Who cares about Apple Maps when there is a much better Google Maps available? Why don't they put their energy in product development or QS?
You must not have used it lately. I will periodically use both, side by side, to gauge how well Apple is progressing since its terrible start. I'm glad to say that in some respects it has surpassed Google Maps, such as a nicer interface, and in the most important area, accuracy, is equal to or better, and I use it in cities around the US with great success on a regular basis.
I give the nod to Google in three key areas, "lane assist" where it shows you, Apple Maps just tells you, which lane to be in. In voice accuracy, where inn the car, Google maps hears me more accurately some of the time. Third, Google still has better verbal search and is able to find more obscure addresses than Siri. Oh, and street view is nice, though I seldom use it.
I expect/hope that Apple Maps will overtake Google Maps in 2017 when it completes its own base map. Apple has been working on its own base map, (all the different layers ) for several years. It's a multi billion dollar and multi year effort to build a base map, rather than rely on quilting together the myriad of pieces from other companies. This will enable great things, like their own, and much improved version of "street view."
Mapping is so integral to Apple's current and future plans is why they are adding an additional 4000 employees to the thousands already working on maps. This will be a map focused development center in India.
Lastly, competition between Apple and Google in maps is producing great products in both. Those of us who have an interest in privacy are rooting for Apple since Google keeps track of every where you drive, stop, visit, etc. forever, and adds it to your portfolio of what you post, write, read, watch, photograph, etc. Apple doesn't.
[doublepost=1480964318][/doublepost]
It's a good thing that Apple is improving Maps, with that I definitely agree. It's the primary mapping solution on iOS devices so making it better benefits it's users. I just wish someone could articulate this without resorting to meme level "Google selling my data" hurr durr. It displays a level of ignorance that shouldn't be present on a tech forum like MR.
You're right. Google doesn't sell this data, because then they would lose most of their company's value. They make more than 90% of their revenue from selling ads, so Google does compile a "dossier" on everyone that it can. They scan every email sent and received, they log every song you play, every movie you watch, every post you make, every appointment you make, everywhere you drive your car, every photo you've ever taken, every search you've ever made, etc. They do that because it's enormously valuable to advertisers to know everything about you, so they "give away" all their products to get people to use them and share everything about their lives. They "force" you to use a Google log in, which gives them access to your info from other people's products.
I know people will say "I don't care what Google knows about me. I have nothing to hide." and so on. But when you go through the list of things and show people how every aspect of their lives, and their family members' lives, often who don't have any choice, (it's also why their is a lawsuit about Google scanning every email sent to someone who has a gmail account as those senders never consented to Google storing every one of those emails forever), then many people react in surprise. Once that info is assembled by Google, it is available to law enforcement in the US and elsewhere. It is also available to hackers, intel agencies around the world, and of course, governments.
As one of our intel leaders experts once said, i"f Google didn't exist we would have to invent it." Thankfully, Tim Cook and Apple are trying to stem this tide and protect our privacy, and they haven't built a business model dependent on selling you to advertisers, e.g., Google, Facebook and others, who would go out of business if they ever stopped collecting your private information.
