If you ever travel or end up in a part of town that you aren't familiar with, being able to find businesses, gas stations, public transport,food and what not is quite useful. This is not about users being picky or fussy - the maps are simply not fit for that purpose for many users.
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Wow. Apple Maps is a disaster.
- Thread starter b24pgg
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If you ever travel or end up in a part of town that you aren't familiar with, being able to find businesses, gas stations, public transport,food and what not is quite useful. This is not about users being picky or fussy - the maps are simply not fit for that purpose for many users.
Huh?
The underground is a series of train lines. It's not a Tardis that takes you door to door.
You need a navigation app to go anywhere in London.
Exactly. I just don't get how anyone can defend such an obviously flawed app. Actually, saying that it is flawed is a huge understatement. A map that doesn't provide accurate information and which doesn't help a user find their way is useless.
After experimenting with maps some more, it's not as atrocious as originally thought.
It's still lacking, being not as polished or updated. Updated satellite imagery shouldnt be a problem in the near future.
The absence of the street view is a big negative, which I don't see coming soon, if ever.
It's still lacking, being not as polished or updated. Updated satellite imagery shouldnt be a problem in the near future.
The absence of the street view is a big negative, which I don't see coming soon, if ever.
I spent a summer in London with nothing but a paper city map and that cartoonish Underground train map.
But that probably won't help those of us who are stuck with ios 6. I would be happy to *upgrade* from iOS 6 to iOS 5 - but apple won't allow that either. I wonder if sufficient numbers of complaints could force apple to allow customers to change back to 5.1.1?
I think we now know what the MobileMe team have been working on since they killed that disaster.
No, it doesn't give me the same information nor does it integrate with reminders, address book etc.
Guys like me?
Ha ha. Indeed.
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And I'm sure the millions of users throughout the world who don't share your experience are happy for you. Enjoy.
Coming back to this discussion for a moment, why would anyone want ads in their Maps app? Why would someone want, for example, directions to their hotel rerouted to one of Google's advertising partners? I'm trying to get my head around how that could possibly be desirable. That's the so-called gold standard? Really?
And for those of us who rely on apps which are now borderline useless thanks to Apple's maps? I don't need directions, but I do need my fitness and realty apps to continue working...now they don't.
Have you seen the Google maps features on Android? Fandroids like to boast how they've had those features for so long, well... Why didn't the benevolent 'do no evil' Google pit those features on the iPhone? It wasn't enough for Schmidt to sit on Apple's board of directors and pilfer their ideas? The map app we relied on was intentionally Gimped by Google! So Apple had to make their own map, since Google wouldn't act in good faith for iOS users. Schmidt should be in prison for corporate espionage and for being a douche to the very people he ripped off!
Should have waited for Google to make an app
The biggest failure isn't that Apple replaced Google as the main mapping app, it's that they didn't have Google come out with the old app in the app store to be available day 1 when iOS 6 went public.
If they would have done this, people could have downloaded Google Maps and used them if they needed the prior functionality. People could slowly use the new Apple maps: turn-by-turn, flyover, etc. at will. They would have people still able to use mass transit and if something were incorrect, a simple switch of the app your using would have solved everything. The fact that Apple's product wasn't 100% ready would at the least be mitigated.
This is the true failure here. I wasn't one to use Google Maps, except for mass-transit or walking; I've been using Mapquest. In that, I had already been practicing a dual map app approach. Hopefully Google will come out with the old functionality and end the user frustration.
The biggest failure isn't that Apple replaced Google as the main mapping app, it's that they didn't have Google come out with the old app in the app store to be available day 1 when iOS 6 went public.
If they would have done this, people could have downloaded Google Maps and used them if they needed the prior functionality. People could slowly use the new Apple maps: turn-by-turn, flyover, etc. at will. They would have people still able to use mass transit and if something were incorrect, a simple switch of the app your using would have solved everything. The fact that Apple's product wasn't 100% ready would at the least be mitigated.
This is the true failure here. I wasn't one to use Google Maps, except for mass-transit or walking; I've been using Mapquest. In that, I had already been practicing a dual map app approach. Hopefully Google will come out with the old functionality and end the user frustration.
That wouldn't have been any better for those of us who rely on other apps and features which are forced into Apple's maps.
From a customer perspective, I would not want the ads. From the provide perspective, they want the income from selling the view of the ad. I would like to think that Apple was looking out for us, but I would really believe that it was more that Apple wasn't going to get a cut of the income from Google.
There's no evidence to suggest that's the case.
Apple made the Maps App in iOS 5 and earlier, so ultimately they are responsible for it not being as advanced.
Some people say it was Apple being too controlling about the App, others say Google wanted to limit the iOS platform.
Look at the YouTube App. Apple's YouTube App saw no real improvements between iOS 1 and 5, yet Google's just released its own YouTube app with a multitude of improvements over the old one.
What about the street view debacle? Google wouldn't let apple have it for ages at the start.... Plus apple wanted turn by turn integrated, google wouldn't allow it unless Google could have its crappy latitude service included natively....
But wasn't Apple already paying Google for their maps, on our behalf? Isn't that the kind of sneaky, behind-the-back maneuver that Google continually inflicts on people who rely on them? Get paid for the maps, then sneak ads inside of the end user's results? And if that's what people really want, can't they still get that in iOS 6 from maps.google.com?
Actually this a good question - in my my view this only used to be true until Tim Cooks took over, there have been quite a number of middle fingers towards the customers in the last couple of years, but some "old-timers" have pointed out that this more or less have always been like this.
We agree then...
As one example - but name your preference. I choose Google because they are doing a lot of work on this. It seems like, every time somebody names the amount of data Google have and the way this get translated to maps, people hijack this and make it into a debate on looks/aesthetics - in my view it's only a small part of this debate (Google actually put some work into how to present this information in several ways (but i do understand taste plays a part). Google has a massive Database and you can edit this in many ways, I submitted around 100 improvements to Apple Maps over the last two days... haven't heard a ting, it takes ages to do and is a downright annoying process. The question again - why do people believe this thing will surpass Google Maps (or what ever your personal preference is) in a short while?
Improvements? Like pre-roll ads? Or no background audio? Or no video in AirPlay streams? Or no native iPad support?
BTW, there is an excellent unofficial YouTube player app called Jasmine (requires iOS 6), that fixes all those "improvements": http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jasmine-youtube-client/id554937050
The pre-rolls also? Nothing like a 30 second Sprint commercial before a 2 minute video... in Europe ffs.
I totally agree with you. The beige color don't have enought contrast and roads are very hard to see. I don't understand how they chosen this color scheme for the maps.