Apple Still Seeking to 'Radically Improve' Maps for iOS

[Reach9]

iOS improved so quick compared to other OS

That was a funny joke.

 

[jonnysods]

I would prefer if they could hire a team of people to make the lockscreen more valuable than a picture frame.

Seriously, why can't I have a calendar, some email and text headers? Or have them find a way to remind me that I have a calendar alert?

That would seriously make my phone a magical device.

 

[LightSpeed1]

If they improved maps that would be great.

 

[louis Fashion]

iPod Touch 5G with GPS and maps for europe, asia and north/south-america please!

Ja, and a world phone.

 

[CDCC]

That's a good one!

I think google has a lock on the map thing. I can't see apple employees driving around remapping the world to get their own data base

Are you totally clueless?

Google gets ALL their map data from Navteq, TeleAtlas, Europa, and others. Apple would do the same. These are the same companies that make nav devices and sell their data to the car manufacturers for $$$car nav systems. Apple could probably build a much nicer interface map system. Apple always designs things more intuitively.

 

[CDCC]

TomTom

TomTom or Garmin wouldn't help Apple that much. Garmin and TomTom both license either Teleatlas or Navteq for road data and they don't have access to much else since most of their devices are "offline" devices. Google has used Google Maps to build up a lot of data (they currently provide their own traffic on Google maps by curating all the data from mobile GMaps users, etc). A lot of people are missing out on the fact that "maps" that people expect today is a lot more than just road data. Getting access to road data is not that complicated for Apple to obtain. The rest is very complicated. Currently Google is the leader in this and there really isn't a close second (although Bing is doing some innovative things in this area).

TomTom owns TeleAltas but they license their data out to everyone just like Navteq. That is their bread and butter.

http://www.gpsmagazine.com/2007/07/tomtom_acquires_tele_atlas_for.php

 

[ghostlyorb]

I would LOVE free turn-by-turn navigation!

 

[iphoneblack]

All those stupid free cloud based services is easy to replace. If Apple can make a better map than google, even Steve died, Apple can go on and on its own.... I hope Steve can lead Apple and amaze me once again.

 

[bozzykid]

Are you totally clueless?

Google gets ALL their map data from Navteq, TeleAtlas, Europa, and others. Apple would do the same.

That isn't true. They get their road data from third parties for sure. However, their POIs data comes from 3rd parties and a lot of their own curated content. Again, the road data is easy to obtain. The rest requires a lot of resources pulled together as their is no one source. Google already has a pretty big head start when it comes to POI data and reviews.