Apple Acquires Embark to Further Improve Mass Transit Navigation
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Yes "Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, Apple is doomed to fail now"
Hence the Locationary purchase and all the ground truth hires they've been doing in the US and Abroad. They can do multiple things at once... haha
A bit too basic... my entire suburb is missing, and they don't discriminate between private mining roads and public roads around here. Navigating with Maps is just not possible, as it keeps trying to force you down inaccessible roads.
Try navigating to the local airport, and even if you don't end up down a mining pit, you'll end up at the wrong location, because the names of the airports are swapped around.
In Australia, they may as well have just had a fuzzy blob on the map marked "Down Under" and left it at that. The actual maps they put in place are unusable.
I've submitted corrections over and over again, and nothing has happened.
I'd love to use Maps, but they need to seriously buy out an Australian mapping company to sort out the shambles here.
Sky Blue
Guest
Yeah, not being able to find any near by POI or transit directions is a great feature.
John.B
macrumors 601
Based solely on anecdotal evidence from location data on my iPhone, apparently not.
Kid Vorpal
macrumors newbie
Sandy Santra
macrumors 6502
Thank god they didn't buy ExitStrategy and ruin it. I totally depend on that app. There's nothing better for navigating the NYC subway system.
spacehog371
macrumors regular
Waze had nothing to do with public transportation.
Why would Apple acquire a public transit app because they didn't get Waze.
They wouldn't. The two are unrelated. Waze would not have improved transit directions.
The Phazer
macrumors 68040
In all seriousness, we are coming up to a year now and Apple's Ground Truth manager in the UK has not actually managed to find any of the stores that they can see from the window of their own office.
So no, not really.
Haha well they just made those purchases and started doing those hires in the last two months or so, it'll take a bit
Heck those hires probably haven't even signed their HR paperwork yet----------
Waze was great for the real time notifications but the actual navigation and maps were pretty awful.
ArtOfWarfare
macrumors G3
Neither do I, but I find the apps very useful when I'm in one.
One could propose that they are related in the fact that Apple had cash in hand ready to spend it on Waze. Since that didn't happen, that cash in hand could have led to this purchase.
Troll, much?
POI are perfectly fine, I've been using them since launch. Goes to show that tech blogs can manufacture an issue for web hits and sway opinion.
Let Google waste money on Waze. It's always been a terrible app so it will fit in nicely with the giant bag of suck that is Google Maps.
appleisking
macrumors 6502a
Well maybe where he lives Google Maps works better doesn't mean he's a troll. There is absolutely no doubt that collectively, Google Maps is better than Apple Maps based on location accuracy worldwide and raw functionality. Locations may differ in that generalization of course.
JonneyGee
macrumors 6502
Google still has better POI data. There's a mall in the area that closed several years ago and is now a hockey rink, and it still shows up as a mall in Apple Maps. They also have several location names incorrect (even though I've personally filed corrections) and even some highways mislabeled (they don't seem to understand an alternate highway - 31A is not the same as 31!). I like Apple Maps much better and use it for navigation, but sometimes I'll switch to Google Maps to verify POI data and copy the address into Apple Maps.
spacehog371
macrumors regular
Google has acquired 127 companies.
Apple has acquired 34 companies in the same time period.
It is amazing to me when people say things like what is quoted above, given the massive disparity between Google and Apple with regard to acquisitions.
Sky Blue
Guest
Me too and they're still terrible, and I've reported incorrect POI in my area that were wrong multiple times since September.
My city isn't huge by any means (pop. 35k), but they still haven't add the post office. The shopping plaza has all the different stores and restaurants located on top of each other on the opposite side of the road.
The only one trolling here is Apple.
SeeHole
macrumors member
spacehog371
macrumors regular
That is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
Apple has enough cash in hand to buy Waze dozens of times.
It isn't like they went to the bank, got a billion dollars out, and then went "****... we've got this money here, we'll might as well spend it."
Additionally, both Apple and Waze deny they ever had acquisition discussions. That was just a rumor.
Hopefully, but the Waze acquisition over in Google land was pretty huge as well . It's all good though competition breeds innovation.