Apple Data Detectors add cool Maps integration in OS X Mavericks
While providing an overview of the new Maps app for Macs in OS X Mavericks and showing Calendar integration with location services to calculate and schedule travel time for meetings, Apple didn't specifically highlight new Apple Data Detector features.
Source: Apple
"With OS X Mavericks, maps are built into Mail, Contacts, and Calendar, too," Apple notes on its preview page. "So wherever you see an address, you can see it on a map, just like that."
Source: Apple
Apple then slept on the technology until OS X Leopard in 2008, when it returned to the desktop as automatically generated links that enabled users to turn, for example, a date into a Calendar event or an address into to Contact record.
That same year, iOS 3 similarly enabled Apple's mobile devices to highlight numbers and emails into actionable links, a feature that was widely copied by Android licensees. Apple's clear patent on the technology has made it one of the very few inventions it has effectively used to stop infringement.
OS X Mavericks extends the role of Apple Data Detectors to integrate with its new Maps app when working with locations.
Selected addresses in Mail, for example, can now popup an integrated Maps view for obtaining directions or adding the address to Contacts, as highlighted in a tweet by Benedict Evans (below).
In addition, mobile devices running iOS 7 not only highlight addresses but draw upon these "data detections" when performing searches in Maps.
For example, after getting an email including a given address, a user can open Maps and begin entering the address and the system will suggest the detected address as a result.
In the above image, iOS 7 Maps' first autosuggestion in an address search calls up a location included earlier in an email from Anthony J., before a direct match on the initial portion of the entered address would be useful.
Source: Apple
"With OS X Mavericks, maps are built into Mail, Contacts, and Calendar, too," Apple notes on its preview page. "So wherever you see an address, you can see it on a map, just like that."
Source: Apple
Maps integration with Apple Data Detectors
Apple Data Detectors are an invention the company first added to the Mac OS 8 in 1997 as a way to highlight bits of data (such as emails, URLs and phone numbers) within documents for subsequent user interaction.Apple then slept on the technology until OS X Leopard in 2008, when it returned to the desktop as automatically generated links that enabled users to turn, for example, a date into a Calendar event or an address into to Contact record.
That same year, iOS 3 similarly enabled Apple's mobile devices to highlight numbers and emails into actionable links, a feature that was widely copied by Android licensees. Apple's clear patent on the technology has made it one of the very few inventions it has effectively used to stop infringement.
OS X Mavericks extends the role of Apple Data Detectors to integrate with its new Maps app when working with locations.
Selected addresses in Mail, for example, can now popup an integrated Maps view for obtaining directions or adding the address to Contacts, as highlighted in a tweet by Benedict Evans (below).
Maps in OSX Mail. Very nice. pic.twitter.com/TfqCVBqqat
? Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans)
In addition, mobile devices running iOS 7 not only highlight addresses but draw upon these "data detections" when performing searches in Maps.
For example, after getting an email including a given address, a user can open Maps and begin entering the address and the system will suggest the detected address as a result.
In the above image, iOS 7 Maps' first autosuggestion in an address search calls up a location included earlier in an email from Anthony J., before a direct match on the initial portion of the entered address would be useful.
Comments
Hopefully they also build in a time allowance for you to get lost following Apple Maps' terrible directions¡
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
The building in of travel time based on current conditions is pretty darn awesome.
What they should do is have it modifiable so that the person can add in additional time for them to get to their car. Some people work in a building where it might take 15 to 20 additional minutes for them to get into their car, etc. So, they should ask the user if they wish to add additional time to compensate so they can get ot their car or how much prep time they'll need before they are actually on the road. Just an observation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
What they should do is have it modifiable so that the person can add in additional time for them to get to their car. Some people work in a building where it might take 15 to 20 additional minutes for them to get into their car, etc. So, they should ask the user if they wish to add additional time to compensate so they can get ot their car or how much prep time they'll need before they are actually on the road. Just an observation.
Would be great feedback for Apple. http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Fantastic idea.
That Sydney sure knows how to stretch out a lunch.
Ooh, one step further. Don't bother asking the person, because they wouldn't know anyway. Just let the iPhone do it automatically.
When the iPhone detects BOTH that it has left the geofence of whatever the current location is AND that the calendar has reached a time close enough to whatever the upcoming event is, just have Calendar automatically look up the new traffic data and adjust time accordingly.
Hmmm... I thought the technology behind Data Detectors was invented for the Newton originally?
The Newton was able to detect dates, times and addresses and set up your schedule or create a contact from them. This is why the Newton was considered the first real digital assistant and not just some glorified electronic organizer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Ooh, one step further. Don't bother asking the person, because they wouldn't know anyway. Just let the iPhone do it automatically.
When the iPhone detects BOTH that it has left the geofence of whatever the current location is AND that the calendar has reached a time close enough to whatever the upcoming event is, just have Calendar automatically look up the new traffic data and adjust time accordingly.
When you put in your calendar an event, it automatically can put in for traffic to get to your new meeting. But it doesn't account for you working in a building and it taking an additional 15 minutes to get to your car.
Mavericks is shaping up to be one of the more interesting OS X releases. I am actually excited to take this one for a spin.
I think the idea is that it will give an alert when it is time to leave and will warn you if you have two appointments too close together on opposite ends of town; in which case the ability to tell it to add some time would be useful.
I actually tested this week the difference between IOS GPS and a SiriusXm Toyota GPS. The results were amazing
Just a few things here:
Travel time (short & long)-20% to 120% more not using iPhone
Correct location-iPhone 6% more likely
More roads/newer-iPhone 100% more (I am seriously not joking)
Live traffic-even (both were decently limited) In this closed roads-Even(horrible-both a closed bridge over a river could not detect causing a 1 hour alternate)
Accuracy (time/location) iPhone did 10% better
In real world data it did amazing in difference.
Mavericks has a lot of great underlying improvements such as the battery life/timer coalescing, OpenGL updates, and this map popover. I just wish they would continue evolving the GUI incrementally too, instead of the iOS7'ifiication we see in contacts and notes. iOS is for kids and needs to be fresh and new and cool but OS X is for adults and there needs to be reasoned incrementation and delight not wholesale discarding.
iOS is for kids?
I wonder how effective that will actually be. It seems as though Windows has had that for a while:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463269.aspx
Battery life doesn't seem to be much improved in Windows, quite the opposite. I also wonder if it will affect time-sensitive processes as they defer execution of some tasks e.g scientific calculations depending on nanosecond accuracy being offset by nanoseconds. I suppose they'd just have to keep track of the offsets and report the correct numbers back to the processes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
What they should do is have it modifiable so that the person can add in additional time for them to get to their car. Some people work in a building where it might take 15 to 20 additional minutes for them to get into their car, etc. So, they should ask the user if they wish to add additional time to compensate so they can get ot their car or how much prep time they'll need before they are actually on the road. Just an observation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Ooh, one step further. Don't bother asking the person, because they wouldn't know anyway. Just let the iPhone do it automatically.
When the iPhone detects BOTH that it has left the geofence of whatever the current location is AND that the calendar has reached a time close enough to whatever the upcoming event is, just have Calendar automatically look up the new traffic data and adjust time accordingly.
Sounds like a future job for the upcoming iBeacons feature if this capability is to be progressively and iteratively refined to be more user-supportive, as indeed it should.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I wonder how effective that will actually be. It seems as though Windows has had that for a while:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463269.aspx
Battery life doesn't seem to be much improved in Windows, quite the opposite. I also wonder if it will affect time-sensitive processes as they defer execution of some tasks e.g scientific calculations depending on nanosecond accuracy being offset by nanoseconds. I suppose they'd just have to keep track of the offsets and report the correct numbers back to the processes.
Maybe that's why Apple hasn't done it until now: the savings haven't been that great in the past. But with Haswell the power usage differential between idle state and busy state may be greater than in the past. OS X isn't a RTOS anyway, so there's no guarantees even before this change. But I was still surprised by the aggressive decision to turn it on by default on apps linked to pre-10.9 SDKs. And freezing web plugins by default too! That is surely something Google could never do in their OS for fear of annoying their client advertising companies who use Flash ads a lot.