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Apple Maps Gains Flyover and 3D Buildings in Many New Cities
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Maybe they'll update it by the time the Vikings move out...
Apple's i have had my share of google map screwups over the years including sending me 10 miles in the wrong direction because I couldn't turn around.
Dagnabbit!
My street gained Flyover, but it stops short of my house. I'm still stuck in flatland! Down the road, my neighbors' doghouses are in 3D.
Oh well--my time will come.
It got dog slow in the last hour, too--I blame MR for making the whole world look at their house at the same moment.
I've seen some of my errors reported fixed within a week or two. Others, still unfixed after months. Many, I know, are errors served up by partners like Yelp.com, so Apple in theory must be passing reports on to those partners. They must be prioritizing and automating how they deal with the flood of reports, and I'm sure they face some learning curve.
Luckily, I've never seen a major error--mainly just businesses pinned a hundred feet off of their actual building. (I'm in the US. I know some areas are better than others.)
One thing I know: the people flying the Flyover planes are NOT the same people who "fix basic data errors." Apple has people to maintain both efforts at once
P.S. Imagine if Apple made Street View. Imagine the HOWLS of rage and mockery at the blurred-out unreadable signs, massive lens flares, cars cut in half, and whole scenes lost in shadow. Bloggers would be posting screenshots daily of errors we just give Google a free pass on. (Likewise, we always gave Google a free pass for wrong addresses, which were and still are frequent... but with an Apple logo, the same type of error is a war crime!) Street View is useful to me once or twice a month, and it was a really cool idea, but it's a mess in its own right.
Meanwhile the level of detail in Flyover is enough to be useful. It doesn't show readable signs the way Google (1/3 of the time) does, but it gives you the look of the street and the buildings VERY clearly.
And unlike Street View, you don't have to maddeningly and awkwardly jump node to node to node. You can zip around smoothly and not lose your bearings. Fly a mile or a meter with a flick. Try realizing you're on the wrong block in Street View and going a block down the street--it's so slow and finicky that it's basically useless. You have to use regular map view for that jump and then return to Street View. Google's solution is decent if you already know EXACTLY the spot you want to see. Not so good for exploring your way around. Plus, Street View has very little that isn't a... street! Flyover lets me cross through woods, parks, public squares, footpaths, private drives/complexes, etc.
Of the two (both flawed, both gimmicky) features, I'll take Flyover. (And of course, I still have Google Maps and Street View as well when I want them.)
My street gained Flyover, but it stops short of my house. I'm still stuck in flatland! Down the road, my neighbors' doghouses are in 3D.
Oh well--my time will come.
It got dog slow in the last hour, too--I blame MR for making the whole world look at their house at the same moment.
I've seen some of my errors reported fixed within a week or two. Others, still unfixed after months. Many, I know, are errors served up by partners like Yelp.com, so Apple in theory must be passing reports on to those partners. They must be prioritizing and automating how they deal with the flood of reports, and I'm sure they face some learning curve.
Luckily, I've never seen a major error--mainly just businesses pinned a hundred feet off of their actual building. (I'm in the US. I know some areas are better than others.)
One thing I know: the people flying the Flyover planes are NOT the same people who "fix basic data errors." Apple has people to maintain both efforts at once
P.S. Imagine if Apple made Street View. Imagine the HOWLS of rage and mockery at the blurred-out unreadable signs, massive lens flares, cars cut in half, and whole scenes lost in shadow. Bloggers would be posting screenshots daily of errors we just give Google a free pass on. (Likewise, we always gave Google a free pass for wrong addresses, which were and still are frequent... but with an Apple logo, the same type of error is a war crime!) Street View is useful to me once or twice a month, and it was a really cool idea, but it's a mess in its own right.
Meanwhile the level of detail in Flyover is enough to be useful. It doesn't show readable signs the way Google (1/3 of the time) does, but it gives you the look of the street and the buildings VERY clearly.
And unlike Street View, you don't have to maddeningly and awkwardly jump node to node to node. You can zip around smoothly and not lose your bearings. Fly a mile or a meter with a flick. Try realizing you're on the wrong block in Street View and going a block down the street--it's so slow and finicky that it's basically useless. You have to use regular map view for that jump and then return to Street View. Google's solution is decent if you already know EXACTLY the spot you want to see. Not so good for exploring your way around. Plus, Street View has very little that isn't a... street! Flyover lets me cross through woods, parks, public squares, footpaths, private drives/complexes, etc.
Of the two (both flawed, both gimmicky) features, I'll take Flyover. (And of course, I still have Google Maps and Street View as well when I want them.)
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This. I would have said it myself but you beat me to it by four minutes.
Although you're not actually saying quite the same thing as me. I love flyover for figuring out how to walk around a city. Street view is pretty worthless. I can normally walk down a street in person faster than street view will simulate me walking down it. Flyover, on the other hand, lets me see where I am right now, and lets me easily pan down the street and see what's around the corner 1/4 mile from me or so. And I can look up and see the same landmarks in person that I see on my phone. If Apple could stick that same thing on my watch, that'd be amazing as it wouldn't involve me jogging 1/4 mile at a time, then pulling my phone out, unlocking it, and looking for the next landmark, then putting it back in my pocket... in addition to being more convenient, it's less likely that I'll be mugged or have my phone stolen (which hasn't happened yet, but I'm worried about the possibility every time I have to use my phone in an alleyway or busy sidewalk.)
What's amazing is that they managed to make Apple Maps better than Google maps in under 1 year. Google was launched in 2005? That's what - 8 years?
I have no doubts that Apple will make Youtube and Google obsolete. I suspect they are killing off the services as quickly as they can without diminishing the user experience. Wouldn't surprise me if an Apple Video service popped up within the year.
I have no doubts that Apple will make Youtube and Google obsolete. I suspect they are killing off the services as quickly as they can without diminishing the user experience. Wouldn't surprise me if an Apple Video service popped up within the year.
When do u want to use that?
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Scott Forstall would beg to differ.
Isn't he dead?
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to feel this way. Personally, I've never found street view to be all that useful. Those times that I've tried to use it, the images were never sufficiently clear to allow any practical use.
Like you, I'll take flyover any day..
This is factually incorrect. The Apple app, itself, is excellent, but Google's map data is objectively much more comprehensive than Apple's offerings.
Same here. Street View is a joke compared to Flyover. Just compared the two recently to figure out the downtown area in a big city we were visiting. Trying to tap, tap, tap down all the way down every single street in Street View was maddeningly frustrating but really easy with Flyover. Heck, Street View wouldn't even let me traverse the downtown park... I guess because it isn't a street. No such limitations with Flyover though.
Street View is just way to slow and restricting compared to Flyover. Google needs to pull its head out of its ass and stop resting on old tech because Apple seems to be catching up fast and already surpassing them in some areas like this Flyover as well as turn by turn navigation and overall UI of the maps app.
When I saw this post, I got excited and immediately opened my maps app to see if San Antonio had finally caught up with the other large Texas cities. Nooooope. I suppose they definitely are not choosing their locations based on population or city size.
I'll also admit that once it is available here, it will quickly be sort of a gimmick and just something I play with when I'm bored.
I'll also admit that once it is available here, it will quickly be sort of a gimmick and just something I play with when I'm bored.
Both are not programmers. You don't have programmers fixing map data. You have lots of people driving around in little cars fixing map data.
Since maps arrived, they have fixed all the satellite images in the UK (at least I haven't found problems in areas where they had problems), and the massive problems with satellite images in the south of Germany (at least I haven't found problems where I found them before). So yes, in a years time I expect Apple's data to be better than Google's, and the software always was better.
BTW. The Australians figured out that Google sends you to the same desert locations that Apple Maps did when you typed in certain town names. Except that Apple has fixed the problem since. Google hasn't. And on Google Maps, the pub in my village is still in the middle of the cricket field.
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Let's go ahead and not confuse an editorial column with a real and credible experiment.
Those people should conduct the test again in a smaller, rural US town or overseas. Let's see who the "winners" are then.
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I don't view Flyover and Street View as competing functions. Flyover, to me, is a novelty made for people who aren't necessarily using the app, at the time, for directions. Street View is for people who need directions and need to be able to see what their final destination looks like from their level.
If you don't see Street View as a valuable resource of directions, then you're blind.
They haven't got round to my part of the world yet, most of the smaller towns in the West Midlands are still unlabelled.
No they haven't. It might be better for where you live but there are still lots of areas in the UK where they are still quite poor.
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The big problem for me with both google and apple maps is they are equally useless when travelling unless you like paying huge fees for data roaming. Bloody phone companies, after so many years here in Europe still annoyed Canadians and Americans can use unlimited data travelling a modest distance while the same distance in Europe you have to flit from wifi to wifi or risek large charges-thank goodness that only happened once on voice to me. [/rant]
It's okay, I have Google Maps now.
Streetview is rather wonderful.
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Unlike Flyover, I can pinpoint where a building is going to be on eye-level. I'd love Flyover if I was flying over, but since I approach most things at street level I'm more keen on Streetview. Just seems to be functional and cool, rather than having no functionality at all.
Streetview is rather wonderful.
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Unlike Flyover, I can pinpoint where a building is going to be on eye-level. I'd love Flyover if I was flying over, but since I approach most things at street level I'm more keen on Streetview. Just seems to be functional and cool, rather than having no functionality at all.
I was about to say that it's been more than 18 months and they haven't fixed ANYTHING!... but then I read this...
That's the first time I've heard anyone reporting a problem fixed. Armed with this new information, I decided to check the biggest problem local to me and joy of joys! - It's fixed! The label for my town is now on my town rather than in the middle of nowhere 10 miles away
The other two errors I'd reported (one of which is, I freely admit, a tiny, insignificant error) are still there but at least progress is being made
I'd hope they'd be using something a whole load more accurate like dedicated GPS rather than either web-based solution.
