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

[1=1?]

lol at their hubris finally taking down their empire. this is the first release where people are starting to not feel totally confident that they aren't being had. I love my products that I have bought but have always been sort of insulted at their attitude, now it's catching up with them.

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I don't understand why people keep saying Apple is too far behind. The new app uses multiple established data sources, including TomTom which has been around for many years. Apple didn't create all this data from scratch in the last year.

Have you used the application? It's complete crap. That's why people are saying they are behind. I thought so before I heard anyone else complain about it before they released it. I looked up a restaurant 2 blocks away from me (SF) and it placed it as a car shop in Michigan.

 

[NOV]

Good riddance, Apple had to bite the bullet one day. From now on it only gets better.

 

[Terrin]

As explained before Apple will never catch up to google. They are just way to far behind. As for crowd sourcing date, They have less ability to grab it that Google. Top it off Google is pulling in information from more location so it has just better data to begin with.

Interesting, many people said the same thing about Apple entering the phone business and the music player business. When you have money, determination, and smarts, there is little you cannot accomplish.

Further, with Apple kicking Google off iOS, Google's pool of information is significantly taking a hit, while Apple's is growing. Moreover, Apple is gathering information through Siri searches, Apple Store purchases, location services, iCloud services, and now maps.

 

[normwood]

I personally like the new maps. I'm not saying it has all the features of the old maps, but for me it works great.

This morning I was running an errand. I was coming up to my exit and couldn't remember whether I needed to take the east exit or the west exit. I fired up Siri quick and asked "Where is XXXX?" She instantly popped up the map so I could see that I need to head east. Just for the heck of it I hit her up again and said "take me there.". She thought for about 5 seconds and started navigating me there.

No complaints. Good Stuff. A lot of the "FAIL" people on here just need to start looking at life from a little larger perspective.

Steve

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Interesting, many people said the same thing about Apple entering the phone business and the music player business. When you have money, determination, and smarts, there is little you cannot accomplish.

Further, with Apple kicking Google off iOS, Google's pool of information is significantly taking a hit, while Apple's is growing. Moreover, Apple is gathering information through Siri searches, Apple Store purchases, location services, iCloud services, and now maps.

Lets see Google has money so not like Apple will have an edge there. Money only gets you so far and is well pass that point for Apple,

Not a big lost for Google as 1 Apple maps sucks and everyone knows it.
Google has the web, pulls from more sources already to keep stuff updated.
Get out of the Apple worship and you will see Apple is not going to do it. Apple is a decade behind everyone else and brought nothing new to the table.

 

[d21mike]

Have you used the application? It's complete crap. That's why people are saying they are behind. I thought so before I heard anyone else complain about it before they released it. I looked up a restaurant 2 blocks away from me (SF) and it placed it as a car shop in Michigan.

Have you? Or did you just do 1 search and then say it is crap or did you really try to use it. Also, care you share the details of the search you did? Like the name and address of the business you did the search on? Could it be that there is a car shop in Michigan with the same name? Not saying that you are wrong but to simply post that "I searched for a business" and it could not find it so it must be crap is not that helpful.

 

[phpmaven]

lol at their hubris finally taking down their empire. this is the first release where people are starting to not feel totally confident that they aren't being had. I love my products that I have bought but have always been sort of insulted at their attitude, now it's catching up with them.

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Have you used the application? It's complete crap. That's why people are saying they are behind. I thought so before I heard anyone else complain about it before they released it. I looked up a restaurant 2 blocks away from me (SF) and it placed it as a car shop in Michigan.

Extreme much?

 

[laurim]

Have you used the application?

Yes I've used it and I LOVE it. Way more useful to me than Google Maps was for driving. I guess Cottage Grove, MN population ~36,000 is a high priority area because the app works perfectly here, even to find my nephew's house in a new subdivision. Oh, and it found the hotels for my upcoming trip to Germany just fine, including the ones in Erding and Darmstadt.

 

[chrisbru]

As explained before Apple will never catch up to google. They are just way to far behind. As for crowd sourcing date, They have less ability to grab it that Google. Top it off Google is pulling in information from more location so it has just better data to begin with.

Apple will never catch up? I feel like this has been said before about Apple... I wouldn't make such an absolute statement. Yes, it's a tough job, and may take a while, but I would be very surprised if Apple doesn't at least become competitive with, if not better than, Google in the future.

 

[huffcw]

Yes I've used it and I LOVE it. Way more useful to me than Google Maps was for driving. I guess Cottage Grove, MN population ~36,000 is a high priority area because the app works perfectly here, even to find my nephew's house in a new subdivision. Oh, and it found the hotels for my upcoming trip to Germany just fine, including the ones in Erding and Darmstadt.

My experience so far with the voice navigation and integration with Siri is way smoother and better than my experience using the voice navigation with my old Android phone. The routes I have taken so far (Detroit area) with the Apple maps have been dead on - and it re-routes immediately. The interface and responsiveness is much closer to a dedicated GPS.

On Android, the voice synthesis was way harder to understand, and I often got directions to turn after I already passed the street (it could more be the phone I had than the fault of Android itself - I don't know - but the experience was not great). Also, I had a number of very bad routing errors with Google maps - one that took me up the side of a mountain in Tennessee on single lane roads with straight drop-offs in an endless circle that never got me to my destination (ended up having to turn it off and find my own way). I also had issues in major cities where it had me on an adjacent street.

With all that said, I have noticed a number of shockingly wrong data points in the Apple maps near me when it comes to points of interest. For example, restaurants in completely wrong locations (even major chains like McDonald's). The roads seem to be spot on - and entered addresses map correctly for me - but many points-of-interest appear to be off (and some way off). This is disappointing!

For backup, I have the free MapQuest app, which doesn't have the best interface but works very well for me with mapping, voice navigation and point-of-interest accuracy.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Wouldn't you be better off if you knew the alternative route was also clogged? Turning traffic data on side-streets off will degrade your ability to choose the best alternative route. And about the updates - I thought that these were real-time (the ones in Google are - and Wuze that Apple build upon are also).

Nope. I wouldn't. If there's traffic, I go on the side streets and it's always shorter. Giving you the option to turn off side street traffic would take away the Mexican flag look of Google maps.

There's a reason Apple went for the minimalistic look. The problem with Apple's maps is that it's too minimalistic.

 

[shk718]

i like the maps app alot. they load up much faster than before, when you zoom in the street names don't shrink to the point I can't see them - the fly over is kind of fun and i'm not finding that much wrong info. i bet they're not getting tom tom's full DB - once they add some more info it'll be fine.

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Apple will never catch up? I feel like this has been said before about Apple... I wouldn't make such an absolute statement. Yes, it's a tough job, and may take a while, but I would be very surprised if Apple doesn't at least become competitive with, if not better than, Google in the future.

all it takes is some $'s to catch up - this is not a hardware issue - its a data issue - very very easy to solve. I think there are a lot of android fan boys here trying to churn the pot - just like antenna gate - which turned out to be a big nothing.

 

[MacinDoc]

Have you used the application? It's complete crap. That's why people are saying they are behind. I thought so before I heard anyone else complain about it before they released it. I looked up a restaurant 2 blocks away from me (SF) and it placed it as a car shop in Michigan.

Works better for me in Canada than my 2010 vehicles' built-in GPS devices or the Google-based maps app it replaced, more accurate locations and better routing. However, it is harder to locate POIs (you sometimes have to do a browser-based search first to find addresses), and integration with Siri takes it to a whole new level (much better than other solutions that require you to navigate multiple menus and then spell out destinations letter by letter).

Looking forward to seeing the improvements that user feedback will bring, especially with respect to POIs.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Apple is a decade behind everyone else and brought nothing new to the table.

The same when they entered the cell phone business which they were far behind. Well, we see how that turned out. Then they entered the tablet market, which they currently dominate and caused a resurgence of the whole tablet market for other manufactures.

Now they are developing their own mapping system. Sure they are behind, does not mean it will not be just as useful in the future or come up with its own unique features that nobody else comes out with. They do have a daunting task with one of the best mapping services in the industry, Google.

The Google Nexus 7 also does not necessarily bring anything new or innovative either. Does not mean they should not bring their own version of tablet which looks quite attractive for an Android tablet.

I really like Google maps, Google earth. They even came out with virtual tours even of the Barrier Reef.

Once it has matured it should be quite usable.

 

[smokedart]

I've been using it on my work phone, and I work in the middle of Chicago, one of the biggest cities in the world, You would think it would be flawless right? It's not, sometimes yes it works just fine. But some locations are blocks away from where they are, the turn by turn seems to be...vauge at best, and some locations that have been there for 50 years are in random spots, can anyone tell me why the Daily bar was in a lake until yesterday?

I drove across the country in August using the Beta of iOS Maps the whole way across and it worked flawlessly. I had never been to Chicago before but stopped there overnight during my trip.

Apple Maps took me directly to my hotel from the highway, then gave perfect directions to the two restaurants I went to while there, and finally took me out of the city again using turn by turn directions from Apple Maps the whole way.

I don't disagree that there are definitely issues to be resolved, but I think most people will find them accurate and easy to use.

 

[charlituna]

This is what The Verge article says
'Apple's decision to ship its own mapping system in the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 was made over a year before the company's agreement to use Google Maps expired, according to two independent sources familiar with the matter. The decision, made sometime before Apple's WWDC event in June, sent Google scrambling to develop an iOS Google Maps app — an app which both sources say is still incomplete and currently not scheduled to ship for several months.'

That is not the same as Apple cut their contract a year early

 

[G51989]

I drove across the country in August using the Beta of iOS Maps the whole way across and it worked flawlessly. I had never been to Chicago before but stopped there overnight during my trip.

Apple Maps took me directly to my hotel from the highway, then gave perfect directions to the two restaurants I went to while there, and finally took me out of the city again using turn by turn directions from Apple Maps the whole way.

I don't disagree that there are definitely issues to be resolved, but I think most people will find them accurate and easy to use.

It works lots of time in Chicago, but lots of the time it does not. **** is missing that should not be missing. And locations are totally screwed up.

Honestly, they should have just gave it another couple months for testing.

I think Apple 100% underestimated the scale of what they're doing. And this isn't something that you just throw money at, it takes the right people, and time.

Googles been doing it for the better part of a decade, I don't see Apple being able to match that for another few years.

 

[dugbug]

Why don't you and the rest of the ignorant commenters stating 'it's ok for me', 'it'll only get better' or 'it just needs some user feedback' read the ***** comments then?

In the UK for example because I live here:

- entire towns wrongly located and even missing.

- Not one road in the entire country correctly colour coded and differentiated between motorways, A & B roads.

- satellite imagery low rez and black and white over the majority of the country

Need I go on? A country of millions, and these are NOT issues that should or even can, in some cases, be fixed by user feedback. It should never have been replaced Google at this point even if it was released as a trial. You CANNOT remove such an important feature as mapping from MILLIONS of users ok?

And before someone else says it, turn by turn was not an acceptable trade off. It is useless when the underlying maps are wrong, and it was already available to users as a 3rd party app. My 3G had working maps and turn by turn LAST WEEK. How is this an upgrade for me and my new iPhone 5?

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Are you retarded? Have you read the comments? The problems are with ENTIRE COUNTRIES OF PEOPLE, so yes the numbers are in the millions ok?

You should read the entire post, which constituded you absorbing one more sentence: I was refering to the US.

 

[gnasher729]

As explained before Apple will never catch up to google. They are just way to far behind. As for crowd sourcing date, They have less ability to grab it that Google. Top it off Google is pulling in information from more location so it has just better data to begin with.

"Never" is a very long time. I'd say six months.

 

[Renzatic]

"Never" is a very long time. I'd say six months.

Three days. Just wait people, Apple is about to change everything. Again.

...GODDAMNIT! THAT'S NOT WHERE THE WAFFLE HOUSE IS!

 

[powers74]

I can just see it now. The managers coming down to the Maps team and being like...

Mgmt: so guys, how are Maps coming?

Team: uh, coming along OK

Mgmt: How much longer?

Team: Well, you know, probably another 12 to 18 months

Mgmt: Hmmm... What do you think about releasing in in September?

Team: uh... Do we have a choice?

Mgmt: ... Not really, no.

Team:

 

[dru`]

I remember Google maps being a bit off too...

So everyone, calm down a bit, it will be fixed, and it will end up better than google one day.

Google maps IS off and it's laughable people act otherwise. I can't depend on it in Atlanta metro; I have to check with Bing and MapQuest too.

My home in San Diego showed a half mile away from its location. Nearby businesses were wrong as well.

In Nashville they missed a park-and-ride despite being partnered with local transit which sent customers to Google's transit directions for route planning.

 

[Tech198]

Maps maps maps

I can just see it now. The managers coming down to the Maps team and being like...

Mgmt: so guys, how are Maps coming?

Team: uh, coming along OK

Mgmt: How much longer?

Team: Well, you know, probably another 12 to 18 months

Mgmt: Hmmm... What do you think about releasing in in September?

Team: uh... Do we have a choice?

Mgmt: ... Not really, no.

Team:

Lol. .. Yeah, that would be about right.

 

[crackbookpro]

The article says that apple could have stayed for one more year before switching.

You don't switch products at the last day of the contract. That would be foolish. You try to get off a product as soon as possible before the license terminates so that you don't get cornered and are forced to renew the license and that's why Apple chose to switch the products right away. That's smart thinking on Apples part. Never let a vendor squeeze you to the last minute forcing you on the negotiation table!

So, Google did not provide the same features as the android version and purposely let google maps on iPhone leg behind. They try to force Apple to integrate more Google services. And try to force apple to accept new conditions on the contract. And people wonder why Apple dumped Google Maps!!!

100% correct!

 

[oBMTo]

Apple simply doesn't care about the consumer.