Apple Maps adds Flyover 3D modeling of Berkeley, East Bay
Apple has expanded its 3D Maps Flyover support for the east side of the San Francisco Bay Area, including the city of Berkeley, the University of California birthplace of the flavor of Unix used in OS X and iOS.
Apple has continued to expand the areas supported in Flyover, the explorable 3D representation of satellite imagery it introduced as a significant feature of the insourced mapping service it launched in iOS 6.
Apple's 3D Flyover mapping technology, acquired as part of C3 in 2011, provides a detailed representation of buildings and topography significantly superior to alternatives from Google and Nokia, the world's largest map vendors.
Flyover image glitches were targeted by Apple's critics from the beginning, with the incorrect portrayal of Hoover Dam being frequently cited as an example of Apple's "terrible maps."
However, while Apple has enhanced a series of 3D representations (including that of Hoover Dam, above), other vendors haven't. Google Earth still depicts the landmark's famous highway bridge as collapsing into the river below, nearly a year after AppleInsider last profiled 3D imagery available from Apple, Google and Nokia.
The new Mac Maps app provides an even larger canvas for exploring 2D, 3D models and 3D Flyover imagery, as shown in the above representation of UC Berkeley, where the "Berkeley Standard Distribution" originated.
Apple uses a custom OS kernel derived from Mach and modern versions of BSD Unix in both its OS X and iOS operating systems.
Apple has continued to expand the areas supported in Flyover, the explorable 3D representation of satellite imagery it introduced as a significant feature of the insourced mapping service it launched in iOS 6.
Apple's 3D Flyover mapping technology, acquired as part of C3 in 2011, provides a detailed representation of buildings and topography significantly superior to alternatives from Google and Nokia, the world's largest map vendors.
Flyover image glitches were targeted by Apple's critics from the beginning, with the incorrect portrayal of Hoover Dam being frequently cited as an example of Apple's "terrible maps."
However, while Apple has enhanced a series of 3D representations (including that of Hoover Dam, above), other vendors haven't. Google Earth still depicts the landmark's famous highway bridge as collapsing into the river below, nearly a year after AppleInsider last profiled 3D imagery available from Apple, Google and Nokia.
Maps for Macs
For OS X Mavericks, Apple brought its Maps to the Mac in a standalone application with improved tools for reporting errors and integration with location data leveraging Apple Data Detectors.The new Mac Maps app provides an even larger canvas for exploring 2D, 3D models and 3D Flyover imagery, as shown in the above representation of UC Berkeley, where the "Berkeley Standard Distribution" originated.
Apple uses a custom OS kernel derived from Mach and modern versions of BSD Unix in both its OS X and iOS operating systems.
Comments
Too bad the campus is dirtier than shown
Wish they'd do Pittsburgh ... They've done Philadelphia; Pittsburgh is VERY cool with the Three Rivers meeting at the park. Very iconic buildings galore, including the one for PPG.
How far away is Carnegie Mellon University from Pittsburgh? Submit a request. NeXT/Apple had some very prominent grads, perhaps they can grease the wheel a bit.
Much of the East Bay, including Oakland all the way down to Hayward has been covered by Flyover for at least the past year. (FWIW, I thought Berkeley was already included) There were some Flyover coverage gaps that this update apparently fills in.
Apple also seems to tip off which areas will add Flyover coverage, because the turn-by-turn navigation had been showing the 3D building outlines in those East Bay cities where Flyover had not yet come online. I guess this could be something to check for those who live in areas that do not currently have Flyover. If you see 3D buildings in the navigation, then Flyover might be coming soon.
This single example shows how much weight you should give the Apple (maps) bashers- they're drowning in their own despicable hypocrisy, lies, and deceit. Gleefully mocking a flaw in Apple's (just released) product, while pretending the exact same flaw in the "golden standard" of maps didnt exist- because, well, that would make the narrative alot more boring.
Campus is beautiful.
Google Earth (April 19 2014)
Road(over)kill.
POI is the road less traveled.
Royal fail
Until Maps can find 77th St and Second Avenue in Manhattan I'll have no use for it. Shameful. Apple hasn't sorted out New York Frickin' City. Try it for yourself. Maps can't find a common intersection. Also, the paucity of landmarks on the Manhattan map is astounding. This is not a manpower issue; it''s utter neglect.
I enjoy DED's posts, but this Maps thing he's on is a joke. Maps still is horrible. Period.
Was the map-gate callback and GMaps criticism really necessary for this piece of news? Seems like pointless sniping.
The article was necessary, if only to annoy you.
Speaking of California, what's the next name for OS X going to be? Jurassic Park?
Haha, as the meme goes, two things came out of Berkeley, BSD & LSD... It is believed they were not a coincidence.
Sadly for the joke, LSD came out of Switzerland, synthesized by Albert Hoffman, a researcher at Sandoz (now Novartis) in 1938.
On the other hand, it's likely that quite a lot of LSD went *in* to Berkeley.
Carnegie Mellon is in Pittsburgh as is an Apple Dev Center, at least there was a few years back. Not sure if it's still there.
Until Maps can find 77th St and Second Avenue in Manhattan I'll have no use for it. Shameful. Apple hasn't sorted out New York Frickin' City. Try it for yourself. Maps can't find a common intersection. Also, the paucity of landmarks on the Manhattan map is astounding. This is not a manpower issue; it''s utter neglect.
I enjoy DED's posts, but this Maps thing he's on is a joke. Maps still is horrible. Period.
Oh good gawd, get off your high horse. The world doesn't end at the Hudson. Yeah, it's "horrible" and a "joke" because it doesn't sort out New York the way you want it to, irrespective of how it works elsewhere.
I just tried it, and found the intersection just fine. Maybe you should use the vernacular that most New Yorkers I know use (i.e., "77th and 2nd"). The results found E 77th St and 2nd Ave.
Maps is certainly not perfect (Google Maps isn't either), but it has improved to a point where I now use it almost exclusively as my mapping app. On recent trips to Boston, Vegas, and Philly, I found everything I needed without a hitch and didn't reach for Google Maps once.
3D Fly-overs are nice, but show me the basics (statis quo) first!!
Extremely disappointed in Apple's Maps debacle and still waiting(!) for the fix. How did they mess this up?
I agree. Apple Maps looks pretty, but a long way to go. Seems they are focusing on the wrong things.
I tried Apple Maps on my MacBook to look up northern Thailand. Just terrible. So few features such as roads and rivers.
Maybe they will get better - where it matters.
I will admit that I have found Apple Maps to be accurate and Google Maps to be way off on at least two occasions. Apple was spot on and Google was not.