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Apple Filling Out Flyover City Tours Ahead of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite Launches

Recommendations for sites to add

Is there a way to submit recommendations to Apple about different sites to add to the flyover?

I'm from Tulsa, OK and while it's on the list, it has a whole 3 sites that they highlight in the flyover...

We have at least 5!! sites you wanna see in Tulsa ;)
 
I've always thought flyover was cool but not useful...

...Until I used to to find small alleyway near an overpass which cut my walking distance by 15 mins. I would not have found it in streetview!
 
honestly, Apple Maps has a bad rap from the initial launch fiasco. it's gotten much, much, MUCH better to where it can compete with Google Maps.

I think ppl are just hesitant to give it another look b/c they just don't know that's its gotten better. It keeps getting the same bashing even though its not the same.

TRY IT: pick a route you normally take and test both driving directions and see what you think. Apple Maps has a much better GI than Google Maps. it's easier to read, follow and easier on the eyes. Apple just needs to market it.

Only downside to Apple Maps is that Google Maps has more business info rt now.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I'm really baffled that people say Street View is useful. It's a clunky piece of crap. It's like Google made a FPS where the framerate is under 1 and any time you move you end up with major screen tearing issues. On top of that, you move exclusively by clicking and dragging.

In contrast, Apple's thing is actually useful for previewing a route. I get a bird's eye view of my path through the city (which, lets face it, is vastly more useful than a freaking street level view. You may as well put your phone down, because you can get the same information in a more natural way by just looking at the real world around you.) And if you want to shift your view, it's easy and natural to do so, and there's no screen tearing because it smoothly goes from position to position.

Anyways, focusing on this new feature from Apple - this sounds like it might be useful if you're stuck in an area you're not familiar with and looking for stuff to do. Frequently when I face that situation I go to the town's website and see if they list any attractions... normally the website is a mess and I'm better off just wandering the town at random looking for stuff to do (which is pretty hit or miss). So this new feature sounds like it might be a free and neat replacement for a tour guide or something. Maybe.
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How is a view from above better than one from ground-level, which provides the same perspective as you get walking, riding, or driving? You get to see buildings and other landmarks pretty much as you'll see them when you're there, which is helpful when venturing into an unfamiliar area. With Flyover, you can't see signs and other features because of the point of view and because of trees and other obstructions. That's what Street View is good for.

But I agree that the UI isn't very good, and the experience is limited by the inability to seamlessly link images as you move around. Flyover provides a much smoother experience, though it's all from an overhead vantage point. Something that offers the best of both would be ideal - Flyover with the ability to move at ground level.
 
Roller said:
How is a view from above better than one from ground-level, which provides the same perspective as you get walking, riding, or driving? You get to see buildings and other landmarks pretty much as you'll see them when you're there, which is helpful when venturing into an unfamiliar area. With Flyover, you can't see signs and other features because of the point of view and because of trees and other obstructions. That's what Street View is good for.
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Consider where you go when you need to get a better vantage point. Do you move to lower ground, or do you move to higher ground? Does anybody ever say "I can't see what's around me" and slide under the dashboard? No, they say "I can't see what's around me" and they raise their head up. Historically, we made watch-towers so that we could see our surroundings, we didn't dig trenches for that. Of course, today we use spy planes and satellites for this.

So, no, you don't want to have a view of the streets from the same view that you'll walk them at. Other people and cars will block your view. Buildings will block your view. You want a view that's from building tops / bird's eye view, which is about what you get when you're zoomed all the way in with 3D turned on in Apple Maps. Close enough that you can see details but far enough up that you can see the big picture.
 
groovyd said:
because streetview is really just a billion photos stitched together... mostly useless without extracting and extrapolating it into 3d models. flyover does this already. it is just a matter of providing a good ui.
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And the Streetview camera cars were really just sniffing wi-fi hotspots for data packets anyway.
Way to keep it classy, Creepy Google (tm).
 
John.B said:
Flyover is fine, but Apple really needs to concentrate their efforts on getting their POI data updated and corrected.
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I definitely agree with this but I have found in the last week or so that they're getting much quicker at sorting out problems that I've been reporting.

Edit: Just had 4 notifications of problems sorted that I reported 2 days ago.
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
Consider where you go when you need to get a better vantage point. Do you move to lower ground, or do you move to higher ground? Does anybody ever say "I can't see what's around me" and slide under the dashboard? No, they say "I can't see what's around me" and they raise their head up. Historically, we made watch-towers so that we could see our surroundings, we didn't dig trenches for that. Of course, today we use spy planes and satellites for this.

So, no, you don't want to have a view of the streets from the same view that you'll walk them at. Other people and cars will block your view. Buildings will block your view. You want a view that's from building tops / bird's eye view, which is about what you get when you're zoomed all the way in with 3D turned on in Apple Maps. Close enough that you can see details but far enough up that you can see the big picture.
Click to expand...

i know what you mean, but we're talking about two somewhat different, if similar, things. A view from above, which is what a map or Flyover provides, is the best way to get an overview - to see how locations relate to one another, how far apart they are, and what direction you have to go to get from point A to point B. But to tell if you've reached a particular place, you need to see what it looks like from the vantage point you'll have at arrival - getting into the weeds, so to speak. The same holds true for some waypoints along the route to a destination. So both perspectives are helpful in navigation, which is why I use maps or a labelled overhead view as well as Street View.
 
Flyover resolution is improving to incredible detail lately. I used to need to go back to StreetView to scope out an unfamiliar area ahead of my arrival. Now, more than half the times, Flyover has been able to show me enough detail to allow me to familiarize myself with features of a street or a building I'm going to.

I can imagine resolution soon allowing you to view detail like storefront signage. You can already see larger signs on buildings.

Flyover is better than StreetView because it's built directly into the map navigation with a seamless UI— it's not another mode you have to get in or out of. It's also more likely to be more up to date because it only takes hours to capture an entire city from the air whereas it takes months to update a city from a StreetView car. Funny enough, seeing how a street *used* to look like is one of my remaining uses for StreetView.

To illustrate my point:

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I can see the ForeverXXI, Blacks, the LCBO, HardRock Cafe and even individual brands available at Sears. It still looks a little junked up but the resolution has really been sharpened. This is already enough to get an understanding for features and layout of an area. The next bump up in resolution is going to make StreetView obsolete.

Eventually, Apple's gamble on Maps is going to pay off.
 
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springsup said:
Apple really do need to do a better job expanding Flyover support. They have places like Gibraltar, Leeds and Birmingham but then miss out major European capitals like Amsterdam, Berne, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Prague and Vienna.
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Pure nonsense. Copenhagen has always had flyover. Do some research.
 
What I want from Apple Maps more than street view (which I think is being worked on) is an open source map maker. Google has something called Google Map Maker where you can literally take their maps and mold them like clay, adding and deleting streets that are closed/new. I've had fun adding green-highlighted parks to Google's Maps and adding trails to existing parks in my area. Despite making these changes to Google's Maps, I really use Apple Maps for navigation. I felt great to see that Apple took some of the trails I drew on Google Maps and added them to their own maps. I can get things added to Apple Maps quicker by adding them to Google Maps then I would by dropping a pin and reporting a problem.
 
Perth and Melbourne, what the ****ing ******** camel's ****? Well I guess people already know the better cities of Sydney and Brisbane.
 
Although I love to support Apple, I have only used this feature once and that was just to explore it. :/
 
X-X said:
Great!

More of the most useless feature of any map app ever.
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Actually it could be very useful just not in the form it is in now. You can't control the tour, you can't pause it in the middle to take a closer look at anything (you end it and it zooms out to regular satellite view). And finding it is rather annoying. it's hiding in the info menu instead of popping up on the menu bar.

I would also love to see them work into the whole thing some kind of walk within feature. Google has done this with some landmarks although I think it's only on the web. Perhaps this is something that will come in a later generation. maybe buy some kind of gigapixel tech to make it happen.

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springsup said:
Apple really do need to do a better job expanding Flyover support. They have places like Gibraltar, Leeds and Birmingham but then miss out major European capitals like Amsterdam, Berne, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Prague and Vienna.
Click to expand...

I suspect that unlike Google they are actually waiting until they have permission from the cities to actually flyover them. And perhaps the deals with these cities haven't been finalized yet

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John.B said:
Flyover is fine, but Apple really needs to concentrate their efforts on getting their POI data updated and corrected.
Click to expand...

Rather like how they have hardware and software teams they likely have two teams each working on one of these projects.

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appleaddictx said:
What I want from Apple Maps more than street view (which I think is being worked on) is an open source map maker..
Click to expand...

I don't see them needing that so much as ways for cities to report construction closings etc, universities to include their internal maps, malls the same, etc.

I live in LA and there's a 3 block bit of Hollywood that is often closed for events. It would be nice for directions to know this and give me another route so if I don't find myself stuck in that crap because I didn't remember that something was going on that day
 
doelcm82 said:
If it weren't for Wales, Hereford would be a beautiful seaside resort.
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Firstly, thank you for the city shout out ...but we are nowhere near the sea =)

I always jest we are border control for the welsh, but I love Wales. The country is truly amazing from roads, to healthcare to the geography. There is some truly stunning places that if given flyover would blow away these ' tourist attraction ' places that Apple has been concentrating on.
 
melse said:
Is there a way to submit recommendations to Apple about different sites to add to the flyover?

I'm from Tulsa, OK and while it's on the list, it has a whole 3 sites that they highlight in the flyover...

We have at least 5!! sites you wanna see in Tulsa ;)
Click to expand...

Does that include the "Welcome to Tulsa" sign? :D

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X-X said:
Great!

More of the most useless feature of any map app ever.

I really don't like Google, but nothing beats Street View.
Click to expand...

I don't find Street View the slightest bit useful for navigating. I find it useful for two things-- identifying landmarks to look for, and planning how to navigate weird intersections.
 
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