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Apple Maps App with Interactive Data Layers Detailed in New Patent
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How about a freaking patent for fixing the two misspelled street names in my neighborhood I've reported to Apple via the app like 15 times now.
I've gone from Google fan to anti-Google fan over the past couple of years, but at least they make mapping changes their users submit (I've done it). Seriously Apple, pull it together.
Same here. I think the "report a problem" button is fake.
I reported the problems on day one when Apple Maps was released. Rereported it a dozen of times. The errors are not corrected by now. It has been over a year.Yes, the patent/copyright system in US is horrible and is now detrimental to innovation and progress nowadays. However, until the laws change, this is the way it has to work.
Right now, Apple's protecting their own implementations from being copied/stolen by others. That's their rights and that's what they're doing.
In what way did Apple become a troll? A patent troll is somebody who create or buy patents with the intention to sue other companies without using the said patent in their product. Considering that almost all of Apple's patents were used in their products before they sue others, they're not a troll.
So does everybody else. It's the nature of the crappy patent systems we have.
We can't stop this until we kill software patents completely and that requires the government intervention. The same thing with the tax avoidance stuff, it's legit until we make them illegal.
Interesting.
The patent application originally had 76 claims, but about 40 were already canceled. (Not sure by whom yet.)
An application like this one, with tons of claims, indicates that they sat around and thought up / wrote down as many combinations as they could think of.
Which begs the question: if they could do that, couldn't anyone else?
Software patents need to be radically revised or eliminated.
The patent application originally had 76 claims, but about 40 were already canceled. (Not sure by whom yet.)
An application like this one, with tons of claims, indicates that they sat around and thought up / wrote down as many combinations as they could think of.
Which begs the question: if they could do that, couldn't anyone else?
Software patents need to be radically revised or eliminated.
AFAIK Google Maps is manual. You can toggle layers on and off, and they are "stacked", but this patent looks more like an automation of those features.
If I go to Google Maps now and check on traffic, I see layers for everywhere the data is available. From the description in the patent, it sounds like your selected layers will automatically fade in/out nearby your current location.
Instead of seeing everything they tailor the content to you. Google Now for maps?
Yeah, I like the 'Old Town' section of Arlington with what might be the Masonic Memorial or possibly the Eiffel Tower.
Since when does filing for patents make one a patent troll?
Since large companies have figured out how to use such filing to kill innovation.
Absurd filings like this are not aimed at stopping Samsung or Google, since they have the resources to litigate. They are aimed at small companies and individual developers, who may have a great idea squashed by a letter from Apple's legal department, because they could not afford to fight it, even if they are certain that they will win.
And yes, I understand that this is a screwed up system and that Apple is not the only one doing it. But it is still shameful, particularly from a company which would not exist today if Xerox had employed the same tactics.
I for one personally worked on a mapping app over ten years ago that had a selectable layer dialog. It had a plug-in architecture for third parties to layer artwork over a map in lat-long via icon, polygon or diffusive layers as desired.
The specific project we did was covering cell phone reception down to the meter in urban areas. At times, moving a cell antenna just a few meters drastically increased coverage area.
Just waiting for the media going nuts when third party layers like "ghetto finder" and "hot girl locator" starts up on this.
Don't Like
This patent typifies what's wrong with the USPTO.
I'm glad a** wiping was invented long ago...otherwise one of these nit wit companies would try to patent that as well.
Software patents like this are bogus as hell to me...
Innovate...don't litigate. Apple has become a 33rd Degree Narcissist Corporation. They are so taken with themselves and it's getting annoying.
This patent typifies what's wrong with the USPTO.
I'm glad a** wiping was invented long ago...otherwise one of these nit wit companies would try to patent that as well.
Software patents like this are bogus as hell to me...
Innovate...don't litigate. Apple has become a 33rd Degree Narcissist Corporation. They are so taken with themselves and it's getting annoying.
Your definition of bloat is more narrow than mine, I believe. I wasn't even considering the performance of the application, which I agree, such features could have minimal impact on, but on the screen space required to fit that feature. New options will have to be added to the app. That means more elements on screen. That means less screen space to view the map itself. Or it means nesting the preferences somewhere hard to reach, which defeats the purpose of putting the layer in the app in the first place.
I am confused. Apple paid Xerox with a hundred thousand pre IPO stock that would be worth billions today. In return, all Apple got in return is a tour of Xerox Parc where Xerox was running a GUI based operating system on a big expensive mainframe computer. Moreover, some of Apple's engineers were already interested in GUI computing before the visit and knew Xerox was working on it. The whole purpose of the visit was to get Jobs on board to created a GUI based computer on a much less expensive system.
And people sarcastically whining and deriding others hasn't got boring at all.
Not at all!
Sounds like Apple Maps
This sounds cool, but (and I'm aware I'm repeating something a lot of people have already said) - fix your flipping business locations Apple! I live in the centre of one of England's major cities, we've got, for example, a supermarket half a mile out of place, I've reported the problem several times in the time since Maps first came out and it's STILL wrong (and also floating in the river).
On the bright side, they now have 3D coverage of my city (must be very recent, although Google beat them to it). Still not as useful as Street View, that being the view one actually has when, you know, on the street.
Integrating public transport too, that needs to happen. Oh well, maybe Maps in iOS8 will be awesome
Say, was the software team at Nokia who make their apps part of the deal with MS?
Not to negate the rest of your post, but...
Apple offered Xerox the right to BUY 100,000 pre-IPO shares.
Xerox paid $1.5 million for them in 1979. The stock later split, and Xerox sold 800,000 shares in 1981 for ~$6,776,000.
Thirty-two years later, at today's $545 per share, they would be worth $436 million.
Google Earth does this, and more. Heck it even has basically the same categories to choose from in the example in the patent application.
The Google Earth layer gallery: http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth
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I very much like Apple, but this is a patent application that should be thrown back in their face. This type of layered information has been used in mapping (and beyond) for decades. Nothing unique at all about their idea and they shouldn't have the exclusive right to use it. I'd love them to take the higher ground in the world of tech patents - all they're doing is inflating the problem.
