Beta 4 Maps coming along but still clearly beta.

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CavemanUK

CavemanUK

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 29, 2006
437
8
Rhyl, North Wales
Ive been paying close attention to Maps (especially navigation) since beta 1 and through every beta its gotten better and better. thats not to say its perfect and there are definately things that would make it more awesome but i do like. I tried out navigation on beta 4 last night and noted a few things.

  • Maps are looking a lot better. Cleaner and sharper.
  • Street Labels are bigger and clearer. Its a fine line with this though and could possibly become overcrowded in very built up areas.
  • Siri still cant cope with "take me to work". I just get "Sorry i cant find a work address" even though there is one and saying "whats my work address" pulls it up.
  • Talking of Siri. I noticed a badly sampled Chime sound playing while in siri and having a route running. Not sure what or why this was. Not sure if this is trying to alert me of turns as i have voice switched off.
  • There were a lot more landmarks/businesses shown along the route.
  • In all previous beta's asking for fuel along my route would give me results of petrol stations 50+ miles away. Now I get results all along the route. Sadly tho, they are general stores and not petrol stations. Siri actually calls them petrol stations.
  • Still no night-mode yet.

If anyone has figured out what the chime is, I would love to know.
 
B

bucksaddle

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2008
283
37
CavemanUK said:
[*]Street Labels are bigger and clearer. Its a fine line with this though and could possibly become overcrowded in very built up areas.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't like the default bigger labels so I've changed the label size setting to small.

CavemanUK said:
[*]Siri still cant cope with "take me to work". I just get "Sorry i cant find a work address" even though there is one and saying "whats my work address" pulls it up.
Click to expand...
I've noticed this doesn't work if I have a Maps bookmark called "Work" but if you have your work address in your contact details then "Take me to work", erm, works :D
 
Reason077

Reason077

macrumors 68020
Aug 14, 2007
2,191
680
CavemanUK said:
  • Street Labels are bigger and clearer. Its a fine line with this though and could possibly become overcrowded in very built up areas.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Where you have a lot of streets in close proximity, such as here in London, the Default and Large font sizes are basically unworkable because it doesn't have space to draw the street names for nearly enough streets.

Good thing they added a setting, but it would of course be better if they could make a default that works for everyone. I find the Small size more than readable (it's no smaller than Google Maps fonts), so I'm not really sure why they feel they need the bigger ones!

----------

Beta 4 also adds building outlines in London!
  • You have to zoom in very close to see them. Would be nice if they were also displayed at slightly wider zoom levels.
  • They are just basic blocky shapes rather than the 3D-effect buildings you see in Google Maps.
  • However, the coverage is better in London compared to Google. Google only covers a small area in central London, where as Apple covers most of Zone 1&2 - and the way it abruptly ends at the boundary, it looks like they could enable more. (Data from Ordinance Survey?)
 
B

Brazuca

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2003
211
0
Reason077 said:
Yeah. Where you have a lot of streets in close proximity, such as here in London, the Default and Large font sizes are basically unworkable because it doesn't have space to draw the street names for nearly enough streets.

Good thing they added a setting, but it would of course be better if they could make a default that works for everyone. I find the Small size more than readable (it's no smaller than Google Maps fonts), so I'm not really sure why they feel they need the bigger ones!

----------

Beta 4 also adds building outlines in London!
  • You have to zoom in very close to see them. Would be nice if they were also displayed at slightly wider zoom levels.
  • They are just basic blocky shapes rather than the 3D-effect buildings you see in Google Maps.
  • However, the coverage is better in London compared to Google. Google only covers a small area in central London, where as Apple covers most of Zone 1&2 - and the way it abruptly ends at the boundary, it looks like they could enable more. (Data from Ordinance Survey?)
Click to expand...
Pics plz. Some of us aren't developers but we are very curious.
 
B

BuckeyeMac

macrumors 6502
Jun 25, 2012
372
1
Yes please post pics for us showing the difference between smaller/larger fonts, etc for us non beta users :)
 
D

Djs621

macrumors regular
Jun 7, 2008
185
1
Would you guys mind posting pics for those of us without the beta? Thanks!
 
F

Funkmasta

macrumors member
Mar 18, 2010
87
0
The maps have really improved, much faster to load and sharper images, lots of points of interest jammed into the metro areas.

Still needs to be smoothed out, but the draw distance for 3D has been extended, you can literally look down the coast past Chicago and it all stays 3D.

Can't wait to see where this goes in the coming years, it's already the best 3D maps available and it's still in beta. I find myself wishing I had Apple maps in my browser to play with.
 
B

BuckeyeMac

macrumors 6502
Jun 25, 2012
372
1
Wow those images look awesome. Can't wait to see it keep developing.

The small text definitely looks much better
 
G

gavinbuckley

macrumors newbie
Jul 25, 2012
4
0
Looks like the Olympic village is about to get 3D buildings, to outlines are there... Can they do it before the closing ceremony? :D
 
Tander

Tander

macrumors 6502a
Oct 21, 2011
676
1
Johannesburg, South Africa
I cannot wait to try out this new iOS from Apple. Maps is looking really good - however, if history is to prove it self again, South Africa won't get any 3D buildings or proper map support.

Prime example is Siri and that stupid "Sorry, I can't search for businesses outside of the U.S" :mad:
 
el3ktro

el3ktro

macrumors regular
Aug 17, 2008
196
0
My only real gripe with Apple Maps is still that you need to zoom in way too much to get all the detailed information. When I'm looking at a city that I don't know, I want to know where all the shops & cafes are for example. In Apple Maps, you have to zoom almost all the way in to see the POIs, which makes it hard to find the shopping areas. It would be cool if you could see small, color-coded dots for the POIs at an earlier zoom level, so you have an overview of where shops, cafés and other places are.

Also, it really sucks that you can't differentiate built-up areas from non-built-up areas. In Google Maps, bilt-up areas are grey, so you clearly see where there are buildings. In Apple Maps, even large cities look like open country with a bunch of roads.
 
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