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

[ssmed]

So speaks someone who lives in central San Francisco only .....

The apple maps for the UK are truly terrible and cannot be compared to the good but basic standard of google maps on the previous version of iOS

In the Midlands, Leamington Spa, Stratford upon Avon and Solihull just don't exist whereas tiny hamlets around them are listed. There is a complete lack of understanding of the size and relevance of places.

I thankfully have Ordinance Survey mapping on my phone - expensive, but very worth it.

 

[dhrlove]

What a frigging boneheaded move. The person responsible should be questioned closely. And I daresay that Steve would never have released a new service that was worse than the old.

...um final cut. Steve allowed that without being complete.

 

[KnightWRX]

Please explain how releasing a maps application on a platform where the user is 100% free to download another maps application from the app store is considering "shoving it down the users throat." Oh wait, its not. You're just over reacting.

Shoving it down your throat would be eliminating all maps apps on the app store and making Apple maps the only available application. But we both know that is not the case.

Somehow, you missed Map Kit. RunKeeper depends on Map Kit for one. Google Maps RunKeeper = Good. Apple Maps RunKeeper = unable to map out runs and thus unusable in many areas.

That's how they "shoved it down our throats". Basically, the problem is not the Maps app itself (also, you fail to point out many Map solutions in the App Store are built over Map Kit and thus were automatically transitionned to Apple Maps with iOS 6).

I've pointed this out many times already, why do you pick that post to reply to but ignore all the other posts where I carefully explain the Map Kit conundrum ?

With this latest bit of news, it shows that Apple could have done an optional release. They didn't. I'm now irritated, thus my level of cooperation in providing feedback is now nil.

----------

There was probably a deal that as long as they are supporting Google, apple can not have its own map app so if they introduce their app they break contract and google says no maps for you.

Maps still work fine on iOS 5 devices right now.

 

[pommie82]

The compass on the Iphone is more useful then the map system on the OS6
they should of stopped with the old mapping system a lot better and least that it worked sometimes the changes are not worth the change like it showing now i wish i could go back to OS5 and use the mapping system i use the maps a awful lot

Its about time they brought offline maps to the table too that would be so useful sometimes when you haven't got signal let hope that the bring offline maps in OS7 fingers crossed

 

[cycomiko]

I'm pleased with the service and have no interest in your whining about what you feel should be acceptable. You have an unrealistic view of how huge this undertaking is...

Who gives a **** how huge the undertaking is. If I want a filet mignon, I do not expect low quality cos its sorta hard to get a cow from the field to my plate.

Apple replaced a working product with a worse product. Oh poor Apple, it was really hard. Sure, you sit back and we can rub your shoulders.

Nobody should get a free ride for creating a worse product. Not Apple, not Microsoft, not Amazon or Google.

 

[franswa za]

maps app for mac? when?

 

[Dangerous Theory]

Also, what the folks criticizing Apple seem to be missing is that Google was screwing all of us for years, by hobbling their iPhone Maps app (the Android version is much better, including turn-by-turn directions).

The android version really isn't much better. I'm looking at it on my S3 right now, and I'd say it's pretty much the same save for a slightly different UI. Both versions have turn-by-turn directions. If you are in fact referring to voice-given directions, then that is not the Google Maps app. It has it's own separate app - namely "Navigation" - for Android. I wouldn't say Google was screwing us over at all.

The truth of the matter is that Google has been in the mapping game for a long time. They know their beans and Apple made a foolish decision to prematurely cut them off. I imagine a lot of us won't be upgrading to iOS 6 until Google release theirs on the App store.

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In the Midlands, Leamington Spa, Stratford upon Avon and Solihull just don't exist whereas tiny hamlets around them are listed. There is a complete lack of understanding of the size and relevance of places.

Mental isn't it. As someone who lives in SuA, I can't see how such a popular town can be missed.

 

[KnightWRX]

Sorry, I'll edit your post a bit in the quotes, only move stuff around.

I can't imagine that this is strictly done out of spite for Google.

[...]

This is no way excuses Apple for all the errors that exist in their maps and I cannot understand in what world they can tout it as amazing.

Again, I'm sure it wasn't done out of spite or in a rush or whatever. I posted a link to a blog by a mapping/GIS professional that explains it better (he analysed Google's own efforts over the years in building the maps system they use).

Basically, Apple's testing infrastructure is probably at fault. Not that it isn't good, but that they probably used a method that was completely unable to spot these kind of mistakes which only a human can (misspellings of locations, misplaced locations by a couple of miles, older POIs, missing POIs, etc..).

Apple probably genuinely thought that they had it down before WWDC. No ill will towards Google, no arrogance, plain old "we've got it, It Just Works, ship.". Reality must've bit hard after the feedback started coming in after the launch of DP1.

But now they've showed the world what it was. They boldly claimed it was in iOS 6. What are they going to do ? It's June, they're 4 months from shipping, there's no way to fix it before then. Go back to Google Maps ? What kind of bad press would *THAT* have generated ("Apple fails to deliver maps after bold WWDC claims"). It would also have left iOS 6 without one of its biggest features, pretty much relegating it to a point update rather than a major new version.

As I understand it, Apple was feeding the information provided from Maps to Google, thereby making Google's product (Maps) better. If Apple had waited a year, that's an extra year that Apple is improving Google's product while not getting the most out of it (vector-based maps, turn-by-turn). I can't imagine Apple has any interest in doing that.

Apple should have done what they did with Mac OS X (yes, I know, 11 years ago is a long time and hardly anyone remembers) : Limited public release, for users that want to be bleeding edge. IE, put the Apple Maps app on the App Store as an optional download.

Leave Map Kit alone for now so that 3rd party apps still use Google maps, thus not breaking them where Apple maps are incomplete, and do a massive marketing push to get those bleeding edge users to download and install, side-by-side, the new Apple Maps with turn-by-turn, vectors, pretty graphics but hard to read maps and missing POIs/Streets/misplaced cities.

The user base that would have used it (and I have no doubt it would have been millions of savvy Apple heads) would have been thrilled to debug it/feed it correct information. The bad press would have been nil, and it would have let Apple use up the last of the contract with Google. When it was ready, maybe for iOS 7, replace the Map Kit back-end and the default application with it.

Like with OS X, when it was actually ready, they dropped OS 9 from new Macs and shipped them with OS X. That took a few releases. Heck, they even released OS X 10.1 free since OS X 10.0 was so bad. Hindsight being 20/20, I'm pretty sure that would have been the plan if they had known about the problems pre-WWDC of this year.

Again, I'm sure Apple was left as surprised as the user base by just how much problems there were.

 

[Nungster]

Android phones have had far superior native maps/navigation since day 1, and I agree with the article that the gap was widening with each release. Apple made the right move. They'll get maps right eventually.

Agreed. I think pressure for native turn by turn direction beat out the option to continue on for yet another year of limited mapping options.

 

[KnightWRX]

It will never catch up - it's not like Google will suspend working on their mapping service while Apple get their **** together. And it's not like 80 million people, not on an iPhone, will stop submitting their data to Google Maps...

I thought this was highly funny and appropriate given circumstances :

Someone posted it earlier, but I think it needs to be repeated now a few pages later after the original posted was buried.

 

[MuppetGate]

...um final cut. Steve allowed that without being complete.

And didn't Steve cut Rosetta from OSX?

 

[Macist]

...um final cut. Steve allowed that without being complete.

Lots of people have drawn parallels with FCPX but it's not quite the same. If Apple Maps was like that it would perhaps be missing one or two features annoying to some but be clearly a massively superior product to anyone with an open mind.

Maps is just dire. It really is throw-in-the-trash-and-give-up dire.

 

[baryon]

How come Apple couldn't use turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps, just like Android did?

 

[robeddie]

I would think that if their contract with Google was expiring they would want to move to another option at least a year before the end of the contract. This way those who don't upgrade won't be left without a maps option at all.

They could have left the current google maps app on the phone AND put their new map program on. Plenty of folks like you, probably would have been fine using apples new maps, giving them data ... but the rest of us who want a fully baked mapping solution could have used the google maps app.

Why punish their customers because they have a cues with Google??!?

 

[Macist]

Agreed. I think pressure for native turn by turn direction beat out the option to continue on for yet another year of limited mapping options.

They could have just slapped an Apple-branded SatNav app on there with data from whoever. Box ticked.

 

[antipioneer]

The apple maps for the UK are truly terrible and cannot be compared to the good but basic standard of google maps on the previous version of iOS

In the Midlands, Leamington Spa, Stratford upon Avon and Solihull just don't exist whereas tiny hamlets around them are listed. There is a complete lack of understanding of the size and relevance of places.

I thankfully have Ordinance Survey mapping on my phone - expensive, but very worth it.

That's simply untrue. The labelling might not be great, but they're there.

 

[polterbyte]

So they decided to burn their bridges. Not a new strategy at all, actually, and one that often works.

To be sure, they presented us, the customers, with a product that by their own definition is sub-par, but that—in my experience, at least—is very usable, and provides a good experience. Still, I believe that this is a good move. In a few weeks the shock of the matter will wear off, the application will quietly improve, and by Christmas the sales figures will be astounding, as always.

And by next year analysts will, in retrospect, be praising Apple for its gutsy move; the move that made them independent from yet another part of Google.

___________

[EDIT] It seems to be already happening: http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/ hasn't been updated in the last two days (latest update made on Monday, 09/24). Even if it's way too soon to see any progress in the quality of the maps, the hype seems to be dying down already.

 

[MuppetGate]

That's simply untrue. The labelling might not be great, but they're there.

Beat me to it. I just tried Leamington Spa, Stratford-On-Avon and Solihull.

Yup, all three are there (though the Leamington Spa satellite shot isn't up to much).

Just looked up my folks' home in the West Midlands. Zoomed in and went to 3D. Could see the dining set in the garden. Wierdly, my car was parked out front; seems the shot was taken on one of the rare occasions I pop in.

I was very impressed, but I should visit home more often ...

 

[tann]

What a horrid piece of news.

At least before this I assumed that the contract was up and a new one wouldn't be a 1 year deal (usually multi year) so therefore they had to put in their own maps.

Now they put in their own crappy maps and end the google contract early? Waste of money.

 

[doelcm82]

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.

The "folks trying to change something to the better," are complaining on a blog about what Imaginary Steve would have done, and suggesting things that are never going to happen.

This is Apple's Maps app going forward, and if the data it is giving you is not right, there's a process for reporting it to the people who really can do something about it.

Or you could keep telling me, your fellow blog reader, and I will tell you you that your feelings are valid and you should have yourself a good cry. There, there, now.

 

[ssmed]

That's simply untrue. The labelling might not be great, but they're there.

The point of a map is that you look at it and see writing - it is a visual object, you shouldn't have to search for some invisible data which is on a grid. If you look at the map they do not exist!

 

[Rogifan]

Nonsense

The problems are with a minority of the users, and are being quickly resolved

That might be the case with "scuff gate" but maps? You're joking if you think it only affects a minority of users.

 

[KnightWRX]

How come Apple couldn't use turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps, just like Android did?

Apple would have had to license out the rights from Google's partners as Google wouldn't sub-license it to them.

 

[vivalafleur]

Turn by turn anyone?

More Apple bashing.

What does it matter to you if a satellite map of Nova Scotia or the Brooklyn bridge isn't great lookin in 3D yet?

Turn by turn directions work great, and honestly,
what the hell are you using the map for but to take you places?

 

[MuppetGate]

So they decided to burn their bridges. Not a new strategy at all, actually, and one that often works.

To be sure, they presented us, the customers, with a product that by their own definition is sub-par, but that—in my experience, at least—is very usable, and provides a good experience. Still, I believe that this is a good move. In a few weeks the shock of the matter will wear off, the application will quietly improve, and by Christmas the sales figures will be astounding, as always.

And by next year analysts will, in retrospect, be praising Apple for its gutsy move; the move that made them independent from yet another part of Google.

Not so much Apple burning their bridges as burning ours.

OS9
Rosetta
iMovie
Final Cut
X11
Carbon64

This is nothing new, and neither is the screaming from the Apple customers and Android supporters that goes with it.
And as you say, a year from now, most of this will have been forgotten, along with the fuss over the Lightning connector.