Christ all mighty, Maps isn't that bad... There are bigger things in life people need to complain about. Not a stupid map app that more than likely works.
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Apple Fires Manager Responsible for Maps as Eddy Cue Turns to Outsiders for Help
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Back in High School I kept a Thomas Guide in my car. Then the internet blew up and I printed out stacks of paper from Mapquest or Yahoo Maps.
Now Yahoo Maps used to get me lost and I complained back then too. Apple Maps = the new Yahoo maps. Inferior product that assumes nobody has anything better to do but to backtrack, waste gas, and drive in circles for an extra 10 minutes
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In the same way that the antenna did on the iPhone 4, so they never thought there would be a problem anywhere else.
Maybe all this "super secrecy" ***** doesn't actually work after all. Things need to be roadtested properly.
I hope that the basis of the termination wasn't because he failed to successfully achieve an impossible task/deadline. This smells stinky.
Are you serious? There are PLENTY of other options. It's like watching a TV show, if you don't like it - flick the channel and watch something else. The Maps app isn't all that bad IMHO but if someone doesn't like it then there are plenty of other mapping apps out there to choose from. Like Liquorpuki mentioned Navigon is one such option that works great. Waze is another.
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That would be win-win as nokia makes the worst cell phone imaginable but owns Navteq. Boy would that be sweet
Yeah, I've been using it gratuitously (i.e., even when I don't need it) ever since I got my iPhone and have had little problem. There have been a couple of times when I got an error message saying the map server was unavailable, but I've been doing a fair bit of traveling and it seems no worse than google maps in this region. I imagine that depends on the region though...
Funny thing, I haven't really encountered any problems with maps.
I've used it in Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, Miami, and the respective surrounding regions. Search, turn by turn, etc. Seems to work fine. If anything, its a lot faster and has a cleaner interface.
Go figure.
Good for Apple
I say good. Apple needs to be EXCELLENT. Not good, EXCELLENT. They command a premium price and need to delivery the same level of service.
Their maps ap is NOT as good as Google. Plain and simple. It is not horrible or useless. But it is not EXCELLENT.
Maybe this shows the Tim Rice feel good hug everyone era is over. Some fear in Cuppertino for those earning those millions is a good thing.
I say good. Apple needs to be EXCELLENT. Not good, EXCELLENT. They command a premium price and need to delivery the same level of service.
Their maps ap is NOT as good as Google. Plain and simple. It is not horrible or useless. But it is not EXCELLENT.
Maybe this shows the Tim Rice feel good hug everyone era is over. Some fear in Cuppertino for those earning those millions is a good thing.
It's not good. I've seen problems finding businesses close by...ones are listed by Yelp, but are some how missed by Maps.
Worse, the Maps app wouldn't be as good as Google maps even if it did work. There is no street view, public transportation, etc.
Give it five years and it might reach parity with Google (I'll believe it when I see it). Until then we have to hope Google Maps returns.
Worse, the Maps app wouldn't be as good as Google maps even if it did work. There is no street view, public transportation, etc.
Give it five years and it might reach parity with Google (I'll believe it when I see it). Until then we have to hope Google Maps returns.
Are you serious? There are PLENTY of other options. It's like watching a TV show, if you don't like it - flick the channel and watch something else. The Maps app isn't all that bad IMHO but if someone doesn't like it then there are plenty of other mapping apps out there to choose from. Like Liquorpuki mentioned Navigon is one such option that works great. Waze is another.
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That would be win-win as nokia makes the worst cell phone imaginable but owns Navteq. Boy would that be sweet
Yep.. of course, My fault,, I should have Quoted the person i was replying to... This would have save you the hassle. *fixed*
Another vote for Waze here. I love it.
Apple could certainly leave Waze cross-platform. Apple needs to start intruding on Google's territory, as Google obviously has no problem cutting into Apple's.
My worry is that Google will swoop in and buy Waze. I'd love for them to stay independent, but you know someone will buy them eventually. Hope it isn't Google.
Next up for Apple...Apple search.
Apple's iPhone is excellent, although I don't think they've really challenged themselves lately. The iPhone is in a league all it's own when it comes to smart phones (THE cutting edge in computing). They run quickly, they're stable, they don't fail often, they have a great OS, a great screen...
The one issue I have is that they don't seem to be taking ANY risks that benefit the consumer. They take risks all right--like when they swapped out Google Maps for the crappy Maps--but they aren't risks that are good for the consumer. It might have worked for Apple, it might have been barely acceptable and Apple could have pocketed a buck or two extra per phone without people getting pissed. Another example is Apple going with such a small screen, that's a real risk they're taking; would people still buy a smaller screen? Would they face a backlash by forcing a new proprietary charging port on people? They risk it for the increased profit per unit. The trouble seems to be that they won't risk anything to bring improvements in the class of the original iPhone.
my apartment was marked as the railway station...they took it off since i reported it and now they have placed the mark on rail track instead of the actual station entrance. well, at least they r on the 'track' now.
More cracks in the castle at apple. Glad I abandoned ship (workstation) awhile back and am comfortably back in windows and linux, which is working allot better than 10 years ago. Not talking Win8 though. Win7 64 is rock solid and linux has matured very well. I'll stick with iOS 5. Google maps work to good to dump it and upgrade to iOS6.
Hire Google
Does Apple have a few unmanned driving vehicles to photograph the world? Looks like Apple may be hiring Google after all.
Given the same task with available resources, anyone should be proud of the effort. Google has a tremendous head start in this field. It's an insane scope of work to produce in response to a negotiation impasse.
Does Apple have a few unmanned driving vehicles to photograph the world? Looks like Apple may be hiring Google after all.
Given the same task with available resources, anyone should be proud of the effort. Google has a tremendous head start in this field. It's an insane scope of work to produce in response to a negotiation impasse.
I still feel this whole maps thing has been blown way out of proportion. Sure, you do a crappy job you should be fired. But I still feel maps hasn't been a total bust or deserve this much attention..
I think the situation is much worse than just a screw up development project. When Fostall demo'ed the IOS map in Iphone 5 launch, he made it sound like a complete and much better replacement of Google map. There were no mention of any problem that a user may see. It set up an expectation that the IOS map cannot fill. So the question is who know the state of the map at what time? And why did Forstall basically set up the company to fail? The initial assessment after the map roll out fiasco was that Apple CEO and BOD know of the problem and still going forward with the IOS map launch (the IOS 6 beta feedback was terrible for the map. So anyone who spend any time on the detail feedback would have know the map problem) and kicked Google map out of IOS.
The two firing pretty much indicated that Forstall sandbagged the other executives including Tim Cook in the state of the IOS map. Apple could have launched the map in a lot of different ways if they had known the problem earlier (keep Google map for another year and offer Apple map as beta, have other map apps line up before kicking Google map out, preparing user for the lousy state map etc. etc). Apple is lucky that the overall IOS ecosystem is very strong and Idevice has a very royal base. A lesser company would have folded because of the lousy map problem. And at the end, these two guys also put enormous pressure on the programmers on their team to get the map fixed yesterday. A situation taht they could have avoided.. Why shouldn't they get fired? Any of the future potential employer would have to think twice about hiring any one of these two guys. Who know if they will pull one of these sandbagging trick again? Their ego take precedence over any problems that may happen to the company or their peer.
When Google Maps App Arrives, all will be moot...
Everyone will download the Google App, and Apple Maps won't matter.
But until then, can they at least improve the freaking traffic indication? It's this super thin dotted red line that is impossible to see when driving. While patents are handed out left and right, I doubt that indicating traffic and speeds with red, yellow and green THICK lines is patented, considering Google, Yahoo, sigalert and others all do it. So it's simply Apple CHOOSING not to do it, thinking different I suppose. But it sorks!!!
Everyone will download the Google App, and Apple Maps won't matter.
But until then, can they at least improve the freaking traffic indication? It's this super thin dotted red line that is impossible to see when driving. While patents are handed out left and right, I doubt that indicating traffic and speeds with red, yellow and green THICK lines is patented, considering Google, Yahoo, sigalert and others all do it. So it's simply Apple CHOOSING not to do it, thinking different I suppose. But it sorks!!!
You don't get it.
People buy Apple products at a premium so they don't have to deal with this kind of ****. Apple has, historically, generally offered a fairly smooth transition when switching major things that affect many people. Take the PowerPC -> Intel transition for example- they provided Rosetta so nobody had to think twice about the switch.
Apple still had a fair amount of time left on their iOS <-> Google Maps agreement. They chose to push an unfinished application out instead, and screwed over a *lot* of users who depended on Google Maps for iOS as a part of their daily lives. Just because you don't rely on the maps app daily doesn't mean that other people do.
I'm glad they're on an axing spree. That should, in theory, mean that this kind of crap will never happen again. If I wanted a bumpy experience like iOS has been recently, I'd own an Android phone instead.
-SC
Most people used paper maps. I'm pretty sure people would complain just as much if their paper maps were inaccurate or missing tons of streets and other data.
Or people used word of mouth by asking someone else for directions. Don't you think a normal person would get upset if they asked someone for directions and received bad information from them?
Oh really, I never new that. I love finding out new facts from internet experts.
My point was that maps has worked fine for ME. In multiple locations across the US. And SLC (and Park City) would hardly be considered a big city.
Did I say it worked great for you, in whatever non-"big US city" you tried using it? No.
Maps isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's a good scapegoat to explain the 100 billion Apple has lost in market cap the past three months.
The iPhone 5 is failing to beat 4S numbers, the iPad mini is also just selling adequately while it gets crap reviews due to lack of Retina display (really Apple, when you created the whole Retina idea, you'd think you'd offer at least the option of Retina on a new product...) and there aren't any big new products eminent. Meanwhile management is leaving, being fired, or responsibilities shuffled about.
I think it's time we admit Tim Cook is not good at this.
The iPhone 5 is failing to beat 4S numbers, the iPad mini is also just selling adequately while it gets crap reviews due to lack of Retina display (really Apple, when you created the whole Retina idea, you'd think you'd offer at least the option of Retina on a new product...) and there aren't any big new products eminent. Meanwhile management is leaving, being fired, or responsibilities shuffled about.
I think it's time we admit Tim Cook is not good at this.
Oh really, I never new that. I love finding out new facts from internet experts.
My point was that maps has worked fine for ME. In multiple locations across the US. And SLC (and Park City) would hardly be considered a big city.
Did I say it worked great for you, in whatever non-"big US city" you tried using it? No.
The fact that maps has worked for you is irrelevant when there is a sufficient body of both anecdotal evidence of a significant percentage of users, and an admission from Apple that maps just isn't good enough
If this thread was 'Is Apple Maps working for you?', then the spurious nonsense that gets posted in every Maps related thread would be okay. But this isn't that thread.
Firing the manager might achieve something, it might not. It's entirely dependant on how he managed the team and what other forces in Apple were at work. It's the same at every large company. Maps will get better, but whether that improvement is soon and is significant is anyone's guess.
Apple knows that it's made a few missteps lately (Maps, relatively small spec bump to iPhone 5, Antennagate), and how it puts things right is of paramount importance. if you want to be the world's darling and have the attention of the world, you need to be prepared to recover when you screw up.
This is terrible news. Thats guy had a family and its crap like this that makes me feel like this is going to be my last Apple product. Firing a guy during christmas who know doubt worked his tail off to make a mapping solution for Apple. So what the project was a failure. I would love to hear this guys version of the story