Apple Fires Manager Responsible for Maps as Eddy Cue Turns to Outsiders for Help

[forty2j]

What's odd is that the main problem (I've seen) with Maps is the POI list. The roads all look right.

[Custommm]

Apple plz put back Google maps ( with Turn-by-turn) as an option... Everyone will be happy camper and grateful.

There is ways Apple sucks (social,cloud, making affordable computer for students etc) and maps will be another one of them....Google send real peoples in the Grand Canyon for their map! They are AWESOME for that kind of think Wake up!!!

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by elberto1

Apple,

Just buy google already and make their maps (with voice navigation) yours.

You know that the purchase would barely make a dent in your corporate surplus anyways.

What's stopping you? Anti-trust?

Google's market cap is close to 200 billion dollars. How do you figure that it "would barely make a dent" ?

[rnizlek]

Perhaps they will consider adding transit routing. I'm not holding my breath, though.

[Vodka]

please Apple, don't fire me....






oh...i forgot..
thanks god, i don't work for Apple

[kenypowa]

and yet there are still fanboys in this forum insisting nothing is wrong with Apple Maps.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by forty2j

What's odd is that the main problem (I've seen) with Maps is the POI list. The roads all look right.

I have 2 issues with roads :

- Roads are now missing when they were there in the Google Maps version of the application in iOS 5.

- The god awful "pretty" rendering that makes maps unreadable. Roads are too thin, colors are non-distinctive. There's a reason Google Maps is "ugly", because it's easy to read at a glance.

[freelancing]

They should buy Waze - awesome social interaction and brilliant interface for reporting issues and crowdsourcing is already there with speed, etc... then put their gorgeous cartography on top of it.

For a first venture, Apple's maps is actually quite elegant in many aspects. I'm sure the next iteration will be quite an improvement.

I had my TomTom GO 2435 on my dash along side my iPhone 4S to compare the mapping. I saw no evidence of true re-routing or crowdsourcing as promised in Apple's mapping. After a month of testing them side by side, I stopped using Apple's maps.

Then, I started using Waze - and tested that side by side w/ my TomTom for a month. The Waze app won hands-down. Not 'perfect,' but close enough - and a lot more intuitive menus than TomTom.

I LOVE Waze for navigating road hazards, reporting police activity and for traffic and re-routing - beats the pants off Google & TomTom big time. Apple+Waze would be too awesome for words.

[joneill55]

Obvious Lieutenant of Scott Forestall walks the corporate gang plank.........sigh.....yawn..... Another day in corporate America.

Call me when there is a different ending to these stories :-)

[bbeagle]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

How this happened originally is crazy. Firing people now is too late - the mess already happened.

I guess we shouldn't jail people who commit murder either - the mess already happened.

Firing people shows other employees that what you do at the company matters. You don't get a free ride, if you royally screw up, you're gone. And if you're really successful, you get rewarded. All companies need to keep this structure in place, but it's actually very rare in the world.

[Dr McKay]

Personally haven't had any issues so far with it leading me places, where it falls flat on its face though is finding me shops and businesses.

[WestonHarvey1]

"You're sending the Wolf? ***** negro, that's all you had to say!"

[mattopotamus]

In my personal use I would say apple maps is correct about 1/3 of the time. I can't really "trust" them =/

[Jetson]

I think that is really a mean thing to do - to fire someone just because a product didn't turn out perfectly.

You gonna fire everybody that makes a mistake? That would leave no one to make your shiny Apple products.

Of course there might have been things going on that weren't made public. But on the face of it, it just seems unfair.

[Flood123]

I have yet to have an issue with maps. weird.

[DisMyMac]

Did they have to name the poor guy?

Alright, fire him, but let him go quietly so he can get a respectable job somewhere. (Not doing maps, obviously.)

[CoolSpot]

Apple should really come to google, hat-in-hand and let them handle map development again.

[dugbee]

When someone is having trouble with software, I usually ask them to Google it for a solution. Seems applicable.

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by Jetson

I think that is really a mean thing to do - to fire someone just because a product didn't turn out perfectly.

You gonna fire everybody that makes a mistake? That would leave no one to make your shiny Apple products.

Of course there might have been things going on that weren't made public. But on the face of it, it just seems unfair.

Agree, especially naming him publicly, however Steve Jobs wasn't above such acts. In fact, he was very quick to fire, demean, persecute anyone whom he believed did not do their job by his standards.

[ziggyonice]

Originally Posted by Dr McKay

One would hope so, it tells me my nearest pub is 47 miles away. Anyone living in the UK knows this is impossible.

It's because it's pulling data from Yelp, which many (if not most) businesses don't care to update.

Apple should be pulling their data from Foursquare, which end users curate, and thus is more up to date and accurate. But I can't see Apple being willing to trust end users to do anything, so oh well.

[iBug2]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

- Roads are now missing when they were there in the Google Maps version of the application in iOS 5.

This. There are so many roads missing which are in Google maps. You can find the main roads but the smaller ones are gone. I know this isn't so for the entirety of the world, but I can only speak from personal experience.

[BaldiMac]

Originally Posted by kenypowa

and yet there are still fanboys in this forum insisting nothing is wrong with Apple Maps.

Is it really "fanboys in this forum" or "strawmen in your imagination".

[notjustjay]

Originally Posted by Dr McKay

Personally haven't had any issues so far with it leading me places, where it falls flat on its face though is finding me shops and businesses.

Right, and the big problem is that most of these shops and businesses have expended great effort getting their data correct in Google, but not necessarily other POI databases.

I work with a charity (a summer camp) I recently set up our location as a "place" with Google. I had to register our business, set up an account, and verify the location by having Google send us a USPS postcard.

Then once our location was verified and my Google Places account was enabled, I wrote up descriptions, keywords, inserted photos, videos, information about our specials, website, etc. Great! Now anyone can search for our company name on Google Maps and find all this stuff and get directions.

... except now, all iPhone and iPad users who search for our name get... nothing. Now I have to start all over again.

Repeat for gazillions of small businesses across the globe and you see why results aren't accurate and people aren't happy.

[besweeet2]

What help could Apple be asking for? BRING BACK GOOGLE MAPS! It's that simple.

[macidiot]

Originally Posted by DisMyMac

Did they have to name the poor guy?

Alright, fire him, but let him go quietly so he can get a respectable job somewhere. (Not doing maps, obviously.)

I'm sure he has enough money in the bank and enough in stock that if he chooses to, he will never have to work again. And if he chooses to, I'm sure he won't have problems finding work.

But yes, it is unusual to publicly disclose a high profile firing. Typically, they say something along the lines of "leaving to pursue other interests."