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Well, that's impossible since crowd-sourcing is the only way to really improve maps. If they'd waited a year it would have been in the same state next year.

This argument is flawed in so many ways. For a start, crowd sourcing is not the only way to fix many of the problems with maps such as satellite imagery or the lack of transit routes. These aren' t there simply because Apple rushed it out of the door.

Now on the map data itself, Apple bought most if not all of the data they are using from companies like TomTom, who claim there was nothing wrong with it and currently use it themselves. Why then is Apple's use of it so wrong? It needn't have required crowd sourcing to fix it at all if they'd taken the time to implement it correctly. Crowd sourcing is for minor tweaks and keeping maps up to date, not building them in the first place at this stage in the game.

Finally, Apple maps is largely useless here in the UK. I can't afford to trust or use it simply to help Apple fix a problem of their own making so I use the Google maps web interface. How is that helping Apple?

They should have waited.
 
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However you look at it, the POI data is still ****. It shouldn't be, they bought like 3-4 mapping companies over the years? All te POI's in my town in Norway are a building away, slightly to the northwest. Some worse, some better. I was just in Aberdeen, couldn't find a single Hotel with the map. Nothing showed up! Couple of days ago I was in London, couldn't find undergroundstations and also my hotel lacked from the maps as well. Google's showed everything fine. This Maps app is impossible to travel with, like I used to. And googles web app is slow, buggy and frustrating to work with.
It's about time Apple spend some money on this, I'm sure the shareholders would be fine with letting some money slip.
 
However you look at it, the POI data is still ****. It shouldn't be, they bought like 3-4 mapping companies over the years? All te POI's in my town in Norway are a building away, slightly to the northwest. Some worse, some better. I was just in Aberdeen, couldn't find a single Hotel with the map. Nothing showed up! Couple of days ago I was in London, couldn't find undergroundstations and also my hotel lacked from the maps as well. Google's showed everything fine. This Maps app is impossible to travel with, like I used to. And googles web app is slow, buggy and frustrating to work with.
It's about time Apple spend some money on this, I'm sure the shareholders would be fine with letting some money slip.

In my area, I reported some problems the first day of iOS6. I looked at the maps again yesterday and everything is corrected already.
 
If Apple had the capability to do mapping at least as well as, say, Nokia Maps then I think their strategy could be understood.

As they were years and billions of dollars away from this capability they should have given Google whatever they wanted to keep Google Maps on the iPhone.

They have shafted their user base massively on this one. Unless Google's standalone app comes good then this is a deal-breaker for many smartphone users who will be forced to jump ship to Android. I know 3 people that didn't go out and get the iPhone 5 on release after being warned off by other iPhone users. iPhone users telling people not to buy iPhones - that's how serious this horror show has got for Apple.

Can apple buy Nokia? They are one of the few companies out there that could add to Apple's engineering effort and they have usable maps, which some people actually love. Plus, I'm not sure if they still have any Meego engineers who would surely be worthwhile for iOS development?

Apple need to regroup fast.
 
Still think they could have done both. They didnt need to kick google out before they launched Apple maps.

The only was Apples offering is going to get better fast is with lots of users. If they had provided both hardly anyone would have used the Apple app and it would never improve.
 
If Apple had the capability to do mapping at least as well as, say, Nokia Maps then I think their strategy could be understood.

As they were years and billions of dollars away from this capability they should have given Google whatever they wanted to keep Google Maps on the iPhone.

They have shafted their user base massively on this one. Unless Google's standalone app comes good then this is a deal-breaker for many smartphone users who will be forced to jump ship to Android. I know 3 people that didn't go out and get the iPhone 5 on release after being warned off by other iPhone users. iPhone users telling people not to buy iPhones - that's how serious this horror show has got for Apple.

Can apple buy Nokia? They are one of the few companies out there that could add to Apple's engineering effort and they have usable maps, which some people actually love. Plus, I'm not sure if they still have any Meego engineers who would surely be worthwhile for iOS development?

Apple need to regroup fast.

This is a calculated gamble on Apples part, they had to jump ship on Google soon so have done it now while Google has no iOS app of their own so lots of people are forced to use Apple maps. The data will improve quickly with crowd sourced corrections but that needs lots of users. I think this may have been the only way Apple would ever stand a chance of getting their own mapping implementation and breaking their reliance on Google. After all when Google launched maps a lot of their data was poor too but it improved quickly. I think in a few months Apples maps will have improved to the point where they are usable and reliable. By that time there will be a Google app also on iOS but Apple will have their own reasonably reliable offering that many people will just carry on using. If this hadn't happened Apple would have left themselves open to Google pushing their other crap into iOS using maps as leverage. In business the worst thing you can do is give your competitors leverage over your decisions.
 
This is a calculated gamble on Apples part, they had to jump ship on Google soon so have done it now while Google has no iOS app of their own so lots of people are forced to use Apple maps. The data will improve quickly with crowd sourced corrections but that needs lots of users. I think this may have been the only way Apple would ever stand a chance of getting their own mapping implementation and breaking their reliance on Google. After all when Google launched maps a lot of their data was poor too but it improved quickly. I think in a few months Apples maps will have improved to the point where they are usable and reliable. By that time there will be a Google app also on iOS but Apple will have their own reasonably reliable offering that many people will just carry on using. If this hadn't happened Apple would have left themselves open to Google pushing their other crap into iOS using maps as leverage. In business the worst thing you can do is give your competitors leverage over your decisions.


I don't doubt any of that but they've released a total turkey.

They want crowd-sourcing but they've hardly made it easy - to add new POI you have to drop a pin and then report the pin you've dropped as a 'problem'?

If you need to correct one of the 99% of POIs that are on the map but wrong you get all this Yelp stuff and a 'Report a problem' button. I'm sure millions of less tech-savvy people will be using this to complain that Joe's Pizza has poor service!

It's dreadfully unintuitive interface design. And this interface will drive 'crowd sourcing'? Really?

And what about the crappy search? If you type in 'Indian Restaurant' you might get the one listed as 'Taj Mahal Indian Resturant' but not an Indian Restaurant called, say, The Raj. It's incredibly crude 90s-style search.

Everything about Apple Maps gives the impression of a company utterly out of its depth in this market. As I said Apple need to stem the bleeding on this one right now. Make a bid for Nokia. Buy Garmin. Big bold huge acquisitions of proven player in Maps.

If Apple really want to take on Google they will have to be Google. Yahoo is about the only player they could snap up and integrate reasonably well - they have strong News and information services, a very good webmail system, Flikr would be great for iPhoto and Aperture integration, they have so-so search.
 
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The question is when do they dump Google as the default search engine for iOS.
I can't wait to read the comments of some people on pro-Apple sites when THAT happens:

"I can't believe how people allegedly depend on search engine so much suddenly." (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15888512/)

"Search engine aren't the be all and end all. Humankind has survived for many years without search engines." (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15888957/)

"Apple Search is not broken, its just a first version." (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15878312/)

"I'm not finding that much of a disaster. It will get better." (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15876083/)
...
 
Apple Web Map?

Apple needs to provide it's maps on the web and obtain user data and thus make improvements to it's database. Trying to do all this internally is a lost cause.
 
I don't know if you guys remember this but in a recent keynote by Apple they showed this blind man who uses his iPhone to allow him to take hikes in this forest looking place.

I can imagine this blind man still lost in the woods if he updated to iOS 6.
 
Apple didn't get something without concessions that Google created, boo-hoo, poor Apple... :rolleyes:

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Oh it's already started.

It's called Siri.

Hahaha, good one. You're clearly oblivious to Google Voice search and Google's research into contextual search that they've been doing for years (e.g. Knowledge Graph). The only thing Siri introduced was... the gimmick of talking back to you.

It's funny how some people blindly believe that Apple invented everything. Android users could use voice search, set up reminders, type text messages etc. by using their voice way before Siri. Siri just has a "personality", which is scripted.

Anyone believing that Apple will somehow revolutionise the web search industry is either bigoted or just simply stupid.

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How can anyone in their right mind love or even like Android?

How can anyone in their right mind love or even like strawberries?

How can anyone in their right mind love or even like jazz music?

How can anyone in their right mind love or even like romantic comedies?

Newsflash: We're all different, we prefer different things.
 
I don't know if you guys remember this but in a recent keynote by Apple they showed this blind man who uses his iPhone to allow him to take hikes in this forest looking place.

I can imagine this blind man still lost in the woods if he updated to iOS 6.

If anything, a normal person would believe he is blind if he uses Maps too much.
 
It's funny how some people blindly believe that Apple invented everything. Android users could use voice search, set up reminders, type text messages etc. by using their voice way before Siri. Siri just has a "personality", which is scripted.

It's funny how some people think that others believe Apple invented everything.

It's almost as funny as people thinking Apple has a patent on "rounded corners".

People make up a straw man so they can beat it down.
 
This is a calculated gamble on Apples part, they had to jump ship on Google soon so have done it now while Google has no iOS app of their own so lots of people are forced to use Apple maps. The data will improve quickly with crowd sourced corrections but that needs lots of users. I think this may have been the only way Apple would ever stand a chance of getting their own mapping implementation and breaking their reliance on Google. After all when Google launched maps a lot of their data was poor too but it improved quickly. I think in a few months Apples maps will have improved to the point where they are usable and reliable. By that time there will be a Google app also on iOS but Apple will have their own reasonably reliable offering that many people will just carry on using. If this hadn't happened Apple would have left themselves open to Google pushing their other crap into iOS using maps as leverage. In business the worst thing you can do is give your competitors leverage over your decisions.

Why do people think crowd sourcing is magic?

Crowd sourcing is a minority source of map data. Even Google Maps gets what, maybe 10% of it's map data from crowd sourcing? And it's starting off with better data and more incentive to correct mistakes as they affect the business listings in the world's biggest search engine too.

When you combine that with the fact that the crowd sourcing on Apple Maps *sucks* (data updating seems to be very slow, the inferface to do so when a POI is missing is terrible, the interface to do so when the actual map itself is wrong is non-existant etc etc), Apple Maps is not going to get better quickly. Anyone who thinks so is living in complete denial.
 
In other words Apple wants everything but is not willing to give anything in return.

Genius!! So.... in your opinion, generous Google have only been giving to Apple and it's customers and not getting anything in return he?? :rolleyes:

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Siri doesn't search

Sure she does, if you ask her nicely :)

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Try, years. Map systems are not built overnight.

He was being sarcastic.
 
If not being able to get turn-by-turn for the built in google maps was the reason for ditching it early and pushing out their own app prematurely then that is a really stupid reason for doing so. If iPhone users wanted turn-by-turn navigation there were plenty of decent apps available to provide that, both free (e.g. Waze) and otherwise - surely that is the whole point of having an app store?!

While I can appreciate that you need to have users to improve crowd-sourced data, you must also obtain sufficiently accurate data to begin with - otherwise the users you are depending on to improve the data simply won't use it at all. I think in launching Apple Maps in its current state they have unfortunately got the balance wrong. While the map data is ok for some, it is hopelessly inadequate for others. This will likely result in some places with already decent data getting improvements, but other places will very bad data simply getting very neglected and remaining very poor.

Apple have to remember they aren't paying us to beta test or crowd source this data - we are paying them! It's not as though they are short on money and there is simply no excuse for not having put in the required ground work to get a decent quality of data in there from which to improve.
 
It's convenience apple even has any google products on their phones. Once apple could do it themselves and give the user the best experience and functionality then why wouldn't you.

I'm disappointed apple hasn't put more of a system back end user update able site in there. I mean you can add stuff on a web browser to google, with apple maps they have no real way to add in that info that crowd sourcing supplies. Look at wikipedia it's all done for free by people, apple maps should be part of icloud and much more.
 
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