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Apple Actively Recruiting Ex-Google Maps Employees
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If I hear another person complain about not having street view I'm gonna do a back flip!! Seriously, that feature isn't even available in 2/5ths of the world!! Just look at countrys like Germany! Germany is a pretty well know country I'd say but it's street map coverage is pretty much limited to Berlin and a few other cities. If you look at other major places still in the world like Russia, China, Turkey, Chile all have almost not cover. So basically only 20% of the entire world lost street map coverage of there area with this update. Wow, pretty much no big deal.
But for those countries where it does exist, it's very, very useful. It would be great if it covered everywhere, but I'm not going to lose much sleep if Russia, China etc. aren't in there.
The majority of Japan's 10,000 train stations and 100+ airports are missing from Apple Maps. Are we supposed to do all the work to get the same basic functionality that we already had with Google Maps 5 years ago?
Yeah. It doesn't make sense to me either.
Apple has to have its own maps app
I think Apple had no choice except to develop its own maps app. It is one of the ultimate killer apps for a portable computer device, and the gateway to a number of potential revenue streams. Contracting it to a competitor is not a great option in the long term. It may take some time but AAPL will have a first class maps app soon enough.
Actually I don't find it all that bad for what and where I use it.
I think Apple had no choice except to develop its own maps app. It is one of the ultimate killer apps for a portable computer device, and the gateway to a number of potential revenue streams. Contracting it to a competitor is not a great option in the long term. It may take some time but AAPL will have a first class maps app soon enough.
Actually I don't find it all that bad for what and where I use it.
Yeah, he should waste his time working for Apple for free because they took mapping away from his premium phone and replaced it with a pile of turd.
No. Just report it, and let Apple do the work. They won't let you into their systems anyway.
Steve Jobs on Maps...
"We don't know how to do a Maps backend."
-- Steve Jobs
http://youtu.be/ru11F_JnyFM
And this one is great, too:
http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1745.html
"We don't know how to do a Maps backend."
-- Steve Jobs
http://youtu.be/ru11F_JnyFM
And this one is great, too:
http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1745.html
Here's the problem I'm having:
1) drop pin on my house
2) copy address from the pin
3) paste address into search field
4) get asked "did you mean" and presented with two possibilities in entirely different towns, but not my actual address.
That seems quite broken to me.
1) drop pin on my house
2) copy address from the pin
3) paste address into search field
4) get asked "did you mean" and presented with two possibilities in entirely different towns, but not my actual address.
That seems quite broken to me.
Probably not. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would have gone down the same way it did. What remains to be seen, is how going forward it'll go. Will Apple attempt a Steve type RDF "Everything is fine with maps!" or will they simply ignore any complaints and just move forward, letting the heat die down without replying to concerns.
Job one - Eliminate that space and computational-hogging 3D view that only serves the needs of surveyors and entertainment seekers.
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Screw that free app building. I paid good money for something broken. Apple should give us a free iTunes song of our choice for each reported tip.
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Screw that free app building. I paid good money for something broken. Apple should give us a free iTunes song of our choice for each reported tip.
Well you can whine or you can help if the the maps you are going to have for a very long time.
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I been using the iPhone since the first, I have never used streetview on my phone. Actually, I used the Apple Maps more in the last few months, then I used Google Maps since I had an iPhone. The main reason why is because they have turn by turn. I've had no issues with the new maps and I can't remember the last time I used Navigon.
Once Apple hired antenna engineers after the Antennagate failure, the next new iPhone, the 4S was the best ever.
Now that Apple has engineers that have map building experience, next years iPhone will be excellent. It's a great move on Apples part.
Now that Apple has engineers that have map building experience, next years iPhone will be excellent. It's a great move on Apples part.
Here's the thing: there's a lot of work. It's not just station names. To use an example:
The Google map is mostly correct. Here are the problems with the Apple one, though:
Easy:
- Yurakucho Station doesn't exist there
- Hibiya Station isn't there either
- Idemitsu is like five blocks away
- Should stations be called "Ginza," "Ginza Sta." or "Ginza Station"? There seems to be no convention. Ditto for much of the romanization here. Google has problems here as well, of course.
- The red pin doesn't even land on Ginza Station
Medium:
- At closer zoom levels, Google has the direction for each street
- Apple Maps has no traffic lights
- If you were to click on most of these, they'd have messed up addresses. Subway's includes "Ginza3-13, Ginza 3-Chōme" when it should be "Ginza 3-3-13."
- Priorities? Why do sandwich and beef bowl chains get priority when zoomed out, especially in a luxury shopping district?
Hard:
- Google has exits shown clearly. When you exit a ticket gate here there will be signs pointing you in the direction of an above-ground exit. I know, for example, by looking at Google's map that I should exit around B2 without having to use sketchy compass functions or checking a map.
- Google has maps of subway area. You can't possibly crowdsource this with "Report a problem." This is extremely valuable, especially when stations are connected (like Jimbocho and Otemachi) or enormous (Tokyo) and requiring 20 minutes to walk around.
- The red, gray and yellow lines are train lines. As a Tokyo-ite, I instantly know those are the Marunouchi, Hibiya and Ginza lines. I can click on these stations and instantly see where its train lines go, when the next arrivals are, and I can ask Google to tell me the best and cheapest way to get somewhere. Not just now, but at any time in future. The attention to detail here is very impressive.
Some of these are fixable by crowdsourcing, but some of the really important onesstation maps, exits and transitare not. And note that I'm not trying to pick a horrible location; this is right by Apple's flagship store for Japan. It's obvious that Google bought data, drove around in their camera car and surveyed all of these stations. It's a very manual process to clean up data like that. With Apple, it's obvious that they didn't learn from Google's mistakes (which included trying to do everything algorithmically), weren't willing to pay top dollar, and that I saw most of the results before Apple QC did. This isn't a beta experiment like Siri or like Google Maps 7 years ago. This is a total replacement of a mature application.
And the point is not that we have to fix the ones above. This is Tokyo, and there are 900 other train stations here with surroundings just as messed up, many of them beyond fixing by users (and there's no indication that any of my suggestions have been acted upon, in any case).
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I'm in the UK and you could find the same or worse problems for virtually any postcode. Apple Maps should go the way of Ping right now. They tried. They failed. Scrap the whole thing. Learn lessons.
Anyone else feeling they should have held off updating to iOS 6 until Google get out their own maps app? I used it every single day, didn't realise the Apple version would be quite so ****.
earlier Apple said that , imap team "locked down", and now they recruiting ex-google guys. there is a question
WHAT happened those guys (locked down)
possible answers
- they committed suicide
- they escaped (using with Google maps)
- or Apple can't find them, where they was (they are not on iMap)
WHAT happened those guys (locked down)
possible answers
- they committed suicide
- they escaped (using with Google maps)
- or Apple can't find them, where they was (they are not on iMap)
More staff means that Apple can accumulate more data and add it to the database.
That's why people get hired. There are tasks that need to get done.
When the defunct cash-only vegetarian cafe reopens as a Mexican restaurant with a full bar and accepts credit cards, a human being goes into the database, changes the food genre, telephone number, etc.
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Good, they need it badly.
Been using Maps since the launch of iOS 6 and it truly is useless. Wrong street names are actually a very common occurrence, missing roads, incorrect directions, incorrect traffic information, missing information. My house is still listed pretty far away from where it really is.
I've been reporting the issues, but have seen no changes so far. It really is a very poor product.
Been using Maps since the launch of iOS 6 and it truly is useless. Wrong street names are actually a very common occurrence, missing roads, incorrect directions, incorrect traffic information, missing information. My house is still listed pretty far away from where it really is.
I've been reporting the issues, but have seen no changes so far. It really is a very poor product.
They need all the help they can get, this needs to get better fast and its going to take a lot of man hours to sort out all the problems. Having said that I did notice today that a couple of issues I raised on day one do seem to have been fixed so I suppose there is hope, after all Google maps was pretty crappy on day one as well, difference is no one cared back then.
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