for every situation (park layouts, transit, inside building directions, more sane turn-by-turn routing).
Google has been doing massive data collection for years (mapping individual internal building layouts? street view gps trails by bike? insane on a world scale.) How can anybody possibly get close to the polish of Google's mapping data (varying wildly by country though)? Apple should have made every Apple Store a base of mapping operations. They should have sent people out with gps loggers to run, bike, walk, drive everywhere they could. Someday a company will buy google just for its mapping capability and toss the rest in the bitbucket.
Sounds like you're exaggerating for effect but still ...
wat?
What company is at a scale to buy Google and kill its cash cow of search advertising? And why would they?
It seems absurd now, but on those timelines you could be right. If nothing else, a lot can change in 10-50 years.
Oh yeah, and iTunes. It's better-looking now, but it remains a monster. To call it sub-par would still be kind.
No one really won here, but if I really would have to pick up a winner, it would be Google.
Google Maps lets google have full branding on the iphone and can gather all the data they want from users. And they can have all the branding on the Maps that they want.
If I remember right, some of the reasons Apple and Google didn't agree on maps is that Google wanted more branding and to gather more data. And I also believe Apple wasn't too happy about paid advertisements appearing for map search results.
Google really seems as the winner here.
Never underestimate the power of "default" and Apple can tighten the screws on Google Maps to make iOS maps look even better. Bottom line is that Apple is working on their own maps and that's a major loss for Google.
Curious where are there paid advertisements anywhere on google maps browser or mobile ?
Do you think it'll hurt them? After all the released an iPhone that didn't work if you held it wrong. Did that hurt them?
The move to smartphones gave us powerful, handheld computers. Apple proved to be awesome in that space. Now, however, these phones are becoming small glass windows to cloud services that crunch large datasets to give you quick, meaningful, and accurate answers. With Maps and Siri, I think Apple is showing that they don't yet have the competency here that they've enjoyed with hardware and interface. I'm not ruling them out, but it feels like the game has moved to play more to Google's advantage.
Your choice of wording here is rather misleading. Apple wrote the old Maps app. Google refused to allow Apple to add turn-by-turn to the old maps app. We will never know the true reasons, but it was likely due to Apple refusing to relinquish control of what was displayed to the user.
[1] http://allthingsd.com/20120926/apple-google-maps-talks-crash...
I would imagine that Gmail, Calendar, Search and Maps are used on almost every single device that they sell and they have no control over those services.
If Google would introduce a new feature in Maps, let's say indoor navigation, then Apple would be completely in the hands of Google for when that feature would be available to their users.
You could easily see a future where more and more Google services become popular on Apple devices. If that's the case Apple essentially becomes just another OEM like Samsung or HTC.
In exchange, they got Google to release their own maps app, which included features that Google refused to license to Apple previously, and gave Google a platform to sell ads and make money. So users get good maps + transit + turn by turn navigation at no cost.
Yup, sound likes an Apple win.
Google doesn't care about iphone vs android. Google only cares that you are using the internet. An iphone/ipad is an expensive device for well off people. Androids don't have to be and less expensive products broadens the market. A market which when broader, is going to be owned by Google.
Making google maps a iOS product only encourages more people to use the internet and thus google.
Google also cares about its earning reports and stock price. "Using the internet" doesn't pay the bills. Google is far from a charity. Its a multinational corporation beholden to its stock holders.
Google made a strategic decision to piss on its mobile division to help its maps division. This may not have been the wisest move and considering how google stock prices have been falling lately, well, wise moves is something it needs to focus on.
I just hope google knows what its doing. Apple is ruthless against Android, yet google seems to be pretty easy going with iOS.
Larry, Sergei, and Eric own almost all Class B shares which have 10 votes each. They control about 65% of the voting shares. So really the rest of the stockholders are just along for the ride. Google is really in this for the long game.
Her mail client is Gmail, she uses Google maps, and she browses with Chrome. If google went all out with a Google Calendar app I bet she'd use their client too.
What does it say for Apple when an iphone user has apps for all of their big use cases provided by a direct competitor?
I'm glad they're not using their power for evil, but they seemingly aren't doing anything to make Android even just a little more attractive.
I would say if you are not too locked into iOS (having bought tons of iOS apps or something), you should try Android on a Nexus for sometime. Your only downside would be finding good, niche apps. In iOS store, even the smallest developers pay attention to be consistent with Apple's guideline and look good. It also helps that iOS design language has remained mostly the same throughout 5 years. Android finally got a design language last year, but not all developers have been keen to adopt it.
My issue was that I was never happy. I rooted and ran custom ROMs (Fresh, Cyanogen, MIUI very briefly) and even tried rolling my own, but I found that I was spent too much time trying to make it something else. Analysis paralysis, in a way. In a way, I think I prefer having iOS locked down, because it doesn't leave me with a persistent feeling of wanderlust. That, and having been on Macs for over a decade, I'm kind of entrenched.
I agree that Android is getting better, though. I revisit the SDK every once in a while (and am spending a lot of time in it right now for a work project), but even with the advancements in Jelly Bean, writing code requires supporting so many versions with significant gaps in functionality. The compatibility library helps, but it doesn't solve the issue. Having to pass Android from Google to the OEMs to the carriers makes a lot of hoops to jump through. I hate the term fragmentation, but it's really a problem. That, and the layout structure - one per orientation per screen DPI. That's a lot to manage for a solo developer.
They choose to rely on Google. They choose to enter those agreements. They choose to ignore maps for the first 5 years. They choose not to start planning to move away sooner. You act like they couldn't put any effort replacing Google until the last minute. It wasn't.
They screwed up and released a crappy product from choices they made. End of story.
Waiting to release the original iPhone until 2015 when Apple Maps was absolutely perfect would have been a choice, but not a reasonable one. Bootstrapping with Google's service was quite logical, and proved to be very successful.
And Apple Maps really isn't that bad. Perhaps not Google Maps good, but better than what the iPhone had prior. It is still a major upgrade for iOS users, even for all its faults.
I can also reasonably believe that they weren't serious about investing effort into it.
I mean as much as you can discount this you must also for the same reasons promote it. Without knowing the algorithm used and downloads all we really have to go off of is release time and rating count and average rating. Both of which seem pretty good to me.
And really, thinking about it now, it probably deserved to die, just as the Apple story probably deserved to die. The only real lesson from these stories is that you can't blindly follow your GPS… and everyone should've already known that. But all that did get hashed out in the Apple thread and really doesn't need a rehash so soon after the first story.
So… is the missing story the result of pro-Google/anti-Apple bias? It certainly could be, but I can't say that's the only plausible explanation.
Edit: A case in point is the sub thread on search in the AppStore vs Google Play. I use Google Nexus and iOS devices and can assure you that the Play store on the phone is worse that the AppStore. The online version is significantly better. Discoverability is awful in both. This maybe my opinion, but it's based in real world use of both.
google launches a map with beta warning and everybody going gaga on it, yeah their data set is better.
"Google Maps Navigation is in beta. Use caution.
Please keep your eyes on the road and obey applicable laws. Do not manipulate this application while in motion. Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.
Traffic data is not real-time, and location accuracy cannot be guaranteed"
I would love Apple to build self driving cars and display projecting to retina and bring it to market, instead of just announcing them like what google does
Right now, touching any addresses you have saved under a contact will open up Apple's Maps app.
The solution is simple and explained here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4914316 - switch to Android.
Edit: accidentally wrote 'pr android.'
The polarisation that has arisen between supporters of each company isn't something worth feeding.
Apple use their apps as a competitive advantage and Google aren't. Itunes supported Apple podcast & music players would help android. Obviously Google maps helps iOS.
I guess what I'm asking is "Is this helping maps at the expense of Android?"
At least before, they were maintaining a long term position as the major maps app. If they lose 90% of these users when in a year or two when Apple improve their maps, it would just have been a wasted opportunity to sell androids, especially the high end ones.
The thing is that Google is also working constantly to improve its maps, and has a far larger and more experienced team doing so than Apple.
[Besides the underlying infrastructure which forms the bulk the effort, now that Google has its own app, they have a very definite incentive to keep improving it (whereas in the case of the iOS5 maps app, there were artificial constraints preventing it from being kept up-to-date).]
There's no guarantee that Apple ever will hit parity; indeed, they may simply fall farther behind...
but clearly they decided in the end there was a bigger business case for doing it.
I don't entirely understand how Google plans to make money, and I'm not always sure they understand themselves -- but they're probably right that if they keep being the best at what they do and getting as many people as possible (on any platform) to use it, then they can keep harvesting data from all those users, and find ways to monetize that data (rather than charging for apps).
I can imagine ways to make money from that. If 5 Chinese restaurants are all just about the same distance, and have relatively the same ratings, then you can suggest the person goes to the one that happens to have paid Google $0.50 in advertising.
Maybe they won't do this, maybe they will.
But picture that you're a Chinese restaurant, and you know people use Google Maps to navigate to you - you'd want Google's data on your store to be up-to-date.
Having up-to-date data from local businesses has to be very good for Google.
Knowing what places you go to will help Google improve its search results and serve you better ads on all Google sites.
I'm especially missing dropping pins to share location and search bar tucked up at the top in Google Maps, but Apple's lack of integrated transit directions and putting me in random locations is a no go for city life.
Sigh...
And yes, I have a Nokia, the maps don't come pre-loaded.
Then again I'm also blown away by the people here who want to:
1. Say that Apple had time left on their contract with Google. And simultaneously say that the solution for Apple Maps is soon and is easily solved with more data partnerships.
2. That Apple "won" here. I'm still at a lost as to how that is. Especially given the lack of an Intent system in iOS, Apple Maps is about to be relegated to a really poor position for Apple, especially given that users = more data = better maps.
These are the things that Android 2.x was criticized for. I put up with such incompleteness because I was getting something open source, powerful and customizable. It was a compromise. I don't think Android users are compromising anymore, despite the constant implication from users here that only poor people buy Android, or that Android is "full of ads", or that Google is losing interest in Android or just the constant implications that Android is still sub-par to iOS. I just don't get it when I read these threads.
For starters, far from being "fluid", Google's app consistently has a much lower framerate when scrolling or adjusting zoom level than Apple's maps app. It never even approaches 60fps even when running on the latest hardware, whereas Apple's old (and new) map application has always been really good about this, even on old & low-end hardware. So I'm really confused as to what people are talking about when they say it's "fluid". Compared to what?
As for the UI, the way Google's search input bar is positioned actually results in more of the screen being wasted than Apple's standard search bar UI. Those little slivers of the map which stick out above and on the sides are too small to be useful, so what's the point? Just pin it to the top of the screen and make it standard height like all the other apps do, thus giving the maximum amount of contiguous real estate to the actual map itself. There is a reason why Apple does it the way they do, and it's not just for looks.
I have mixed feelings about the detail view being at the bottom. I understand the idea of one-handed operation and I appreciate what they're trying to do here -- optimize for the case of browsing search results with your thumb via a combination of horizontal and vertical swipes, however I'm dubious of the value of it since you still sometimes have to reach awkwardly across the screen for certain things. Not to mention the detail view takes up more real estate than necessary, much like the search bar. It also feels somewhat disconnected from the currently selected pin due to being at the bottom, which is a problem Apple doesn't have since they put the details directly on the annotation.
Oh and of course you cannot blink without this app bugging you to log in.
That's because a complaint thread about an OS is about the last place to go for an objective look at an OS.
> or just the constant implications that Android is still sub-par to iOS.
It's because a mapping issue and some app store searching problems, (after the entire App Store team rolled over I might add) and a couple of unfavourable design cues don't make an OS.
The implication is still there because many who use iOS do feel they have a superior product. I work at a help desk and there is nothing I love more than setting up an iOS device on our network. Email? No problem? Wi-Fi, it's probably already working! I boast a 100% success rate with iOS devices.
Now I get an Android device. If I'm lucky, it's high end and running ICS so it will be at least as responsive as an iPhone 4 or laggy 4S. Now I get to discover all the fun quirks with this phone.
Oh it doesn't have that field, guess it's called something else here. Yeah I don't know why it's asking you to specify each layer of network security on the WiFi when iOS can do it every time without asking. I'm not sure why they use so much technical language when configuring e-mail. No, I don't know why your brand new Nexus 7 won't connect to WiFi or Email even when utilizing one of the many hacky workarounds.
And then there are the no-name tablets. Honestly, fuck Google and their lack of licensing for AOSP for flooding the market with these pieces of shit. I would rather troubleshoot 20 netbooks from cold boot than wait 10 full seconds for the thing to auto-rotate back to normal, wait another 5 for it to become responsive, oh it crashed! Oh well.
People still say it because it's still true. Not as drastically noticeable as in the 2.x days, but Google isn't going to suddenly eliminate the lag that comes with running what is essentially a Java VM. It's still there, it's pervasive, and it affect everything about the phone, from usability, to touch response, to accuracy and reliability.
That, and Apple has always annoyed me since I can remember...so for me personally, it's just nice to see them lose.
Google for the directions, Apple for the lulz