this is obviously not an Apple clone of Street View. Will Apple provide nighttime views as well as daytime? That would make sense.
It's a clone, they just are 'possibly' adding a night view. Google Maps has a HUGE headstart on maps. Apple needs more employees checking and implementing user fixes. Sometimes I've noticed reported fixes in a week or two and other mysteriously just don't get fixed. Not enough employees on the problem would be my guess.
Google's map around here are POS and always have been so if they're have a huge advance, they've basically lost it to the incumbent. They sat on their fat ass and are about to get their butt kicked. The only place Google has an advantage is on Points of interests linked to the map since this linked to their search business, for the rest excuse me but they're losing ground daily.
While Google had a "head start", Apple has the advantage of doing Maps with the newest technology (which wasn't available when Google started). For example, the cost to make these mapping vehicles has dropped significantly from when Google started.
Google is constantly redoing their maps, street view and satellite images on roughly a two year schedule, at least in my area. So any company that has the capital to execute a similar maps project can catch up to Google in two years. One advantage that Google has is their search engine data which they use as an overlay on top of their maps and surpasses any other company especially one that has no search engine of their own.
Google maps around here are stalled for 3 years and they sill haven't fixed some roads leading to nowhere that have been wrong for 10 years. Google is on the verge on losing it all in maps and they won't know what happened when it hits them.
It is not a Maps problem per se. It is a Siri problem. I didn't have the Maps app open. Siri opened it in response to me asking "where is the ...?" I have reported other errors and omissions to the Maps team with some success in resolving other issues.
Apple Maps and Siri are terrible, and it seems mostly related to intelligent (or no so intelligent) search.* I'll ask siri a simple thing like "find yoga one on maps" and the response will be "searching the internet for 'find yoga one on maps.'" Unbelievably stupid. It's especially frustrating as someone who avoids google at all costs, and thus uses Apple Maps exclusively. I'm not the first one to point this out.. if you don't use the EXACT phrasing and abbreviation, you're usually SOL, which is ridiculous for the most powerful company on the planet, particularly one that cares so much about its products. I will point out that the aesthetics, layout, and flow of Apple Maps is excellent.
The only thing I can reliably use siri for is to schedule things/reminders, and sometimes to message people, and for those thing's it's great. Every other time I use siri I cringe, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The sad part is that I'm actually setting a pretty low bar. If I type into maps "recycling center north main" I fing expect it to find the recycling center on north main that's 10 min from my home, not a "North Main Recycling" business that's 4 hours away!
The services area of Apple definitely needs some changes, which is
probably why Tim stopped mentioning services, and mostly talks about
hardware and software. Hopefully, now that services is going to be a
bigger part of their narrative to wall st (which I couldn't care less
about), their actual services will improve.
*How freakn hard can it be.. google does it
Funny Google can't even get that kind of search right when I type it in their crap engine and you're calling Siri bad? Almost all Google searches these days ARE UTTERLY WRONG; mind reading is obviously not their forte, yet they they try and try and try. When Google suggested to me something that omitted 50% of all my search words and is irrelevant in even the words I'm put down, I bailed. And BTW, they've had 18 years to get hat bad; that's bad AI at its finest. Siri looks like Einsten when I compare it to that.
The other day I saw an Uber car that had a weird clunky device on top of it. I couldn't figure it out and the car read something like "Uber Technology Group".
Google is on the verge on losing it all in maps and they won't know what happened when it hits them.
Google is the undisputed king of digital mapping. There are also millions of third party mapping apps and services that use the numerous Google maps APIs. Google Maps received 88 million unique users from January to October 2015 on just their smartphone app alone according to Nielsen. That is twice what Apple Maps gets.
Google maps is constantly adding features too. They even display maps in the regular search results when applicable.
Apple doesn't even have a maps website. Also, Apple Maps only works on Apple devices and they don't even have their own data. They have to get it from TomTom or Yelp.
Anyone who thinks Google Maps is going down anytime soon is simply delusional.
Sometimes I think Apple Maps is run by 5 guys in a room with one drone.
Apple could do a better job if it actually committed resources to it. I rmembr when google maps first started, those Google cars were ubiquitous, absolutely everywhere, regardless of country. If Apple is doing something like street view, it will have just as lame a roll out as flyover. Half arsed and under resourced.
this is obviously not an Apple clone of Street View. Will Apple provide nighttime views as well as daytime? That would make sense.
Has to be that, no? They did my area (southern NH) last summer when I was out doing yard work. It went by a few times, getting the side roads of my neighborhood. Maybe I'll be in iOS X!!!
I hope they don't copy street view, it's a useless, sluggish waste of time. I find pinch-zooming into the detail way more useful. Perhaps this is to create a higher def version of that.
All this talk of mapping vehicles reminded me of a thoughtful blog by a driver for a mapping service, posted a few years back. Not many people know about it, someone in the industry shared the link with me (here on AI!).
It presents in descending order, rather than from the beginning. But if you plow it deeply enough to the start, you'll encounter some real gems of photography and writing. And some insight into the daily grind these drivers go through, early on.
Apple Maps and Siri are terrible, and it seems mostly related to intelligent (or no so intelligent) search.* I'll ask siri a simple thing like "find yoga one on maps" and the response will be "searching the internet for 'find yoga one on maps.'" Unbelievably stupid. It's especially frustrating as someone who avoids google at all costs, and thus uses Apple Maps exclusively. I'm not the first one to point this out.. if you don't use the EXACT phrasing and abbreviation, you're usually SOL, which is ridiculous for the most powerful company on the planet, particularly one that cares so much about its products. I will point out that the aesthetics, layout, and flow of Apple Maps is excellent.
The only thing I can reliably use siri for is to schedule things/reminders, and sometimes to message people, and for those thing's it's great. Every other time I use siri I cringe, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The sad part is that I'm actually setting a pretty low bar. If I type into maps "recycling center north main" I fing expect it to find the recycling center on north main that's 10 min from my home, not a "North Main Recycling" business that's 4 hours away!
The services area of Apple definitely needs some changes, which is
probably why Tim stopped mentioning services, and mostly talks about
hardware and software. Hopefully, now that services is going to be a
bigger part of their narrative to wall st (which I couldn't care less
about), their actual services will improve.
*How freakn hard can it be.. google does it
Funny Google can't even get that kind of search right when I type it in their crap engine and you're calling Siri bad? Almost all Google searches these days ARE UTTERLY WRONG; mind reading is obviously not their forte, yet they they try and try and try. When Google suggested to me something that omitted 50% of all my search words and is irrelevant in even the words I'm put down, I bailed. And BTW, they've had 18 years to get hat bad; that's bad AI at its finest. Siri looks like Einsten when I compare it to that.
I've actually been getting more meaningful results from DuckDuckGo, but I don't know how long this will last. At some point they'll have to succumb to commercial realities I suppose.
I wonder how this investment is being monetized by Apple. Google clearly just uses the location information from maps users for ad-targeting algorithms and services that also feed those algorithms.
Is there money in just making it harder for Google to gather location information?
Good question. I would suggest that there is no direct monetisation for the mapping service, but it is important to iOS users who now use it more than they use Google Maps.
The one thing I can see Google worried about is one day people go to maps.apple.com and instead of getting the page describing Apple Maps on iOS devices they get an actual online map just like you see with maps.google.com.
Google is also likely worried about the rate that Apple is improving Maps. People seem to forget how crappy Google Maps were at the beginning or the fact they STILL have errors (only two blocks from me a street that's been closed to bicycles almost 2 years ago still shows you can drive a car there).
While Google had a "head start", Apple has the advantage of doing Maps with the newest technology (which wasn't available when Google started). For example, the cost to make these mapping vehicles has dropped significantly from when Google started.
Bottom line is Apple Maps will equal (or surpass) Google Maps in the near future, and it would have cost Apple less money/resources to do so.
If three times more people are using Apple Maps on iOS than are using the equivalent Google app, then I can only assume that Apple Maps must be working okay for the majority of people who've tried it. Otherwise they'd just use Google Maps. The problem is that forums are a poor place to judge the popularity or usefulness of any device or piece of software. For example, look how many guests have turned up today to fight Google's corner (welcome, by the way). I use Maps all the time, and it's fine for where I live, and I imagine, over time, it will improve everywhere else. Google Maps was okay too, but they dropped the ball when they refused to include voice directions on their iOS version. A very bad play when you consider a significant chunk of their advertising revenue comes from people on the Apple platform.
Apple Maps and Siri are terrible, and it seems mostly related to intelligent (or no so intelligent) search.* I'll ask siri a simple thing like "find yoga one on maps" and the response will be "searching the internet for 'find yoga one on maps.'" Unbelievably stupid. It's especially frustrating as someone who avoids google at all costs, and thus uses Apple Maps exclusively. I'm not the first one to point this out.. if you don't use the EXACT phrasing and abbreviation, you're usually SOL, which is ridiculous for the most powerful company on the planet, particularly one that cares so much about its products. I will point out that the aesthetics, layout, and flow of Apple Maps is excellent.
The only thing I can reliably use siri for is to schedule things/reminders, and sometimes to message people, and for those thing's it's great. Every other time I use siri I cringe, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The sad part is that I'm actually setting a pretty low bar. If I type into maps "recycling center north main" I fing expect it to find the recycling center on north main that's 10 min from my home, not a "North Main Recycling" business that's 4 hours away!
The services area of Apple definitely needs some changes, which is
probably why Tim stopped mentioning services, and mostly talks about
hardware and software. Hopefully, now that services is going to be a
bigger part of their narrative to wall st (which I couldn't care less
about), their actual services will improve.
*How freakn hard can it be.. google does it
Funny Google can't even get that kind of search right when I type it in their crap engine and you're calling Siri bad? Almost all Google searches these days ARE UTTERLY WRONG; mind reading is obviously not their forte, yet they they try and try and try. When Google suggested to me something that omitted 50% of all my search words and is irrelevant in even the words I'm put down, I bailed. And BTW, they've had 18 years to get hat bad; that's bad AI at its finest. Siri looks like Einsten when I compare it to that.
Well I want to be very clear that I an NOT saying goggle is great. TBH I don't see hardly any difference between google, ddg (which I use almost exclusively), or bing. I've never understood why people give google so much credit.
Comments
They sat on their fat ass and are about to get their butt kicked.
The only place Google has an advantage is on Points of interests linked to the map since this linked to their search business, for the rest excuse me but they're losing ground daily.
Google is on the verge on losing it all in maps and they won't know what happened when it hits them.
Almost all Google searches these days ARE UTTERLY WRONG; mind reading is obviously not their forte, yet they they try and try and try.
When Google suggested to me something that omitted 50% of all my search words and is irrelevant in even the words I'm put down, I bailed.
And BTW, they've had 18 years to get hat bad; that's bad AI at its finest. Siri looks like Einsten when I compare it to that.
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/tops-of-2015-digital.html
Google maps is constantly adding features too. They even display maps in the regular search results when applicable.
Apple doesn't even have a maps website. Also, Apple Maps only works on Apple devices and they don't even have their own data. They have to get it from TomTom or Yelp.
Anyone who thinks Google Maps is going down anytime soon is simply delusional.
Do or don't. There is no try.
https://milepost2point0.wordpress.com
It presents in descending order, rather than from the beginning. But if you plow it deeply enough to the start, you'll encounter some real gems of photography and writing. And some insight into the daily grind these drivers go through, early on.
I've actually been getting more meaningful results from DuckDuckGo, but I don't know how long this will last. At some point they'll have to succumb to commercial realities I suppose.
Microsoft had a huge head start on phones. Head starts mean very little in this game. Apple and/or Google could lose it all tomorrow.
Good question. I would suggest that there is no direct monetisation for the mapping service, but it is important to iOS users who now use it more than they use Google Maps.
http://bgr.com/2015/12/09/apple-maps-vs-google-maps-iphone-ipad-popularity/
Secondly, the same mapping service will likely be used by the Apple Car.
Not everything made at Apple directly makes money; a lot of the stuff is made so other stuff can make money.
If three times more people are using Apple Maps on iOS than are using the equivalent Google app, then I can only assume that Apple Maps must be working okay for the majority of people who've tried it. Otherwise they'd just use Google Maps. The problem is that forums are a poor place to judge the popularity or usefulness of any device or piece of software. For example, look how many guests have turned up today to fight Google's corner (welcome, by the way). I use Maps all the time, and it's fine for where I live, and I imagine, over time, it will improve everywhere else. Google Maps was okay too, but they dropped the ball when they refused to include voice directions on their iOS version. A very bad play when you consider a significant chunk of their advertising revenue comes from people on the Apple platform.
Well I want to be very clear that I an NOT saying goggle is great. TBH I don't see hardly any difference between google, ddg (which I use almost exclusively), or bing. I've never understood why people give google so much credit.