Apple Hires Two Google Executives With Satellite Expertise

[farewelwilliams]

Satellite has great potential to supplement, but not replace cellular. For satellite internet access, you need to be outdoors with a line of sight to the nearest satellite. So it won't work inside your house, your office, any retail store, or even when outdoors in densely packed urban areas.

At best, we will have a hybrid ground/space solution, as we have now for geolocation, with wifi/cellular triangulation providing quick approximate location data that works indoors, and satellites providing a highly precise location fix when you step outside.

this satellite device was designed to work indoors http://www.groundcontrol.com/SatFi.htm

 

[campyguy]

I thought the best aerial imagery was from planes and drones, not sattelites. Commercially available satellite imagery is not very good for detailed views.

Take a look at the aerial in Apple Maps for these coordinates - 45.6119,-122.6837 (Jantzen Beach Center) - and you'll see a large construction site; the last flyover in that area was done in 2011 and that's what those maps reflect, and that work was completed in 2012 - they're woefully out of date, and there's dozens of new businesses there now.

Back again, with an update regarding aerial data in the iOS Maps app. I installed iOS 11B1 last night on an iPP and iP6S+, and found that a lot of newer aerials have been dialed in. Checking on my work iP6S (iOS 10.3.2) last night, the older aerials *were* showing up - but the new aerials (plus additional POIs!) are also showing up on this device now as of this morning. My macOS Maps app still shows the older aerial imagery.

The new imagery is newer than Google's in that area and appears of better quality (higher resolution) as well. I know it's newer imagery as the pools at my last field office are still showing up as covered, deciduous foliage is leafed, and the vehicles we used aren't present in their assigned spaces. So, progress - old aerial on the left showing in-progress construction (macOS Maps), newer on the right showing current site conditions (iOS Maps) - both screen shots were taken within the last hour: