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Apple Turning to Select Retail Store Employees to Help Improve Maps for iOS 6
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I tried turn by turn navigation in Hong Kong yesterday and it was quite good. I think the main problem with Apple maps is the lack of correct POIs. The roads and the routing was quite satisfactory, but the search function was completely crap. I needed to type in the street name in order to have my route correctly calculated.
At the very least, they should know places for late night poutines! =)
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Nokia/Navteq, for example? That said, i strongly doubt TomTom is to blame here.
So If I put a pin on Tower Bridge and say this is really the Golden Gate bridge, Apple should just accept it as true without having it checked?
mmmmm interesting idea.
I said more than one. How many people would pin that same bridge and say it's the Golden Gate bridge?
Places ? There's only one. La Banquise on Rachel street. No need for maps for that.
A search for London Bridge shows a bridge in City of London, UK. I was expecting a City in Arizona.
Hmm, Apple dedicates some time from store employees to help with maps. Google employs thousands of folks to drive nearly every road in the U.S. and in many foreign countries.
Good luck Apple. I'm rooting for you, but you're going to need a cultural shift to do this correctly.
Good luck Apple. I'm rooting for you, but you're going to need a cultural shift to do this correctly.
Does any of the cars with built-in Navigation use Google Maps? If not, why is it that some are saying ONLY Google can create Maps that are usable for Turn by Turn Navigation. I believe Apple feels that Google is not the only company that can provide Map Data. I think most are missing the point, Apple does not have to be the company that creates the Map Data. They want to partner with companies like TomTom and others to do this.
Street View which Google is now putting on maps.google.com is NOT Navigation and therefore does not need to be part of a Navigation Program. If you would like to use Street View you now have a FREE option. Apple wanted to provide a Turn by Turn Navigation App which to them was clearly more important then Street View.
Street View which Google is now putting on maps.google.com is NOT Navigation and therefore does not need to be part of a Navigation Program. If you would like to use Street View you now have a FREE option. Apple wanted to provide a Turn by Turn Navigation App which to them was clearly more important then Street View.
Nice idea
This is significant news. It will do far more than save Apple from the embarrassment of their maps not being able to find their own stores. Many of their stores are located in downtown shopping areas which means that they will have very good accurate and always up to date data for a those very important hot spots. Retail employees are a diverse which should help a lot with city point of interest data. At least initially it will also give them a good source of truth data comparison set to really test their maps general accuracy.
The lack of street view and detailed aerial imagery though is still going to kill their accuracy as those are very important sources of re-enforcing error correction that can be done just by integrating the different mapping layers.
The lack of mass transit directions also shows a lack of aggressive partnering for specialized point of interest data which Google maps does so well with their even having internal maps for major stores and airports.
This is significant news. It will do far more than save Apple from the embarrassment of their maps not being able to find their own stores. Many of their stores are located in downtown shopping areas which means that they will have very good accurate and always up to date data for a those very important hot spots. Retail employees are a diverse which should help a lot with city point of interest data. At least initially it will also give them a good source of truth data comparison set to really test their maps general accuracy.
The lack of street view and detailed aerial imagery though is still going to kill their accuracy as those are very important sources of re-enforcing error correction that can be done just by integrating the different mapping layers.
The lack of mass transit directions also shows a lack of aggressive partnering for specialized point of interest data which Google maps does so well with their even having internal maps for major stores and airports.
I've tried it. To be honest my Garmin is *much* better for turn by turn directions. Google may be leaps and bounds better for the searching and finding the address but once I have that I'll feed it to my Garmin for the actual directions.
Why is Garmin better?
* Garmin uses the freeway exit names as the appear on signs, Google uses the exit number. Technically their *are* signs with the exit numbers, but they are NOT the big freeway signs they are just the tiny signs posted when the exit ramp diverges from the freeway so by the time you can read them you have already driven by this is really where Google nav fails.
* timing of audio turn notifications (Google doesn't always give me enough time ahead of the turn to plan and execute safely.)
* Garmin works off line, so its directions are always working. (Google's caching and offline map thing they released earlier this year don't even come close to addressing the issues I've experienced with dropped data connections.) Which somewhat surprises me bc most of my navigation is within the bay area a section I explicitly downloaded and I'd think that they would cache... but apparently not.
* there are a number of other issues with Google nav, but they have to fix these before I'd even again consider replacing my Garmin with theirs.
Note my iPhone 5 hasn't arrived yet so I can't compare apple's turn by turn directions, and I'll def try it out when I get it just bc I'm curious, but I know they don't work offline which means my Garmin at least in the short term can rest secure in the knowledge that their device will live in my car. Maybe in the future now that Apple has their own maps they'll let them be downloaded to the devices like Nokia does on Windows phones- one can hope.
No, because NAVTEQ(Nokia) and TeleAtlas(TomTom) are leaders in navigation market.
BMW is using Google search to find locations on their iDrive. Even with (supposed to be) best in-dash navigation interfaces like Acura or iDrive, it is cumbersome to enter an address, let alone try to drill thru place categories.
If you cannot search and locate your destination easily, having Voice Navigation is a moot point.
Google was using TeleAtlas for navigation until 2-3 years ago. Now Google is using their own algorithm.
You are joking right?
Well lets see, others have mentioned Nokia. There is also Garmin which is almost certainly better than Tom Tom. There is also Bing. Google is hardly the only option. Everyone understands their motivation to rather not work with a competitor, but it isn't like Google was their only alternative.
On top of that at launch they got Apple store locations wrong... they could and should have at least had those right they only had to partner with umm themselves for that one. Which brings up a lot of points of interest small deals they could have made which they likes of Google and other players have made. Airports, food chains, hotels, movie theaters ect... Just how do you think Google gets those awesome internal airport maps? They partner with the airport got the blue prints and such. And don't get me started on the sorry state of Apple satellite and aerial maps. Building good map data to compete with Google, Nokia, Bing, or Garmin isn't about partnering with a couple players- maps are harder than that. Much harder.
Long story short, Apple seriously skimped on data sources for their maps, and has no one to blame but themselves. Similarly Google has no one to blame but themselves for their lack of a replacement Google maps app on the iPhone.
Eh? You are the one using all caps and red text. If you wish to use the "calm down" dodge it might be a good idea to not be so blatantly contradictory.
While I think it's smart to tap your internal resources whenever possible, it's quite clear that Maps should have been released as a beta product alongside the old Maps app. This was a bad strategic decision, and I guarantee it was made by Tim Cook. Even in the apology, why didn't Apple just allow all of us to re-install our old Maps app that we knew and loved? Instead, Cook felt it was appropriate to direct us to other apps and web sites. Fail.
You're very persistent in attacking me personally instead of addressing anything I said (which was regarding how the general theme of complaints varies by time of day and is often contradictory).
Attacking me by stating that I am a bad person who is angry and makes you feel bad doesn't really address any of that. You, of course, know this but you seem to not care.
Good luck with learning to argue a point. Hope you figure it out or even gain a coherent point some day.
This measure truly reveals just how bad off, Apple is, and how long it's going to take before we have anything decent.
What an incredible problem for Apple of such significant magnitude.
Right...typing in a simple address would be taking more time than writing all the garbage you just wrote. No one cares about your problems. You whine and carry on worst than a room full of preschoolers.
Everywhere I've used it, I've not had a problem. I went to a suburb of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada to a new hockey rink for my kid's practice down a road that wasn't there 6 months ago. Directions were perfect. Map was perfect.
If you actually have problems, I'm sure its not as bad as you say otherwise you would have wrote down an address. Please, just go get yourself an Android phone.
Do you honestly think you're clever responding to my question without actually responding while ripping off a pic of the joker and naming yourself WhySoSerious then including a signature caption telling people how not to respond?...Well....you're not.
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They get their data from themselves.
http://bit.ly/UjTvqu
Thank you for this information. It does make sense. I won't hold my breath waiting for this to all be fixed. Here's a question back, if you have any idea--can Apple skip the verification step by using its retail employees--i.e., give those employees' feedback a higher level of trust and somehow shorten or eliminate the verification step? If they are doing something like that, and putting the public input on the longer track you describe, and correct mistakes in increments, maybe it does make more sense than I thought.