How Google was "skyhooked" by Apple's new iOS 6 Maps - Page 2

 

 

I reported this DED response, also:

 

 

Huh...I thought the article did a pretty good job of explaining why this isn't a "key weakness in the Apple platform", but rather,

a brilliant coup in progress.

And since this is a significant part of Google's bread and butter - how they accumulate the data which is their coin - I expect

they'll fall all over themselves to find a way to recoup users representing the lion's share of web traffic.

 

Were you perhaps holding it upside down when you read it???

Same view from Nokia Maps 3D http://maps.nokia.com/37.8314708,-122.4825772,16,228,56.01,3d.day

Actually it's WAY WORSE.

Apple only officially supports iOS for two versions... That's now 5 & 6. In another year google will be fully removed and Google will be "just another" service on iPhones.

Clearly everyone has chosen a side of the debate on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of ditching Google maps.  My question to those of you so staunchly defending Apple is this: when Google releases it's own maps application with all of the features it provides for Android, will you still use Apple's maps?  Let's see how many of you will cut off the nose to spite the face.

I consider a Google-free iPhone (and iPad) to be a feature.

 

For the record, Apple maps and turn-by-turn directions are working great in my little corner of the world.  Flyover rocks, it's much better (and has a far less kludgy UI) than street view ever did.

Without reading the actual contract none of us know who was making money and who stopped making money.

Can we revisit this question when Google maps for iOS isn't vapor ware?

I don't really see the problem with any of the posts you reported, even if the poster is DED using a pseudonym.

AppleInsider isn't the WSJ. It's an Internet blog basically.

Also, the original poster was being, well, an slang term for the male organ.

Man...this is so Godfather like. When Brando died in the movie, the young Al Pacino executed all the enemies all at once. Tim Cook did the same thing: 1) get the lawsuit payoff from Samsung, 2) dropping Samsung as the supplier of most components, and 3) dropping Google Maps and YouTube all within the time span of a few months. Apple is so cool. Tim Cook wears black too.

I'm confused. Hasn't it been pretty well known that Apple was working on their own Maps app for a while. There was that report a year or so ago about Apple collecting traffic data or something (can't remember exactly). How could Google be surprised by this month's IOS announcement?

And I know it was mostly rumors talking about new Maps, but if we assume Google's Maps on IOS is so profitable for Google, you'd think that any hint of a loss would spur them to have a backup plan ready to go at a moment's notice. Not like they don't have the resources.

I feel like there's more to this than just "surprise! we have our own Maps now".

What? Do you expect us to "alert the Media?"

 

Perhaps you should take the time to report yourself?

 

Edited by DESuserIGN - 9/26/12 at 6:38pm

That comment really is beyond the pale, DED. There is certainly feature disparity between google and apple's mapping products, but taken as a whole, google is providing a better overall experience. That fact is substantiated by the legions of people who are rightly upset at the lack of equivalent technology to streetview and poor international mapping data present iOS6 maps. People are upset because the collective perception is that the most desired features in a mobile map product are present in google maps and missing in iOS6 maps. Whether or not Apple's technology will ULTIMATELY prevail is not the point at the moment, as it is clearly Apple who needs to improve their product to bring feature parity for currently desired features.

To imply otherwise shows severe bias, and significantly undermines my confidence in the rest of the information on this site. There have been several iOS6 mapping articles lately that have show the same lack of balance. I realize this is an influential "blog", and I suspect that DED doesn't want his Apple stock to slide anymore than it has already, so I suspect the recent editorial exuberance for a currently inferior product reflects some attempt at damage control to counter the recent negative media.

I crave a good Dilger rant as much as the next guy but this time he's off target. Apple's new map app is genuinely not as good as the one it replaced. Street view may be "creepy" to some but I use it a lot and like it and will miss it. I'm deferring activating my new iPhone 5 until after an upcoming trip because I know street view will come in handy. After that, I can only hope Google will submit a standalone app. That app makes the iPhone more useful than it otherwise would be.

Which says NOTHING about the contract they had with Apple particularly the dates it was applicable, what it included etc.

If you are going to make statements based on the implications you have seen theatul signed contract be prepared for folks to call you on it. Because someone in that position isn't likely to be posting in a forum like this

The headline needs a serious change. What Apple did was nothing like the Skyhook incident. Not even close.

And AI would be advised to check their sources ns their sources sources and what was actually said. The Verge article in particular is getting misquoted like crazy but they never did Apple cut their contract a year early.

I think it was the cancellation of the last year of the contract that surprised Google.  They probably thought they had plenty of time to come up with a standalone IOS app.

I agree as well. The map app works great where I live. 

My doctor relocated and I used 3D maps to see what the building looked like and found it much better than street view.

Hey Microsoft does it too, with Bing.

 

Words can't do it justice, so...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by hill60 - 9/26/12 at 9:00pm

Voice guided turn by turn is the experience that overrides all of Google's eye candy.

 

btw Maps on iOS has transit directions from whichever source you want to choose, I checked my city, there are dozens of them paid and unpaid.

 

That makes no sense since the old app was Apple's app not Google's and they have another year's worth of access to the map data.  So if Apple was really behind the 8 ball they could move the iOS 5 map app to iOS 6 in a day or two.  There are still millions of phones using the old app.

 

They aren't waiting on Google for anything.  It's questionable in my mind if they they'd release the Google Maps App right away even if Google had submitted it at the same time as the youtube app.  They probably couldn't get away with not approving it but I bet they are not bothered in the least the Google doesn't have their app ready.  Google was probably on the "we'll have our app ready for when the contract ends" timetable.

 

And yeah, with only a year left on their contract THIS is the year they HAD to get off the Google servers because it'll takes a while, even for Apple, to get ALL the users off iOS 5...

Google was not "skyhooked" by Apple. Apple did not go to Samsung and change their certification criteria by saying "If you don't dump Google's search engine you're not going to qualify to be an Apple supplier."

Which is what Google did to Skyhook. They went to Moto and Samsung and told them to forget making certified android phones if they went with Skyhook. To the point of playing hardball and not letting Samsung ship 25K Galaxy S's that had skyhook already loaded on them.

Perfectly legal and perfectly sleazy. So it certainly doesn't make me sad that Google is missing out on a year of expected iOS location data collection.

See signature...

 

The key to this image is to read the copyright in the corner that gives two names: Nokia and C3 Technologies.  As any tech enthusiast would know by now, C3 was bought by Apple in 2011. Yes, Apple's C3 provides (at least for now) the 3D images to Nokia.

 

How about the grievance that you troll your own threads whilst hiding behind a pseudonym, Daniel?

Why does the article say 10s of Millions of users when Apple said over 100 Million iOS 6 installs the first weekend? 100 Million people not using Google Maps = Awesome!

Obviously Google were sent to Cuventary.

That is true AppleBuser. Nokia licensed data from C3 and Apple bought C3.  One could make the analogy that Nokia got the milk while Apple bought the cow (any maybe overpaid for the cow too!)  

 

His name is above the article.

Painful indeed.

 

J.

Apple has a simple problem; Google owns the Maps system that works and Apple doesn't, Apple decided to go it a alone and failed. NY Daily, Forbes, The Inquirer even ABC all report this mess as yet another assault on Apple's reputation.  Put simply the conclusion is that Apple rushed to get the Iphone 5 on the market knowing full well that it had a mapping system which was totally underdeveloped just so that it could arrest its loss of market share to Samsung.  Apple messed this one and is now trying to spin and buy expertise from Google, but catching up to Google will take years and Google can offer a product when it feels like it (code for when Apple is prepared to pay for it).  Apple is now in a no win scenario as it has to play catch up (something it isn't used to) while Google continues to move forward including innovative underwater work.

100 Million phone sales does not equate to people not using Google Maps.  It means 100 Million people are now not getting the best quality mapping system available on their phone and will probably be going to their nearest computer to download a Google Map so they can get accurate directions!!

I would probably still use the Apple software and use the Google maps as an alternate. Actually, I can right now, just enter maps.google.com into Safari and everyone has it.

I understand others are having problems, but the new program is really slick so far.

I've had Google throw me off with outdated information as recently as last month, so I don't know if it deserves the pedestal it is placed on.


Most other blogs, the author responds under the same name as the article. I don't see why DED defends himself under a different name. It comes off as a form of sock puppetry. I don't have a problem with an author defending their articles using their own name, but the pseudonym / sock puppet is a bit suspicious.


Some other responses were unjustifiably brash, in my opinion. It seems he may have still have been angry from responding to someone else when making a reply to a different person.


He meant report to the moderators. That's how that phrase is used on a forum. I'm not sure what we can do, I assume whoever controls the site is OK with this form of sock puppetry, the best we can do is ask if that is the case.


Most people don't read the author line. Also, it's usually pretty easy to tell from the abstract in the RSS feed, which does not name the author.

 

What's painful is watching you show the world how clueless you are.  His name is in the byline of the original article:

 

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/26/how-google-was-skyhooked-by-apples-new-ios-6-maps

 

:facepalm:

I just worry that this is Apple's second post-Jobs big mistake. The first was the appointment of John Browett; and when he came a cropper we Brits, who know all about the Currys and PC World stores, weren't at all surprised. Now we have the maps disaster all, apparently, over turn-by-turn navigation. I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 5 with THREE navigation apps on it - Waze, SatNav/Skobbler and Navigon. If and when I upgrade to iOS 6 I probably shan't use Apple's turn-by-turn, anyway. Meanwhile I'm not upgrading because I use and like Streetview so much, and there is no substitute for it. (The app that claims to do this - Live Streetview Free - works so badly that it isn't worth the effort.) I often use Streetview to check out a place where I shall go and park, to see the nature of the street and how parkable it is, etc. Flyover is of no interest to me, and probably doesn't cover the town I live in, anyway. Is there a replacement for Streetview in the Apple pipeline?

 

I can understand if Google is content to let Apple and its users stew in their juice for a bit, although in the long run I guess Google needs Apple, to deliver its 365 million iOS users to Google ads, more than Apple needs Google.

I'm still waiting for you (or anyone else) to back that up with facts.

Some places are wrong on Apple Maps. Some places are wrong on Tom Tom. Some places are wrong on Garmin. Some places are wrong with Google Maps.

Now, please provide the evidence that the number is any greater for Apple Maps than for the others. A bunch of whining on forums like this is not useful evidence.

Finally, a reasonable post.

 

If more people would just take ten seconds before wailing on their keyboards with the fury of false entitlement, we wouldn't have this problem. Apple Maps is a step down at the moment, and is certainly worse than most of their 1.0 products, but the foundation is solid; Apple can constantly improve the backend db.

 

Don't be misled by the media's echo chamber; all their energy is being spent on parroting the same location and rendering errors, with little to no mention of it being the first mobile map with 3rd party extensions (afaik). For all the years of tear-soaked threads championing "open" ideology over Apple's "closed" platform, the new map API is a much bigger long-term deal than most people appear to realize.

 

A little historical perspective helps in big ways. One easily identifiable pattern is vendors who let their Mac/iOS version stagnate, so Apple ultimately builds superior tech to replace it (Flash to HTML5/H.264, IE to Safari, MS Office to iWork). Another is the tech press universally disparaging the latest Apple tech, which later goes on to be a huge success. The columnists who become fixated on things like antennagate, screen size over quality, marketshare over actual use, and an "open software" ideology over an "open where it matters and actually works" solution, are the same type of people who whine about a new Facebook layout but forget it within a week.

 

Comparing marketing bullet points is far easier than measuring objective quality. Concordantly, being accustomed to the glitches of an old system is easier than objectively judging a new app with the same problems.

and when (or if) Google provides a map app for iOS 6, do you think that the Andriod manufacturers will not complain that Apple is getting a free map app, whereas the Andriod Licensee Pays for the map app?.
which is why Google will provide street view on the web app, and leave it at that...

Um, you know that Waze is what's feeding traffic to Apple's maps, right? And no one knows how to activate street view in iOS 5 without looking it up. There is no indication it is even there unless you are shown it or stumble upon it.

Apple's new Maps is very good. Just one error as yet.

Maps finds all my Clients, Family and Friends.

It is fast and easy to use.

 

If this the only thing that IOS 6 needs to improve, then Apple are on a winner!

 

Who is competing?

Dude, calm down.  Step 1: Check my post count and joined date.  Hardly my first rodeo.

 

I'd hope the digressions are intuitively obvious, but the first starts here:

 

 

His characterization of Java VMs is a little spotty, but I'll (mostly) let that go.  "Novel use of AJAX"?  You mean the one that changed the web into a real platform like Sun could only wish Java had? 

 

More importantly: On AI, who really cares?  Reduce your writing to what's needed.  Simplify, simplify.  What's the point of Java and AJAX?  There is a history to these techs.  I get it.  MOVE ON.

 

So he keeps harping on fragmentation...

 

 

That's just fanboy.  I like the "Only .5% of folks using Android are really using Android" line, but this is just minimally contextualized attack.  Then there's some Vista cameo like Princess Leia in Thumb Wars explaining, "I escaped somehow," then we move from open sourced Android to closed culture Android, then...  Look, it's like watching Oliver Stone.  What's the point?  Take the time to boil it down for me, or take it to RoughlyDrafted.  Or better yet, I'll boil it down: "The history of Android is one of fragmentation.  I will now explain why that's important for mapping apps."  Poof.  Word count cut in half.

 

I could keep going, but critiquing Dilger's writing isn't my job.  I just wish, as a reader, he'd do better and carefully revise what he's got with good, enjoyable signposts that help make the crux of his argument more obvious.  Say, like Gruber does.  Here, I was less evaluating Dilger's work than sympathizing with the previous poster.  This is a forum, after all.

 

(That said, when it comes to the hospital bit, I'm a little more ethically disappointed in Dilger, and that has very little to do with his writing, other than some evidence of a systemic carelessness for others, including, here, your reader.  But I'm mostly just disappointed with his lackluster attitude for city residents that contributed to his care.)

 

You don't have to make your stuff easy to follow for your writing to be good, but at least Pynchon uses an appropriate genre, you know?

Edited by rufwork - 9/27/12 at 8:32am