Apple Expands 'Maps Ground Truth' Hiring to Rest of the World

rGiskard said:

And once someone is killed in an accident with one of these unmanned cars, regardless of who is at fault, do you really believe they will remain on the streets?

All it takes is one glitch and the whole thing comes crashing down. One little kiddie gets run over and that's it. Doesn't matter if they're safer than the average driver, there will be no errors allowed, ever.

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My thoughts exactly. Would be one hell of a PR disaster.
The driverless cars do make mistakes regularly and have accidents; is it gonna SMS the other driver Google's details? Recognise it's run over a child and stop to wait for police and ambulance? The real world is complicated enough for people with a myriad of things that can go wrong, not all of them your fault. Until we have an AI to challenge human intelligence with similar knowledge and experience and have it proven by time, we won't see fully-autonomous cars.

They could've conceivably have used them in the recent mapping of the Fukujima ghost towns where people can only go for short periods of time, at the very least with remote controllers or overseers. Instead the streetview cars have to be manned.

supercoolmanchu said:

I don't want to say that you're wrong, but you're totally incorrect.

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What is Aperture X and why would you want it? Final Cut X has plenty of pro features, entrenched video editors with legacy hardware and edit decks weren't so happy, but you might recall Steve Jobs was no friend to legacy hardware and compatibility hold also might be familiar with Apple's penchant for releasing hardware at key industry events. Ever heard of NAB? That's in "spring 2013". Not sure what you were expecting by now?
10.6 had plenty of bugs, and more than a few lingering issues for pro app users.

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You can Google Aperture X for yourself. My assessment on Final Cut X is further supported today via a thread on - um, something called MacRumors:

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/2...o-x-marketing-push-to-win-back-professionals/

WIN BACK PROFESSIONALS - maybe you are not as well informed as you think you are - perhaps a little less Cupertino KOOLAID would help .

Apple maps have been fine for me so far, if they get better that's great.

BaldiMac said:

Than why do you only look at the negatives?



Or 25% increase in stock value since Tim Cook took over as CEO.



Bad mistake, but what impact did it actually have on Apple?



Ignoring that Tim Cook has actually diversified Apple's suppliers.



Or those were the only significant examples that you could come up with, and you just want to imply a long list of problems.

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Sounds like you have the Big Slurp of Cupertino KOOLAID. Forget at what I look at - review the analyst comments, stock price trend, supply chain problems, no really new product introductions...

Cook really is feeling like the Steve Balmer of Apple.

Apple Corps said:

Forget at what I look at - review the analyst comments, stock price trend, supply chain problems, no really new product introductions...

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Stock price is up 25% since Cook officially became CEO. Apple currently has the highest market cap in the world.

Supply chain "problems" are hardly significant.

And "no really new product introductions" is nothing but FUD. Apple has never entered new markets on an annual basis.

BaldiMac said:

Stock price is up 25% since Cook officially became CEO. Apple currently has the highest market cap in the world.

Supply chain "problems" are hardly significant.

And "no really new product introductions" is nothing but FUD. Apple has never entered new markets on an annual basis.

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Yes - riding on the coat tails of past product innovation. Apple stock at $705 in September - down another $9 today to $442. The longer Cook is at the helm the worse things look.

Supply chain problems ARE significant if you know anything about quarterly earnings and misses. Read and understand the articles I have linked to - no innovation - simple extensions to past products. Tim has - per the KOOLAID drinkers, been responsible for much of Apple for some period before Steve's death - so we are talking more like two years and the innovation trajectory is flat - just now hiring a new set of mapping engineers - yikes.

Apple Corps said:

Yes - riding on the coat tails of past product innovation. Apple stock at $705 in September - down another $9 today to $442. The longer Cook is at the helm the worse things look.

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Only if you are a short term investor. Not exactly Cook's main concern.

How long since they released the new map app? Several months I think, isn't it? I reported during the first few days three or four inaccuracies that were pretty blatant, just miles from their headquarters. Has something been done about this? No. I could understand that it would take a lot of effort for them to find the errors on their own, but when someone is pointing them about the errors, using their tools to report errors. That is just callous disregard for their customers. It wasn't an exhaustive list, it included library branches, school addresses, etc. Nothing has been done.

This has the promise of live maps that are always up to date, but the reality is that the same error is perpetuated and that fixes take too long to be made. Let's hope that what this article says means that Apple is taking a serious posture to clean up this mess. I am so glad we have all that Android competition, otherwise I am not sure things would be fixed at all.

Huracan said:

I am so glad we have all that Android competition, otherwise I am not sure things would be fixed at all.

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Of course, without all that Android competition, Apple would still be using Google Maps data!

BaldiMac said:

Only if you are a short term investor. Not exactly Cook's main concern.

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A six month period with a 40% loss in value IS a big concern for any prudent investor. I have several thousand Apple shares in my portfolio and have held them for a considerable period - most have done well - recent ones have faired poorly and the trend is not good.

I'm probably not the person you want to try to educate about Apple investing.

I wonder what Cook's main concern is?

4TheLoveOfTech said:

Google has already got a license to have Driverless cars in Nevada. The catch right now is that 2 people have got to be in the car but it's already happening. Only a matter of time before states allow nobody in the car.

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If there is an accident, who's responsible?

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ohbrilliance said:

They'll need several people in Lhasa, Tibet. An entire city reduced to a dot!

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There are parts of the world poorly mapped by Google. I was in one of those last month, much to my dismay.

charlituna said:

They aren't going to just toss in any correction that comes in, otherwise folks would turn it into a game to screw around with things.

The links highlight issues which they then verify and correct. That takes time. If you don't have the desire to wait, Tim pointed out several other sources.

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Corrections I've made to Google Maps have gone live in a matter of days.

On the other hand, pointing out to Apple via Maps that they have the airport names transposed for the two major airports in my region (a major, easily verifiable stuffup) resulted in no action. They're still around the wrong way.

BaldiMac said:

Only if you are a short term investor. Not exactly Cook's main concern.

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The fact that you said "investor" rather than "stockholder" is a tell that you don't know much about large corporations, or how they are run.

About time Apple starts to do something about Maps.

Here's a few random blocks from my hometown. As you can see, streets go through buildings as the map and the satellite view are not aligned properly. The POI data is the real problem though. The ones marked with red are totally wrong: one is a small kiosk that Apple thinks is a gas station, another one a pizza place that has never existed. The ones marked with yellow are in wrong locations.

I reported all of these and many more errors 6 months ago, when iOS6 was released. I'm still waiting to see even one of them fixed.

Google maps has it's problems from time to time, but at least they fix any errors I report in a few days.