Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Exactly. Apple can do whatever they want in regards to the back end services that power iOS devices, it's their perogative. However, they better darn make sure the user experience is their usual superior "It Just Works!" experience. Downgrading the user's functionality is what drives these users away eventually to other platforms.

Agreed. I can see windows phone being a viable choice in the next couple of years. Maybe even now with the 920, but I haven't been able to test this phone out yet.
 
Should one critisise apple or Steve for wanting an internal option? Don't think so as not helping a competitor is generally good business sense.

Has apple maps been launched a little early? Maybe, but then I find problems with all maps solutions, and if this one doesn't get better then few people will use and it will go the way of ping.

Organisations are made up of people and people make mistakes. What is extraordinary is not that apple and Steve make mistakes, but that they have gotten so many decisions so right.

Just saying...
 
Apple iClip!

I just do not understand why Apple has not come out with their own version of Youtube. It makes huge sense to me. You have any idea the revenue a site likes this makes on advertising?! It is staggering!

Apple competes with Google on most all other platforms, why not a video-sharing website as well? Then they could free themselves that much more from Google.

:):):)
 
Nobody has yet explained to me why Apple should have (or even could have) made a different choice among these three:

http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/get_the_fainting_chair

Nor has anyone explained why we tolerated map errors from Google for years, and only suddenly do such errors matter SO MUCH MORE, even if they’re not truly more common than before.

Pretty much all map services sucked before Google. They were slow, unresponsive, and ugly. Google's maps weren't perfect, but were a big improvement at the time.

While I do like Google Maps a bit more for the time being, I'm happy NOT using them because 1) I have a decent replacement that will improve with time, and 2) I hate Google as a company, and love having other options to turn to, so I can stop using Google altogether.

I just wish Google didn't own YouTube or more people used Vimeo instead.
I would also like the option to add my own search engine choice to the list, rather than being stuck with the three options I don't want.
 
Now repeat again about Shire and Mordor, your point?

Maps, no matter how many great features they have, are only as useful as their accuracy makes them. Vectors, 3D fly overs, turn by turn, it all doesn't matter if the data on the maps isn't accurate.

Apple concentrated a bit too much on the eye candy, they should have made the foundation solid before making it nice to look at.

Now, 3D flyover of Osgiliath is nice to elaborate a plan to retake the city, it just isn't that useful when trying to find a Hotel for my summer vacations.
 
Forstall made iOS, a best mobile OS, which was shamelessly copied and stolen by likes of Schmidt and Co and Samsung gang, so good it was. So if anything, he was and is a best guy to develop new software for iOS.

And Apple has shamelessly pilfered features from not only Android (notification center to name one), but also the jailbreak community and also their own 3rd party app developers. Forstall came up with a grid of apps. How pleasant. Was he the one who decided to exclude basic smartphone features (copy n paste, MMS, turn-by-turn navigation, multitasking) from earlier versions of iOS too?

And remember, Apple first envisioned iOS to be a collection of web apps (until the jailbreak community forced its hand). So let's not enshrine Forstall into the Mobile OS Hall of Fame just yet.
 
And Apple has shamelessly pilfered features from not only Android (notification center to name one), but also the jailbreak community and also their own 3rd party app developers. Forstall came up with a grid of apps. How pleasant. Was he the one who decided to exclude basic smartphone features (copy n paste, MMS, turn-by-turn navigation, multitasking) from earlier versions of iOS too?

And remember, Apple first envisioned iOS to be a collection of web apps (until the jailbreak community forced its hand). So let's not enshrine Forstall into the Mobile OS Hall of Fame just yet.

Yet.

----------

Maps, no matter how many great features they have, are only as useful as their accuracy makes them. Vectors, 3D fly overs, turn by turn, it all doesn't matter if the data on the maps isn't accurate.

Apple concentrated a bit too much on the eye candy, they should have made the foundation solid before making it nice to look at.

Now, 3D flyover of Osgiliath is nice to elaborate a plan to retake the city, it just isn't that useful when trying to find a Hotel for my summer vacations.

And this is again repetition of usual and boring Applemaps sucks! Should stay with Google! crap but with some Hobbit twists to prove your literacy. I guess you have no other agenda than to put this in various forms in every thread you happen to read.
 
And this is again repetition of usual and boring Applemaps sucks! Should stay with Google! crap but with some Hobbit twists to prove your literacy. I guess you have no other agenda than to put this in various forms in every thread you happen to read.

Hum... if you don't like reading about how Maps sucks, don't read threads that discuss how and why the Apple Maps happen to suck ? I'm just being on-topic here.

And what does my knowledge and analogy using Lord of the Rings prove anything as far as my literacy goes ?
 
Why you don't continue the phrase. Schmidt and Co, plus Samsung gang stole even icons of Forstall's iOS. Forstall, who worked iOS, which is now driving record sales of iphones and ipads for apple, achieving mobile dominance, in a very short time created a fully new AppleMaps, version 1, yes imperfect, but it provided vector maps, turn by turn, voice operations, efficiency, which means in one step allowed AppleMaps to become as good as as a software as anything Gmaps either on Android or iOS have, but there were bugs in v1.0 related to database and mostly of POI, not the program itself, but in time it will leapfrogg anything Gmaps can offer. So were Safari, OS X and other Apple Maps. You deliver first working version and then you improve it until it leapfrogges Google. And the most important step that Gmaps already lost 100 million users and that soon these 100 million users will completely forget about Google because AppleMaps will be better. Gmaps is same as old internet explorer, remember MS crap? There is no innovations in Google maps for iOS, it is stale, old and also missing a lot.

Well, because I don't agree.

I'm pretty sure Forstall has a lot of love because of IOS, rightly so - but I think he's slipping and the declining quality of IOS, the apparent lack of QA and its “not ready for primetime” apps is a big blinking sign that something isn't right within the Apple organization.

So what did Forstall do? He tried to stitch a Maps app together using old data and secondary sources for his little project. Got on stage at WWDC and lied through his teeth about the ability and the quality of the program and didn’t do jack to counter (or improve) this mess as IOS6 was going public. And let’s not get into Siri being useless still...

There was an article about the skeuomorphic design at Apple – Maps is another example of idiotic design (form before function) because (while they might be “beautiful”) they’re damn hard to read and they don’t relay the information you need very well. So even on that level Forstall failed miserably. Ive must cry himself to sleep every night doing such cool hardware and having this idiot ****ing it up all the time.

You are welcome to believe what You will about how this plays out – At least Google did hire people well versed in the area when they decided to go into Mapping full-blast. if Your hate for Google clouds Your ability to really see the differences and have a realistic view on how long it will take for Apple to straighten this out, then so be it – You just sound like an Apple Apologist on overdrive at this point.

Google Maps lost 100 million users? Doubt it very much. People use Google services through a variety of interfaces (what do You think the Facebook check-in feature is based on?) so they will manage. When they return to IOS most people will switch back to Google Maps, because the ones that share Jobs distaste for Google are a little (but very vocal) minority. Apple Maps will struggle to get updates because few people use it - it's that simple.

And no... if You think of going there: I ****ing hate Google.
 
Maps, no matter how many great features they have, are only as useful as their accuracy makes them. Vectors, 3D fly overs, turn by turn, it all doesn't matter if the data on the maps isn't accurate.

Apple concentrated a bit too much on the eye candy, they should have made the foundation solid before making it nice to look at.

Now, 3D flyover of Osgiliath is nice to elaborate a plan to retake the city, it just isn't that useful when trying to find a Hotel for my summer vacations.

So how do you get accurate maps? Crowdsourcing. That is precisely why Apple bit the bullet and released it now without the Google alternative. Everyone keeps saying "wait until it gets as good as Google and then release it." It would never get as good as Google unless everyone was already using it instead of Google.

So, there will be the whiners for the few who love to cry (not pointing any fingers ;-) but the vast majority will use the temporarily inferior product and before long it will be on par with Google and everyone will forget. Well, almost everyone.
 
"Jobs himself initiated the mapping project... Jobs had come to loathe Google, which he felt was copying features of the iPhone"

So, in retaliation for copying apple's smartphone designs, apple copied google's mapping software? I guess it's only ripping off when someone else does it...

1) It certainly isn't a copy of Google Maps because it doesn't work.
2) Also, Yahoo Maps and Mapquest came out before Google Maps did. Back then Google Maps got me lost to a picnic, and I asked a friend who worked for Google how she got there... and she recommended Yahoo Maps.
 
So it was GOOGLE who was holding turn-by-turn navigation back from iOS users? Then the move to Apple Maps is OK for me. With feedback from users, those errors would go away
 
Is maps really that bad?

I'm curious if people here have really had bad experiences with the maps or are they just jumping on the bandwagon from single instances they have heard about. I've only had really good experiences with it, and I've used it almost every day. I know this is only one person's experience, but:

Case in point: I used iOS maps to get to the Monday Night Football (American) game. My friend was using using his SGIII with Google maps in the same vehicle (yes, we have a friendly iOS/Android rivalry). While he was able to get vocal turn-by-turn on his brand spanking new SGIII, the graphics and traffic updates were much faster on my two-year old iPhone 4. All in all my maps got us into and out of an area in what is quite possibly a worst case scenerio. But because I had to continuely look at my phone, in the end we called it a draw.

Now if the same could only be said for the damn Cowboys.... :)
 
Why you don't continue the phrase. Schmidt and Co, plus Samsung gang stole even icons of Forstall's iOS. Forstall, who worked iOS, which is now driving record sales of iphones and ipads for apple, achieving mobile dominance, in a very short time created a fully new AppleMaps, version 1, yes imperfect, but it provided vector maps, turn by turn, voice operations, efficiency, which means in one step allowed AppleMaps to become as good as as a software as anything Gmaps either on Android or iOS have, but there were bugs in v1.0 related to database and mostly of POI, not the program itself, but in time it will leapfrogg anything Gmaps can offer. So were Safari, OS X and other Apple Maps. You deliver first working version and then you improve it until it leapfrogges Google. And the most important step that Gmaps already lost 100 million users and that soon these 100 million users will completely forget about Google because AppleMaps will be better. Gmaps is same as old internet explorer, remember MS crap? There is no innovations in Google maps for iOS, it is stale, old and also missing a lot.

Mobile traffic monitoring sites are suggesting most of the iOS6 users are not using Apple Maps after initial try. They are just waiting for Google to release stand alone maps on iOS. So Google is not going to loose 100 Million but Apple Maps will be moved to utilities folder, because we cannot delete it.

http://gigaom.com/apple/after-fast-uptake-apple-maps-use-plunges-to-1-in-25-ios-owners/
 
Really not fair to blame Jobs. Apple had plenty of time after his death to either get the bugs out or delay the transition. They, not Steve, chose to do neither.
 
And what makes you think that Google is not already working on vector maps. By the time it takes Apple to make their maps even close to the level of accuracy of Google maps, Google could be delivering vector maps. Even if they started the conversion now, they would still beat Apple to the finishing line.

I never said that Google could not make their own Maps with Vectors and I agree that if they do support Vectors, Google Maps will be the best, but currently they don't do it, not even on Android. Hopefully when Google is done with their Maps App for iOS they will have updated it to Vector graphics, however I doubt they will, and it may have caching instead like on Android.
 
So how do you get accurate maps? Crowdsourcing. That is precisely why Apple bit the bullet and released it now without the Google alternative.

Or...

Use the OS X model. Release it as an optional install while retain the known good default around. Users who then get to use it are those "bleeding edge" users that like playing around with things and reporting mistakes. Also, they get a nice working fall back in case things are really broken. This actually encourages adoption by providing a slower transition path.

Then when its ready (for OS X, this was apparently around 10.1.2), make it the default.

A lot of people are suggesting Apple should've done this and frankly, I'm sure Apple would have done this had they known ahead of WWDC how bad the situation was. But like Mike Dobson, I'm thinking their automated testing procedures didn't give them the insight required to make this decision.

Everyone keeps saying "wait until it gets as good as Google and then release it." It would never get as good as Google unless everyone was already using it instead of Google.

So, there will be the whiners for the few who love to cry (not pointing any fingers ;-)

Why ? Point fingers, go ahead. Have the courage to voice your insults directly.
 
I never said that Google could not make their own Maps with Vectors and I agree that if they do support Vectors, Google Maps will be the best, but currently they don't do it, not even on Android. Hopefully when Google is done with their Maps App for iOS they will have updated it to Vector graphics, however I doubt they will, and it may have caching instead like on Android.

Oh please... 2010:
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/145-mapping-a-gis/1725-google-maps-5-for-android-goes-vector.html
 
Mobile traffic monitoring sites are suggesting most of the iOS6 users are not using Apple Maps after initial try. They are just waiting for Google to release stand alone maps on iOS. So Google is not going to loose 100 Million but Apple Maps will be moved to utilities folder, because we cannot delete it.

http://gigaom.com/apple/after-fast-uptake-apple-maps-use-plunges-to-1-in-25-ios-owners/


Actually, it looks like they are coming to the wrong conclusion based on their data.

http://daringfireball.net/2012/10/snappli_maps
 
This whole MAP issue is blown over by social media and people who want everything NOW!!!

Its not an easy task to map every square inch of the PLANET. It took Google many many years of data collection and street view to verify the accuracy of its data, provided by the providers(Navtech?)...

That being said, we are all used to Apple releasing top of the line products, hardware and software and they still are in the tops as of now.

But Apple's vision of integrated hardware and software is not the best idea going forward as software is being delivered as a service rather than being solely developed by one company to run on one particular hardware.

And this MAPS is a fine example of how Apple has no control over the data it receives. Apple supposedly outsources its MAP data from many providers and its MAPS are only as good as the data it receives. As for the app itself and the navigation features are excellent, true to Apple's standards. ( the warnings, icons,textures labels etc etc...) I know, because I used to have a Droid and have used the Google Navigation extensively as well.

So why such a backlash against Apple? Its the data stupid !

I used Apple maps and have no issues where I live. Every direction and location has been precise. That being said, I am missing a lot of POI like ATM's restaurants, post offices etc....

Instead of whining about it, I sat one day and added all those POI's near my place to the map and submitted it to Apple. If you like Apple and love their products I suggest you do the same. Imagine the collective power of millions of Apple users updating the Maps database with all the POI's and location corrections.

Apple did the right thing by ditching Google. Google shortchanged Apple by not providing navigation features, though they both could have played nice with each other, unfortunately it turned out to be other wise.

As for me, I am going to use the Apple Maps and correct the maps if I find it to be wrong. Why? I love their products and their software and would love to see them flourish and come out with new products in the future...

If maps is absolutely necessary for you, I wonder how you ever survived before the dawn of such devices, and you always have a choice of other sources for maps...

The amount of work and resources that goes into developing something like this is not your average and lame "Drink Beer" app in the app store.

Leave it to the media to spin something like this like its the Apocalypse.. Geez..
 
A rare faux pas for the great man.

Faux pas? Let's talk in a year or two, when MAPS matures. Let's not forget GOOGLE had a headstart of 7-8 years; Google Maps also had it's quirks when it first was brought to market.

The poster below said it very well.

Long-term, it will prove to be the right competitive move. With a 100 million iOS devices and growing, it is not a wise competitive move to continually generate add dollars and traffic to your rival. Much less have a major feature like turn-by-turn denied. Apple had to ween themselves from Google eventually. They will get the App refined quickly. I don't miss Google's presence at all.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.