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iOS 9's Upcoming Transit Addition to Maps May Be Limited in Scope at Launch
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That's kind of a selfish way to look at it. Often times the technology is ready but Apple doesn't have the resources necessary to scale it right away. The US market is the most profitable for them, and the most accessible. Why shouldn't they roll it out in the US first to iron out the bugs before releasing it worldwide?
Multinational corporations catering to the country they're primarily located in before expanding further isn't a new thing.
Which is often a case of "well these guys are fabulously wealthy, we're gonna hold out for better terms". Apple don't play ball like that (for better or worse).
Google, Microsoft, Adobe, VMware, IBM, Oracle, Facebook, SAP, Symantec, CA and any other large software company seems to cope with rolling out new software across the globe just fine. Clearly Apple need to do better in order to meet their customers expectations.
Public transportation info is hard because you have to deal with so many different parties (i.e. transportation companies). I have no idea how it is in the U.S., but over here in Germany, Google still doesn't have all local providers on board. Even Berlin, Germany's largest city, was only added fairly recently.
Apple will have to deal with the same entities Google had to face, but they may get it done quicker, because any company sharing their data with Google will already have some kind of API in place, so Apple mainly needs to sort out the licensing.
Probably billions in cash reserves? Last time I checked they had a reported pile of 170-180 billion dollars in pure cash, scattered across the world since they don't want to tax it by bringing it back to the US.
Apple's market valuation: $741.8 Billion. Thats more than the entire GDP of many countries around the world. They have the resources, just choose not to use them. I call this selfish on their part.
More information: http://www.forbes.com/companies/apple/
I have to wonder why people like you continue to buy Apple's products with such a laundry list of complaints....
I enjoy my iPhone and Apple products but they're far from perfect and Apple keep screwing things up as their QA has gone down the toilet in recent years. If people don't complain and voice their frustrations then nothing will change.
Of course not, they just provide lower quality streaming videos, charge $99/yr for Prime and throw in extras trying to justify the price when much of it useless for most people.
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Why not just dump them and get either an Android or Windows Phone and buy a Windows machine so you can escape all the imperfections and join all the perfections of Google and Microsoft's products?
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Honest answer, how many years have you truly been on Mac? I've been on Macs since 1998 and year after year there's been screw ups by them. That's total BS to say that in recent years they've begun screwing up. Rather than just spouting stuff as some others are doing here on this article, I can at least go down the list for the past 15+years of Apple screw ups. They are not alone, Sony and Microsoft have been nothing short of crap the past 15 years.
People here tend to want people to think that Apple has been perfect in it's earlier years and until recently began to have issues. Untrue.
Thats how it feels from here (Netherlands). We finaly got Siri and it already feels outdated. Apple should invest its money in global releases. That would spice things up here. More than a thinner iPad or iPhone.
I agree with you but it's not just this. It's a lot of their stuff in the last couple of years.
It certainly seems like people outside the U.S depend on the U.S to give them something to enjoy. Why is it that the U.S. is extremely anemic when it comes to products made outside the U.S? Very few companies outside the U.S. care to offer their products to the U.S.
I'm guessing this will launch in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc around 2025 then
And Cardiff, Wales in 2080..
The thing is though that it's rarely the case.Totally sick of people from other countries ranting about this when the problem - as often as not - is some licensing issue, a tariff issue, or a local law or regulation within their own country that is the sticking point and not the US company itself.
When iTunes was released in order to make the iPod worthwhile deals were signed fast to have iTunes in multiple countries. When the iPhone was launched deals were signed so most countries had at least 1 carrier offering the iPhone. Yet when it come to other features that only add to experience and aren't essential to make their products run the deals elsewhere dry up. Visa is Europe have said that they want Apple lay, banks in other countries have said that they want Apple pay, governments have even said they want Apple pay yet Apple is do suing on the USA. In the UK Apple didn't even offer vacancies for people to bring Apple pay to the UK until after it had launched in the US.
iTunes radio has been going for 2 years yet there is no content deals outside of the US or Austrailia, surely it doesn't take 2 years until after launch to bring it to other countries? Well it was only recently that Apple took on DJ's from the BBC who should bring the ability to bring the content deals with them, that's two years after launch.
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A team of 10 software engineers is not necessarily better than a team of 5 engineers.
For some projects you need quality, not quantity.
radio
Being in one of only two countries (Australia) to get iTunes radio I have to say it's a vastly inferior product to Spotify. I wish either spotify was better integrated into iOS or iTunes got rid of everything but music and allowed for on demand streaming. I would pay for that.
And I agree with all others. Apple IS too slow to release these things to the rest of the world. I would have bought the 6 if Apple Pay was in Oz but 9 months later we're still waiting.
Being in one of only two countries (Australia) to get iTunes radio I have to say it's a vastly inferior product to Spotify. I wish either spotify was better integrated into iOS or iTunes got rid of everything but music and allowed for on demand streaming. I would pay for that.
And I agree with all others. Apple IS too slow to release these things to the rest of the world. I would have bought the 6 if Apple Pay was in Oz but 9 months later we're still waiting.
There's clearly a problem at Apple if they have huge cash reserves and either can't find or can't keep the talent that's necessary to make Apple Maps a serious competitor to Google Maps in a hurry.
They've had three years to learn from their initial mistakes and make a kick ass mapping product and all indications at present are that the next iteration of Apple Maps will again leave much to be desired. Apple doesn't seem to be very "hungry" where Apple Maps is concerned. If they want to treat Apple Maps like a hobby, that's their choice; but if they're going to do that, they need to give their customers the ability to select another navigation app to use as the system default.
They've had three years to learn from their initial mistakes and make a kick ass mapping product and all indications at present are that the next iteration of Apple Maps will again leave much to be desired. Apple doesn't seem to be very "hungry" where Apple Maps is concerned. If they want to treat Apple Maps like a hobby, that's their choice; but if they're going to do that, they need to give their customers the ability to select another navigation app to use as the system default.
The biggest problem is that there already are many excellent public transport apps for many cities, but Apple doesn't let them be integrated into iOS (for example, using their information for Siri answers) forcing crappy user experience.
Apple needs to realize that they alone cannot cover whole world with same accuracy and detail as thousands of local companies around the world, and they should let people use this data just as easy as Apple's own data.
Apple needs to realize that they alone cannot cover whole world with same accuracy and detail as thousands of local companies around the world, and they should let people use this data just as easy as Apple's own data.
It's not that simple. Regulations, suitable data, acquisition laws, manufacturing issues from building something cutting edge... among other issues with new products and doing new business in a new area. Not to mention team integrity and the profit/cost dance they have to do to impress investors...
It's a lot more complicated than just hiring more software engineers.
But oh wait... You know better. My bad.
If it's so easy, you do it, then. :roll eyes: Seriously, if you have never done it yourself, then you really have no idea how hard "that" is.