BETA!
Of course that only explains 3 out of the 4 images. Top right image will probably be what we get at launch.
I'm not so sure. There's an awfully long way to go between this beta and Google maps. I can't see them doing this by the fall.
I'm not so sure. There's an awfully long way to go between this beta and Google maps. I can't see them doing this by the fall.
They have til ~middle of October for tweaks. Expect tweaks.
I think the quality of the cartography is very poor, too. The colors remind me of the color themes that came with my old TomTom GPS device, patches of ugly lime green and pale yellow, etc. Those and some of the icons, and even the street vectors in general just look rather shoddy to me.
For a developer that does so well with the aesthetics and general presentation of its products, I expected more from Apple than whats in their new Maps app.
I agree. I think all pre-release software should be the same as final release software.
It took years for Google Maps to reach their current level of accuracy, information and usefulness.
Apple doesn't have super-powers. Their offering will require a few years to get up to speed as well.
Google's HUGE advantage is that they've been doing cloud and search services for years and years. A lot of the data on Google maps is data that Google can mine from its own servers, databases and caches.
This is an area where Apple is just outgunned and it will take them more than a little while to completely catch up.