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Apple Reportedly Had Over a Year Left on Maps Contract with Google

I think Apple underestimated just how much works maps are (hubris). They underestimated how important public transit is (probably because the folks making the decisions don't take it and all the employees either drive to Cupertino or take the shuttle from San Francisco). And Apple felt that being a boutique and beautiful map could make up for serious shortcomings. I think Apple (rightly) assumed that enough people would buy the iPhone 5 regardless.

How Apple responds to this crisis will be a harbinger of their trajectory over the next few years. Data is becoming more important – not less so. And Apple needs to be big in data, like Google big, very very quickly. Apple is notoriously bad at social, web software, and data. Don't believe those making light of this. it's a HUGE crisis for most people in cities who take public transit and people who are used to correct directions without a Dali painting going on in a 3D view, or people who need to see what an intersection or building looks like to find it. This is one of the most used applications on phones for many people and the lack thereof will have people abandoning ship. iPhone is still selling more than any other phone, but there will be a slowdown, and if Apple doesn't fix up there will be a sharp drop off. If Google is smart (and they are) they will expend twice as much effort on their own maps from now on to make this distance between the two experiences even more comical.

Apple needs to buy Garmin... or anyone who can give them a lot of correct mapping info STAT. They need transit information on there like... yesterday. They they need to become a leader in this space as a sign to investors that they will address their weakest points rather than simply focusing on their strengths... because others will catch up to their fit and finish before they catch up to their competitor's services and software.

I say this as an Apple fan.
 
Who is right, Apple or Google?

They both are.

Google's business model is to create services and push them out to consumers, raking-in advertising money as they do so. Turn by turn brings in very little additional revenue, so it was saved as a promotional USP for Android.

In future, Google is keen to get more revenue from Maps and charge more to licensees. (and collect data from users to strengthen the package). Apple's terms would not bring them that.

Apple's business model is to sell devices with built-in packages of features. Mapping is growing in importance, and there was no acceptable way forwards for them. Leaving mapping entirely in the hands of a rival isn't something they could safely do. It was clear to Apple that the only route was to create their own solution. Given the speed of events, they had to buy in a 3D mapping solution along with map data from existing vendors. They did this incredibly quickly.

Apple rolling-out their own solution was inevitable.

So why all the gnashing of teeth? Because the transition was handled badly. Instead of beta-testing the service, instead of making baby steps towards a new solution. Apple slashed and burned.

But Apple always slash and burn. They burn the bridges so that no man is tempted to go back. It's not clear why they do this, perhaps catastrophe produces creative and effective solutions quickly.

They leap into every transition with both feet. They compel everyone endure the pain together and never apologise for it. This pisses people off. But they have always done that, if they think that the long-term goal is more valuable than the short term loss.

If you don't like that attitude, go Microsoft. They are the exact opposite.
 
BvizioN said:
Ok. I hear you.
But what about, perhaps millions of users who would still continiue to use the older iOS version and take their time to upgrade? Same as they are doing now with iOS 5 to have google maps on. So you just take the google maps off the system and force them to upgrade?
Click to expand...

I don't understand your point. The removal of Google Maps relates to iOS 6 only, not iOS 5 or earlier versions.
 
Used find my iPhone yesterday to spy on if my daughter still was at the cinema.

Weeellll on the desktop they still use google for maps... But with apple maps Find my iphone is also worthless now. It showed streets thats in a town 12 km away :-/ WHAAATTT?????? The dot was right but the street names totally wrong.

And it was dark pics and black and white and blured - not useable.

----------

I miss the details... Google Maps had pavements, small side roads, forrest roads that I didnt knew excisted.

With apple maps I have the freeways and thats almost it :-/
 
AppleInTheMud said:
Used find my iPhone yesterday to spy on if my daughter still was at the cinema.

Weeellll on the desktop they still use google for maps... But with apple maps Find my iphone is also worthless now. It showed streets thats in a town 12 km away :-/ WHAAATTT?????? The dot was right but the street names totally wrong.

And it was dark pics and black and white and blured - not useable.

----------

I miss the details... Google Maps had pavements, small side roads, forrest roads that I didnt knew excisted.

With apple maps I have the freeways and thats almost it :-/
Click to expand...



One word LUMIA 920 (and some numbers)
 
NeonGreenHermit said:
I do miss Google Maps, but Apple Maps by far have the greater potential. Just look at the 3D mapping - at some point, this is going to make street view look very sad and dated. It already does, IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah, next time I'm planning to land my helecopter at Powell & Market I'll definitely turn to Flyover... Or (given the hallucenogenic effect of stretching 2D satellite images over 3D models) I'll definitely use it next time I want to re-enact Inception. Sadly, I don't live in San Francisco and the satellite images (and hence the 3D) where I live is a sad, cloud-obscured, monochrome mush of pixels.

...or maybe just fire up the free iOS app Google Earth which has had the feature for years and has much better satellite coverage (and is great as a fun 'exploring' app but not really a practical day-to-day maps application).

Meanwhile, if I actually want to know what a street or building looks like from my mortal ground-based perspective, Street View is the tool for the job.

Lastly, I think there are two sorts of folk in the world - those who have the vision to see 'the next step' (the one after all the cards have been laid at the table) and the rest, who judge everything on 'the here and now'.
Click to expand...

Pro tip: if, when you lay your cards on the table, the combined hand not as good as your opponents, you lose. Just because two of your cards have pretty pictures on them and you could have had a royal flush after three more rounds doesn't cut it.

Yours would have been a great argument if it was 7 years ago and some new start-up called Apple had just had the brilliant idea of doing free, interactive maps. It would also be a good argument if Apple allowed the new Maps to be installed alongside the old, functional, maps as a public beta for a year or so while it matured... you know, the way they introduced OS X.

It doesn't wash now when Apple have taken a mature product that many people were using day-to-day, yanked it, and replaced it with an alpha version of something that may be great in the future but, here and now, has replaced useful functionality with gimmicks.

If you have been following Linux then you'll have seen this fallacy played out several times by KDE, Ubuntu and Gnome: start working on new shiny infrastructure for the future then risk throwing everything away by prematurely pushing it out as the default and dropping the old, stable and functional version. The difference with Linux is that someone can always pick up the old version and run with it.
 
Carniphage said:
They both are.

Google's business model is to create services and push them out to consumers, raking-in advertising money as they do so. Turn by turn brings in very little additional revenue, so it was saved as a promotional USP for Android.

In future, Google is keen to get more revenue from Maps and charge more to licensees. (and collect data from users to strengthen the package). Apple's terms would not bring them that.

Apple's business model is to sell devices with built-in packages of features. Mapping is growing in importance, and there was no acceptable way forwards for them. Leaving mapping entirely in the hands of a rival isn't something they could safely do. It was clear to Apple that the only route was to create their own solution. Given the speed of events, they had to buy in a 3D mapping solution along with map data from existing vendors. They did this incredibly quickly.

Apple rolling-out their own solution was inevitable.

So why all the gnashing of teeth? Because the transition was handled badly. Instead of beta-testing the service, instead of making baby steps towards a new solution. Apple slashed and burned.

But Apple always slash and burn. They burn the bridges so that no man is tempted to go back. It's not clear why they do this, perhaps catastrophe produces creative and effective solutions quickly.

They leap into every transition with both feet. They compel everyone endure the pain together and never apologise for it. This pisses people off. But they have always done that, if they think that the long-term goal is more valuable than the short term loss.

If you don't like that attitude, go Microsoft. They are the exact opposite.
Click to expand...

I like your analysis.

I don't understand Apples behavior, especially since it seems really bad business .. but then again .. I did order an iPhone5 .. so maybe they very well know what they do.

T.
 
I guess you haven't noticed large portions of the city being completely empty, the complete lack of detail around the world's busiest train stations, and the train stations erroneously placed in the middle of neighborhoods, rivers, etc. Check out the Seibu line between Ikebukuro and Tokorozawa sometime. Or Fuchuhonmachi Station (conveniently located right smack in the middle of Tama River). Yeah, perfectly acceptable.
Click to expand...

My guess is that he was one of the beta testers for the new maps app. "Hey, works fine in my street. It's ready to go!" ;-)
 
NeonGreenHermit said:
Lastly, I think there are two sorts of folk in the world - those who have the vision to see 'the next step' (the one after all the cards have been laid at the table) and the rest, who judge everything on 'the here and now'. It's only the former that progress the world, in any industry or institution - the latter simply follow, rabble rousing at first, joyous when the vision becomes reality to them. Don't be the latter, people. They kinda make it harder for everything to move forward.
Click to expand...

Funny enough it is all those people "seeing the vision" that are blindly following somebody promising to lead them somewhere (Apple is going go make it better) while the "visionless" folks try to change something to the better .. weird isn't it?
Seeing and believing in a vision is far more likely to make you into a dumb sheep then taking a good look at the here and now.

T.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
I don't understand your point. The removal of Google Maps relates to iOS 6 only, not iOS 5 or earlier versions.
Click to expand...

When the gogole map licence does end, iOS users should not be able to use google maps, regardless of the iOS version they are on (including iOS 5). At least this is what i think, correct me if am wrong.
 
LethalWolfe said:
Is it hart to understand that they hate Google? No. Is it surprising that they let that hate result in a sub-par user experience like this? Yes.
Click to expand...

Google Maps on iOS was a sub par user experience compared to the Google Android version. This is the right move for iOS users in the long run.
 
It might have made the decision to replace the app with an exact solution, leaving the Google with little time to develop a version capable of running on iOS 6.
 
really not that fussed about google maps or apple maps what i want is a good working relaible map app ... It is up to apple what they do and dont do as the case maybe with a lot of things.
 
BvizioN said:
When the gogole map licence does end, iOS users should not be able to use google maps, regardless of the iOS version they are on (including iOS 5). At least this is what i think, correct me if am wrong.
Click to expand...

I have no idea how that would work, but I will speculate and say I think that iOS 5 and earlier version users would get to keep the Google Maps after the contract ended and any newer iOS version releases would not get the Google Maps. I don't think it would be like you wake up one day and the app just disappeared because a contract expired between the two companies.
 
its pretty simple.. if they left the new maps out, ios6 wouldn't have any big features.
 
Xenc said:
Google were caught off guard? They've known for months that iOS 6 will use Apple maps.
Click to expand...

It was probably months ago when Apple first announced their maps version that Google was caught off guard; not just now. They probably did not have prior knowledge of this and heard about it publicly like the rest of us.
 
ios6maps-sm.jpg
 
Mr. Gates said:
One word LUMIA 920 (and some numbers)
Click to expand...

Actually Nokia has better maps than both Google and Apple, at least for eastern europe.

See what you get for the capital in one eastern european country on Google Maps. :D


And this is from Nokia:



Apple should have bought Nokia...
 
It's good that they surprised Google. More competition in Maps is better for the consumers.
 
NeonGreenHermit said:
I do miss Google Maps, but Apple Maps by far have the greater potential. Just look at the 3D mapping - at some point, this is going to make street view look very sad and dated. It already does, IMO.

Lastly, I think there are two sorts of folk in the world - those who have the vision to see 'the next step' (the one after all the cards have been laid at the table) and the rest, who judge everything on 'the here and now'. It's only the former that progress the world, in any industry or institution - the latter simply follow, rabble rousing at first, joyous when the vision becomes reality to them. Don't be the latter, people. They kinda make it harder for everything to move forward.
Click to expand...

That's the classic apologist response – that "the complainers are preventing forward movement". My complaint – and that of a lot of others – seems to be that things which could have been corrected in advance were not. I agree that it's impractical to expect Apple to check every single location pointer, and that the system for indicating errors is elegant and promising, but what about simple things like the resolution of the satellite imagery for the majority of the land area (not the tiny major city centres). It would have been easy enough to simply set a minimum standard and buy mapping up to that standard, as Google and Bing have. It took years for them to do this, but now this is a standard we expect; Apple shouldn't make high-paying users suffer a retrograde step. They should have spent that money to buy the good maps/aerial photography that already exists.

I've had an iPhone since launch day, but things will have to seriously change in months, not years, if I'm to stick with the iPhone.

----------
viewfly said:
It's good that they surprised Google. More competition in Maps is better for the consumers.
Click to expand...

Or it would be, if the Apple offering presented any sort of competition.
 
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