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

[uknowimright]

Originally Posted by BaldiMac

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

yeah must have been imagining an apology from the CEO

oh wait

[topmounter]

Flew into Dallas, rented a car and drove to Austin last weekend for the race...

I found TWO absolutely fundamental errors in the Apple IOS6 Maps turn-by-turn directions.

Fortunately the wife still has Google maps on her iPhone and she was able to correct me before we ended up on a major detour through the hinterland.

I won't rehash all my gripes about the usability and lack of street view (which I REALLY missed while helping my sister look for rental property recently).

It's sad to watch "The Decline and Fall of the Apple Empire" in real-time, but as we all know nothing lasts forever.

[izzysanime]

How come he was fired for a map issue which is not that big of a deal when no one was fired for the antenna issue on the iPhone 4???

[Rot'nApple]

Hey Eddy, I hear there are some folks at Google that have some years of experience with maps if you are serious regarding looking for 'outside help from others'!
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[BaldiMac]

Originally Posted by uknowimright

yeah must have been imagining an apology from the CEO

oh wait

What does that have to do with what I said?

[Kaibelf]

Originally Posted by Vodka

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






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

I guess you work for a company that wouldn't fire you for poor work. It's probably better that you stay there.

[Omacc]

just buy Tomtom , it works way better than garmin and ios maps.. i doubt they can make it as good as it. Put it this way, if you want a quality gps navigation for iphone, your going to have to pay for it. Im thinking apple maps might have a paid version or subscription in the future

[slippyr4]

Maybe he was useless, who knows. But the problem with Apple's Maps is not the software itself - that's actually pretty good. It's that the data underpinning it is not as good as Google's.

That is hard to rectify without time and/or money thrown at it.

[Rot'nApple]

Originally Posted by izzysanime

How come he was fired for a map issue which is not that big of a deal when no one was fired for the antenna issue on the iPhone 4???

Because that would mean Jobs and Ive would have to go.
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[Kaibelf]

Originally Posted by izzysanime

How come he was fired for a map issue which is not that big of a deal when no one was fired for the antenna issue on the iPhone 4???

Um....
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2010/08/07/apple-exec-gets-canned-after-iphone-4-antenna-issue/

Seriously.

[macidiot]

Originally Posted by kenypowa

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

I can only speak for myself, but I've used it in 4 major metropolitan areas across the country and haven't encountered any real problems (no more than Google).

You can consider that fanboy talk. But for me its fact.

[jaw04005]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

"Cue, who took over last month as part of a management shakeup, is seeking advice from outside mapping-technology experts and prodding digital maps provider TomTom NV to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple."

This is the biggest problem I have. POI information is just inaccurate. It'll show a store or hotel/gas station/restaurant blocks away from its actual location, on the wrong side of the road or on a completely different street.

POI information is terrible on Apple maps.

[spazzcat]

Originally Posted by 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.

I thought they were already getting data from Waze?

[izzysanime]

Originally Posted by Kaibelf

Um....
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2010/08...antenna-issue/

Seriously.

O, never mind then, I did not hear about that.

[croooow]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

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

It would be best if they could have fixed this before the mess happened, but it did so at this point it makes it look like the problem has been recognized and they are doing something about it.

[Popeye206]

Originally Posted by topmounter

Flew into Dallas, rented a car and drove to Austin last weekend for the race...

I found TWO absolutely fundamental errors in the Apple IOS6 Maps turn-by-turn directions.

Fortunately the wife still has Google maps on her iPhone and she was able to correct me before we ended up on a major detour through the hinterland.

It's sad to watch "The Decline and Fall of the Apple Empire" in real-time, but as we all know nothing lasts forever.

Sad to watch people call "dooms day" over a couple missteps. It seems like if Apple doesn't blow everyone away with something over the top amazing it's the beginning of the end.

Apple Maps is not perfect, but it seems like these recent missteps have been a reminder to Apple of the quality we expect... a good thing in the long run.

[BaldiMac]

Originally Posted by izzysanime

How come he was fired for a map issue which is not that big of a deal when no one was fired for the antenna issue on the iPhone 4???

The guy in charge of iDevice hardware engineering left Apple shortly after the iPhone 4 release.

[ineedamac]

So far I have used the maps app in St Louis, Ohio and DC. I have not run into any issues. Surely, I am one of the lucky ones. Apple working to make the app better will help everyone.

[Jetson]

Originally Posted by slippyr4

Maybe he was useless, who knows. But the problem with Apple's Maps is not the software itself - that's actually pretty good. It's that the data underpinning it is not as good as Google's.

That is hard to rectify without time and/or money thrown at it.

Yeah, Google has spent many years and lots of moolah to make their maps work.

This was a new project for Apple in an area where they didn't have much expertise.

Firing the manager was simply a disgusting act, it seems to me. Someone decreed that heads must roll. Who would want to take on a high risk product at Apple now? Probably many folks I suppose

[seven2k7]

Nice ball washing.....itunes is old....icloud never took off so they forced it onto the OS....Siri is outdated see popsci.....like i said nice ball washing.

[ProVideo]

If Forestall and Williamson were giving assurance that the mapping system would be up and running with minimum flaws for iOS 6, then I can understand these moves. Someone should have been more hesitant to make the change and more conservative on the timeframe.

Google Maps started in 2005 and was in beta for 6 months. It was unrealistic to catch up and leap beyond them in the year or two Apple had in my opinion. Anyone from the Tim Cook down should have realized this wasn't ready for primetime. It probably should have been released as a beta like Siri, while keeping Google's Maps app as a secondary option until iOS7. As more information comes out over the next few months and years, it will be interesting to find out what all went down and what those involved were saying and doing behind the scenes.

[CWallace]

Originally Posted by Custommm

Apple plz put back Google maps ( with Turn-by-turn) as an option...

Google's refusal to grant Turn-by-Turn to their Maps application unless they were granted access to all of our user data is one of the major reasons we're in this mess.

Originally Posted by ProVideo

Google Maps started in 2005 and was in beta for 6 months. It was unrealistic to catch up and leap beyond them in the year or two Apple had in my opinion. Anyone from the Tim Cook down should have realized this wasn't ready for primetime. It probably should have been released as a beta like Siri, while keeping Google's Maps app as a secondary option until iOS7.

I imagine they did have an idea of the lack of polish on the app, but by "tearing the band-aid off" and forcing iOS 6 users onto the system would flag all these errors and allow Apple to start directly addressing them.

I also believe that Apple's strategic decision to develop and run their own maps application required them to do this with iOS 6. If they launched it as a Beta and allowed Google to stay, Google could have backed off on their demands and continue their hold on mapping on iOS by giving the same feature set as Android's Maps app. That could (likely would) have undermined adoption of Apple Maps, just as the superior voice search capability in one of Google's apps is showing Siri's weaknesses.

[gpat]

So amusing.

[Jetson]

Originally Posted by CWallace

Google's refusal to grant Turn-by-Turn to their Maps application unless they were granted access to all of our user data is one of the major reasons we're in this mess.

Well if that's the case, I'm VERY happy that Apple didn't acquiesce to Google's demands.

Google seem to have ZERO respect for our privacy concerns. Same with Facebook.

[theluggage]

Originally Posted by AppleInMyBlood

So what do you suggest they do? Keep the people responsible on staff and give up?

The question is, were these "responsible" people actually the ones who took the "brave" decision to try and re-create, from a standing start, something that Google have had 7 years to perfect (on top of their original development time)?

Were they the ones who pushed it out as a production item and removed the old app, while the Google license reputedly still had a year to run?

The debacle could have been avoided by running it as an optional beta for a year while the kinks were ironed out. People would have tried it out to get turn-by-turn, so they'd have got plenty of feedback.