Apple Maps Vehicles | Hacker News Reader

Apple Maps Vehicles

maps.apple.com

45 pointsaaronpk38 comments

This is impressive...while I'll be using Google Maps on iOS for a long time to come...Google has such a lead that creating one's own geospatial dataset seems tantamount to reinventing the wheel...yet, it seems dangerous to not have competition in this area, as it gives one company almost unilateral power to define the existence of geography (at least for day-to-day usage). And of course, using Google Maps means buying into their user-information-sharing system. Glad Apple is using its money to take on the challenge.

When you talk about user-information-sharing-system you mean Google having the information about maps use, so, you sharing the map use information with Google, isn't?

I'm not sure what your question is asking...but what I mean is that Google Maps are ostensibly improved by analyzing how users use the app and how they seem to utilize the information...I imagine just as Google search tracks which search results you click -- and also, if you hit the Back button, and how long it took you to do that -- in order to evaluate SERP effectiveness, there must be some kind of feedback for Google Maps...? The live traffic projections, AFAIK, are a result of collecting GPS information from Android phones on the road.

Apple has been claiming that it wants to build apps that don't draw on user information, as to prioritize user privacy. Maybe they'll apply that attitude towards their Maps app.

Then you won't have things like live traffic, it is a tradeoff

Why? User data is only one way to measure traffic. There are others.

Slowly, gradually, they will start doing that. The trade off for them is too much. Previously they claimed they don't read your personal emails like Google does. They soon realized they were losing big customer base because of people preferring Google Now over the pretty useless Siri. Now they have announced Siri Proactive, but for offering those features it has to read your personal emails. Now they claim they do read emails, but everything will stay on their phone. On the whole, users want intelligent features, and if Apple doesn't give it to them, they're going to go away.

For me the biggest problem with Apple Maps on iOS is usability, not data.

The first thing I've ever seen anyone do when they start a route on Apple Maps is pinching to zoom out. No, you need to use the overview button. Wait, where's the overview button? You need to tap the map to show the button, and then tap the button and it shows the whole route. After that you have to zoom back in to see what's coming up next in the route.

oh man that drives me up the wall, but i also noticed that it drives my mother up the wall too, i guess even a 50 year old lady with limited tech experience also saw through that flaw.

> 50 year old lady with limited tech experience also saw through that flaw.

It has been my experience that these are the people most likely to snuff out UI flaws whether they know it or not.

Agreed. Another issue I find irritating is that Siri speaks the directions way too late, like as I'm passing my exit or crossing an intersection that I was supposed to turn in.

Google isn't much better. Searching for directions from A to B where neither A nor B are your current position always stumps me.

Google Maps data is better right now, no question, but I've been using Apple Maps in iOS recently because of performance. I've found that the Google Maps app is frequently unresponsive and often takes significantly longer to load data, which is particularly noticeable when I have a less reliable cellular data connection.

Has anyone else noticed this difference between the two apps?

Does anyone have a photo of one of these vehicles? I'd love to see it.

Apple is certainly in the long game with their maps... One interesting thing to point out is that while google streetview started as a project to augment the maps with photos, it quickly became clear that these photos of the streets could be a primary way to gather accurate real-world data about the streets, one-way signs, street numbers, and so on. Clearly Apple is up to the same thing here.

This article has one: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/17/apple-maps-vehicles-engl...

They aren't very aesthetically pleasing...

Well they are not taking selfies.

So what? Not everything apple does has to be shiny. If they do the job, why bother?

Interesting to note from the photo that Maps has its own subdomain. I'd bet on a web interface in the near-ish future.

That van isn't available in the US (much to the consternation of my employer who wants them to go along with their Sprinter fleet...)

In the US they will be using Dodge Caravans. Here is a YouTube video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GONB3cezusI

Eight years behind Google. I'm interested to see how quickly they can catch up!

Google refreshes their street view every so often, so if they have a comparable fleet it should take about the same amount of time (roughly 2 years or so).

It's unlikely to take anything like 8 years. Much of Google's effort during that time has been refreshing images of streets they had already visited. If Google has visted a street 4 times to keep the data up to date, Apple only has to visit it once to be just as up to date (and continue to visit regularly after that to stay up to date, of course).

edit: mixmastamyk beat me to it by 1 minute, so +1 to you sir.

That's not entirely true; Google does not refresh all of its data every cycle: some "rare" locations (where few people live) have been visited only once during those 8 years.

To catch up you need to cover all locations, not just the frequent ones, so that takes more than one cycle.

Google doesn't cover 'all locations' so I think that's a red herring. Their best bet is to provide a service with unique distinguishing features that is competitive with Google. Similar or competitive coverage is just one measure of usefulness.

They aren't 8 years behind.

Initial Release of Street View was 8 years ago

Apple isn't starting from where Google was 8 years ago.

That's like saying Apple was 10 years late to the mobile phone game. If I have learned anything in my lifetime is that it doesn't matter how early you get started, newer and better technology will make incumbents obsolote. I'm sure Apple's street view is nothing like that of Google, but better.

Interesting and not something I'd have expected from apple. That actually brings up an interesting question... How many miles of roads are in the us? Europe? How many of these vans will they deploy?

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9691055

It's great that they provide this detailed what location when data.

However, it demonstrates that their maps still have some way to go. E.g. They are driving around southern Hertfordshire this week, where I used to live. Dacorum is a borough, not the name of an actual place; I've never heard of Hertsmere or the three rivers; and Welwyn Hatfield are two adjacent towns. 3 out of 7 place names is not great.

Not sure that it helps, but the one local to me is Massachusetts, USA, and they describe it as "Suffolk (Boston)," where Suffolk is the county name. No one would use that in day-to-day talk… maybe they have some more or semi-official name of a "region" in your area?

Any news on whether Apple will contribute these findings back to OpenStreetMaps, like Microsoft's apparent provision of Bing aerial imagery?

Haha! No.

This is the page to check out if you want to go maps photobombing.

An enourmmous task to accomplish, but it improves its mapping data

I'm really excited to see Apple's 3d model of street view versus Google's 2d skyboxes.

Next step: JavaScript API?

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