Apple Adds 20 New Flyover Locations to Maps

[dakota747]

They keep spending money and resources on the wrong things with Apple maps. Stop animating landmarks, stop adding cities to FlyOver. One commenter pointed out that this is a completely USELESS feature for a mapping application and I agree.

Things Apple actually SHOULD be dumping ALL of its mapping team on:

1) Map data - increasing the accuracy, integrity, reliability and volatility of its mapping data for better directions
2) Point-Of-Interest (POI) mapping data - getting the latest and greatest list of businesses for users to search in maps
3) Ease of use in mapping data/error reporting - as of now if you report an incorrect location, you have to use poor satellite data and a pin to tell Apple where it is, but it doesn't know where you are at the time of the report, so you can't drop a pin at 'your location'. 99% of the time when you're reporting when Apple got it wrong, it's after you've arrived at the 'correct' location. Making this process easier and more intuitive for users and business owners will go far in improving mapping data cheaply though 'crowd sourcing'.
4) Improved and up-to-date satellite imagery
5) StreetView

That is all.

I 100% agree! Those are definitely points I've experienced with Apple maps that need the most improvement.

 

[vincebio]

Facts:

Belfast is in Ireland
Belfast is in Northern Ireland
Belfast is not in the Republic of Ireland
Belfast is in the United Kingdom

How is Belfast in Ireland exactly?

 

[69Mustang]

Your argument might be compelling if the people I was responding to were saying "Flyover is awesome, Apple needs to add more and faster!" But instead the ones who keep mentioning Street View are saying "Flyover is useless, Street View is better". There is a big difference between saying something works great but needs to be more available as compared to saying it doesn't work great and doesn't make sense or is useless regardless of how available it is.

If that's the case, then they should be saying Google Fiber is useless! But I don't seem to hear these people saying that.

I think the biggest reason Streetview and Flyover are compared is they are both accessories to navigation aids, Maps and Google Maps. Streetview compliments the way people travel; at ground level. Whether in a vehicle or walking it will give you a better indication of where you need to be because it presents information from the same point of view as the user. From that perspective, it is better than Flyover. If I am traveling by helicopter, Flyover presents a better vantage point because the frame of reference is the same.

Apologies if I gave you the impression that Flyover's only deficiency was a lack of ubiquity. That was not my intent. As a navigation tool, I think it's main deficiency is it's POV. I don't even view it as a navigation tool. I see it more as tech expression first (like Google Glass), and as a POI tool second (especially for vacationers). Unfortunately it's bundled with a navigation aid and it gets judged as such.

Google Fiber isn't a good comparison. It performs a function that directly compares to it's competition. Again, sorry if my quote lead you to focus only on availability.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I'll never get over the folks who moan that, "If only Apple dropped this thing I believe is useless, they'd pour those resources on exactly what I want." Chances are, if resources were that slim, you'd be getting even less.

I happen to love Flyover, and find Street View to be essential for some purposes. In large part, it's a matter of what you're looking for in a map. I rarely depend on a single map, because there's yet a map that has everything I'm looking for.

3D information can be dead useful, and these visualizations are far easier to interpret in that respect than the elevation contours on a USGS quad. Flyover gives me a great idea of what a neighborhood looks like. If I hope to read signs on storefronts and see similar fine detail (and I sometimes do), Street View is my go-to resource.

2D mapping is an abstract representation of a 3D world. The world is not flat. It lacks for neither structures nor vegetation. We're simply used to maps that strip away that info in order to highlight other info. If you want something exactly like a gas station road map, there are plenty of PDFs out there for you, or toggle the view to ditch the satellite imagery.

I read maps for entertainment as well as information. I like to travel, and planning/research is both necessary and part of the fun for me. I don't just open a map for the first time when I'm looking for the nearest subway station. The more I know before I arrive, the better. I also do a fair amount of armchair travel - there's just not enough time in this life to see everything worth seeing. So give me more maps, all kinds of maps, focusing on all kinds of data.

It's kind of silly to get into these binary debates. If carrying both Google Maps and Apple Maps added more weight to our pockets than carrying just one, if we had to choose just one... But it doesn't, and we don't. Other than the memory space needed for each app (the data, fortunately, mostly lives in the cloud), there's no price to pay for carrying (and using) both. Like any other tool on the tool belt, you're free to use the best tool for the job at hand.

 

[nagromme]

Flyover is far better--MASSIVELY simpler and faster to navigate--for localized planning of things like, "which driveway will I use?" or "what will it look like when I get there?" Try circling an unfamiliar block in street view, then do the same in flyover, and tell me which one was easier to get to know the area--not just the general lay of the land but the specific, building-by-building, door-by-door sense of where you are. Street view is soooo slooow and awkward.

People say POV is a problem, which sounds reasonable, but try it: you can tell where you are just fine despite the change of vantage height. It's like saying you don't know where you are in Street View because it shows the wrong lane. Not true--it's noticeable, but doesn't remove usefulness.

I hope flyover keeps coming to more areas, and keeps getting better.

Also, I've noticed (maybe a month ago?) that existing flyover areas improved: you can now see under big trees much better than before. In my neighborhood for instance I can see a small shed that used to be completely in the shadow of a massive tree overhang. Now you can look sideways and see it.

Meanwhile I can't even see basic street signs in Google Street View thanks to blur, double images, wrong exposures, and lens flares. That's where Street view could shine, but it fall short so much of the time.

 

[dav465]

How is Belfast in Ireland exactly?

I understand what he means. He means that Belfast is located on the full island called Ireland. The island is split into two countries and Republic of Ireland is nearly always considered as Ireland. Even maps clearly show an outline calling one Ireland and the other Northern Ireland!

As all other places were described with their respective country names(or state) I felt there was confusion over which country Belfast belonged.

Hence why the first comment about it saying Belfast,Ireland wanted popcorn. Hah.

 

[Mainyehc]

Portugal, at last!

Coimbra, being a UNESCO World Heritage Site (and a rather scenic one at that), seems like an appropriate enough first-comer. But what about Porto and its Ribeira (also a World Heritage Site)? And, while I'm at it, what about my home city – and capital – Lisbon? It has been all over the news lately (namely in Condé Nast Traveller and the like) and is constantly filled to the brim with tourists, after all…

Anyway, as it has probably been said already, getting all excited about Flyover is moot until the basics (like mass transit and up-to-date business data, let alone a true functional equivalent to Street View – edit: btw, I just read Nagromme's post and will keep an open mind about Flyover, but I am still taking his view with a grain of salt for the time being – and, most importantly, a decent and forgiving search algorithm!) are covered… which is still a few years away, probably. As much as I like Apple Maps for driving directions, and as cool or useful as Flyover might be, the service itself is still sub-optimal at pretty much everything else when compared with Google Maps.

 

[Jason83]

90%+ of Apple's employees know less about wifi than you do. So fix wifi yourself, and let those 90% employees do what they can do tons better than you can (some have multiple phDs, some know a lot about locations you've never heard of).

You missed the "/s" bud. My wifi is fine, I'm making fun of the idiots that complain about every new feature because it doesn't fix their one-off problems. You can sit down now.

 

[mashinhead]

Seriously, how many times has anyone here used this feature...

Is this really worth the resources?

 

[FieldingMellish]

I'd like the app to work properly before Apple adds whizzy useless features.

Say, I'm in New York City. I search maps for an address. I'm first presented with that address in several other countries. Google, on the other hand, get's it right.

 

[theheadguy]

Amazing feature but very slow rollout.

You think a rotating outdated satellite imagery is an "Amazing feature" in 2015? Your standards are very, very low.

 

[C DM]

90%+ of Apple's employees know less about wifi than you do. So fix wifi yourself, and let those 90% employees do what they can do tons better than you can (some have multiple phDs, some know a lot about locations you've never heard of).

I think you might have overlooked the important "/s" modifier at the end of that post.

Edit: Looks like I missed an earlier post already covering that.

 

[newagemac]

I think the biggest reason Streetview and Flyover are compared is they are both accessories to navigation aids, Maps and Google Maps.

Again, they are both navigation aids yes, but the comparison ends there. For example, there is a Satellite, Standard, and Hybrid view in all modern map apps. And they are meant to be used for different reasons. You can't say one view is "better" than the other. It depends on what the situation is.

In other words, Street View can't replace Flyover because it's absolutely terrible at giving you an overview of a city's layout which Flyover is designed to do and is very good at.

My wife and I visited a new park in our city recently and Flyover was essential in helping us plan and navigate our bike route. Street View couldn't even leave the street let alone the hours it would have taken trying to tap our way down all the trails.

If Apple does add something like Street View, it will be in addition to Flyover because street level views can never replace something that covers a much larger area in detail like Flyover does.

 

[danielmcfarland]

Just to let you know Belfast has been available on Apple Flyover for well over 6 months.

 

[Moonjumper]

Data acquisition is too slow for Flyover to ever get universal coverage. Let iOS users crowd source the data. iOS cameras have position and direction sensors that would allow photos to be stitched together to provide a view from the ground up. Match that with satellite imagery for the building tops.

 

[avanpelt]

Beyond the initial use, does anyone actually use Flyover on a regular basis? I can't think of a single reason I'd use it from a practical standpoint. If I'm going on a trip, I check out the area around my destination in Google Street View to get an idea of what the surroundings look like. That seems more practical to me since, you know, I can't fly.

 

[C DM]

Beyond the initial use, does anyone actually use Flyover on a regular basis? I can't think of a single reason I'd use it from a practical standpoint. If I'm going on a trip, I check out the area around my destination in Google Street View to get an idea of what the surroundings look like. That seems more practical to me since, you know, I can't fly.

Seems like a good example was provided just a couple of replies back.

 

[Mactendo]

You think a rotating outdated satellite imagery is an "Amazing feature" in 2015? Your standards are very, very low.

You think photorealistic 3D city maps are not amazing? Your standards are lost somewhere.