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6.0.1 has improved maps!

A few small updates have certainly been made yesterday.

Already noticed very odd issues with several of them. The geolocation of many are screwy, and obvious landmarks only appear when you zoom in so much you can't even see the road they're on.

Shambles.
 
Beeplance said:
Great for you guys then. As far as I'm concerned, my area Singapore still looks like some iCloud city, Apple hasn't made any changes since I reported it like 1 month ago. Why do I get the feeling that they're more inclined to fix the Western and European states than Asian ones?
Click to expand...

Because Apple is based in North America and their largest markets are in the western hemisphere. Plus not to sound racist but asians have a huge knockoff apple product market going on.
 
tymaster50 said:
Because Apple is based in North America and their largest markets are in the western hemisphere. Plus not to sound racist but asians have a huge knockoff apple product market going on.
Click to expand...

Yeah I know, but that doesn't mean they should neglect the Asian countries too. Isn't maps supposed to be world-wide? Why cut corners just because of that minor reason? I know of many Asian countries which contribute to a huge proportion of the sales of iOS devices & Macs.
 
cRuNcHiE said:
Here is confirmation that the google maps data is the same as apple maps in 6.01 for me
Click to expand...

Google does not own 90+% of the imagery shown in Googlemaps. Google acquires the bulk of their data from a large number of third party mapping/imagery companies, which sell their data to anyone that is interested. Over time, the Apple and Google mapping applications should feature more and more of the same imagery, as Apple determines which imagery data to use in different areas. Google has already done that, but it will take awhile for Apple to do the same.

Apple engineers can toggle between a variety of data sources on their end. When people report problems, one of the things Apple does is toggle between the various imagery sources for that area to see if one is better than another. If another data source is clearly better, they press a button and then everyone in that area immediately sees the new data/imagery. I am told this review process can take less than a minute in some cases. The trick is finding where to begin and end using one data source and where to switch to another data source to provide full coverage, because there isn't one data set that provides seamless coverage (or seamless quality coverage). For this reason, Apple needs its customers to report problems whenever they see bad data/imagery.
 
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Beeplance said:
Yeah I know, but that doesn't mean they should neglect the Asian countries too. Isn't maps supposed to be world-wide? Why cut corners just because of that minor reason? I know of many Asian countries which contribute to a huge proportion of the sales of iOS devices & Macs.
Click to expand...

It's not like they NEED to know where to go. Most of their stuff are grouped closely together. Apple just felt there was no need to focus as much on them and instead focus on the largest markets
 
KenAF said:
Google does not own 90+% of the imagery shown in Googlemaps. Google acquires the bulk of their data from a large number of third party mapping/imagery companies, which sell their data to anyone that is interested. Over time, the satellite imagery in Apple and Google mapping applications should feature more and more of the same imagery, as Apple determines which third-party imagery data to use in different areas. Google has already done that, but it will take awhile for Apple to do the same.

Apple engineers can toggle between a variety of data sources on their end. When people report problems, one of the things Apple does is toggle between the various imagery sources for that area to see if one is better than another. If another data source is clearly better, they press a button and then everyone in that area immediately sees the new data/imagery. I am told this review process can take less than a minute in some cases. The trick is finding where to begin and end using one data source and where to switch to another data source to provide full coverage, because there isn't one data set that provides seamless coverage (or seamless quality coverage). For this reason, Apple needs its customers to report problems whenever they see bad data/imagery.
Click to expand...

No wonder there are very noticeable lines in certain areas of the maps in different places, as if two blocks of different colors are placed side-by-side to fit in. Spoils the scenery IMO :(
 
Beeplance said:
Yeah I know, but that doesn't mean they should neglect the Asian countries too. Isn't maps supposed to be world-wide? Why cut corners just because of that minor reason? I know of many Asian countries which contribute to a huge proportion of the sales of iOS devices & Macs.
Click to expand...
I don't know about Signapore specifically, but Google does have exclusive rights to some data sets, particularly outside the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S., UK, and other prominent European countries, there are so many competing sources of data, and so many potential customers, that very little is sold exclusively to one customer (like Google). Some of these countries also have laws and regulations that discourage such exclusivity deals.

In countries where there are few sources of mapping data and few customers for mapping data, Google may have secured an exclusive deal for the best data sources. In those areas, it won't be as easy for Apple to match the Google maps experience (in the near term). Other data sources may be available, but they are probably inferior if Google opted to pay more for exclusivity.
 
KenAF said:
I don't know about Signapore specifically, but Google does have exclusive rights to some data sets, particularly outside the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S., UK, and other prominent European countries, there are so many competing sources of data, and so many potential customers, that very little is sold exclusively to one customer (like Google). Many of these countries also have laws and regulations that may discourage such exclusivity deals.

In countries where there are fewer sources of mapping data and fewer customers for mapping data, Google may have secured an exclusive deal for that data. In those areas, it won't be as easy for Apple to duplicate the Google maps experience. Other data sources may be available, but they are probably inferior if Google opted to pay more for exclusivity.
Click to expand...

My God, are you some sort of mapping specialist, how the hell do you know so much? *jealous* didn't know about all these until your post enlightened me!
 
Beeplance said:
Yeah I know, but that doesn't mean they should neglect the Asian countries too. Isn't maps supposed to be world-wide? Why cut corners just because of that minor reason? I know of many Asian countries which contribute to a huge proportion of the sales of iOS devices & Macs.
Click to expand...


Besides North America and Europe being their two largest markets, something else you have to consider is TIME. iOS 6 isn't that old, neither are Apple Maps. They haven't "neglected" the Asian countries, they haven't gotten to them yet.


I'm not giving Apple excuses, just trying to rationalize why the maps are the way they are.
 
Beeplance said:
My God, are you some sort of mapping specialist, how the hell do you know so much? *jealous* didn't know about all these until your post enlightened me!
Click to expand...
No, although I work with a few. My comments above just reflect what I've learned in brief conversations with Apple GIS contractors/consultants and former Google employees, which attend some of the same meetings snd conferences.
 
Sylon said:
Besides North America and Europe being their two largest markets, something else you have to consider is TIME. iOS 6 isn't that old, neither are Apple Maps. They haven't "neglected" the Asian countries, they haven't gotten to them yet.


I'm not giving Apple excuses, just trying to rationalize why the maps are the way they are.
Click to expand...

I understand. Just finding it funny that they didn't divide their resources & manpower & allocate groups of workers for different continents. From the way the improvements are released, it's quite obvious they dedicated their entire team to focus on one continent at a time instead. Just saying.
 
Beeplance said:
Great for you guys then. As far as I'm concerned, my area Singapore still looks like some iCloud city, Apple hasn't made any changes since I reported it like 1 month ago. Why do I get the feeling that they're more inclined to fix the Western and European states than Asian ones?
Click to expand...

At least it's only partially cloudy. ;)

I'm surprised the UK images have so few clouds as we very rarely have clear days.
 
MBHockey said:
You posted the same picture three times. A screen shot of Safari on your iPad running Google Maps.

You should compare it to the actual Maps application...
Click to expand...

It wasn't the same earlier, my attachemrnts have been messed with. Here is the other one
 

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Yep, definitely improved overnight. The satellite image of my house in the UK has been blurred since the release of Maps in iOS6 and I checked again last night after 6.0.1 just in case the update did bring any improvements - no change (as expected). However this morning I have a clear satellite image - its either back end work or my shiny new iPad mini :D
 
The good news: the maps of much of Nottingham in the UK are now in colour, rather than gloomy and unreadable black and white.

The bad news: many POIs are still missing, or completely incorrect. Looks like they are concentrating on the pictures first, then the information...
 
Maps have definitely been improved in the UK - finally have colour satellites in Coventry and Birmingham, still a few names that are spelt wrongly.

Images are still low quality though compared to Google Maps.
 
Agreed that maps satelite images have updated. Even in rural parts of Wales.

However a friend says he cant see the updates yet - so must be cached or old data for some people still
 
revs said:
Agreed that maps satelite images have updated. Even in rural parts of Wales.

However a friend says he cant see the updates yet - so must be cached or old data for some people still
Click to expand...

This might explain why some people think the update improved maps, even though the improvements are server-side.

Maps caching is pretty aggressive, and sticks around for a long time. Software updates clear out all the system caches, so you might see new map data right after a software update.

I wish there was a way to clear system caches manually, because the phone often feels faster afterwards.
 
My hometown has gained yet more POIs and as before all the locations are wrong. Where are they getting such lousy data from?
 
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