iPhoto for iOS Not Using Google Maps

[Truffy]

Ok, I'm going to say it. These maps suck.

They are low quality, washed out images with visual artefacts. The text font is like something out of a home-made school flyer. Even the scrolling doesn't feel right. It lacks finesse - it is distinctly un-Apple.

Bring back Google please!

There's no reason to bring back Google, just finesse the maps that they have.

I love the olden-days wavy lines for the ocean. Aren't there supposed to be drawings of sea serpents, mermaids and ships sprinkled around out there?

 

[willed]

Privacy

I love all these posters saying that for privacy reasons we should all leave Google and instead... use Apple! If anything, they're even more opaque with their business practices and what they do with consumer data than Google.

 

[iSimx]

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

lol um... ok

might as well not have a map I guess...

 

[jc1350]

Wow, the "satellite" image looks like a map drawing from the 1800s. I don't like it at all. They acquired huge good-looking map companies, and they bring us this? Um.. well..

If you are referencing the above screenshot, that's a topographical view, not a satellite view.

 

[Kyrra]

nevermind.

 

[Xenc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

I think it's meant to look old and rustic like a globe, because it's showing you the location you took your pictures as if they were pinpointed on a globe.

I don't think they will use this for Maps at all.

I think you're right. It's a deliberate style. Although it's unusual that the street locations are so outdated.

I'm not sure if Apple will move away from Google Maps anytime soon. Google's map tiles are clear, accurate and by far the best available. There's also the issue of developers using Google Maps within their applications. Many commonly used Google APIs stipulate that they can only have their results displayed on Google map tiles. If Apple moves away from Google, developers will be screwed.

 

[vixducis]

lol um... ok

might as well not have a map I guess...

Never seen 'Back To The Future'?

 

[Xenc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

I think this is all more to do with iPhoto being a paid app and the fact Google Maps SDK is only allowed to be used on free apps.

Plenty of paid apps in the App Store use Google Maps.

 

[Jynto]

It looks like they still haven't forgiven Google for Android, and probably won't ever. Apple and Google are rival companies now. At one point it seemed they wanted to work closely with Google in the infancy of iOS. That was back in 2007, before Android. It's only a matter of time before they purchase a search company and drop Google search as their default search engine.

 

[0098386]

I'll hold off until Google Maps are used.

The wavy lines in the ocean are a nice touch, though. But it's all a bit bleh.

 

[burne]

Google's map tiles are clear, accurate and by far the best available.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/mar/28/openstreetmap-google-maps-technologies

(one-click compare if you don't want to read the article.)
(Or, comparing Apple iPhoto's map with those of Google..)