I usually find your insights compelling and often agree with them. Today, however, I feel you, and many others, mix and/or equate the function of viewing a map and navigation. The function of a map is to get a clear overview of an area and its features. You want to see the roads and how they relate to one another, detail depending on zoom level of course. Navigation should focus the map to the significant features that lie ahead. The appearance of a road would change depending on its relevance in reaching our destination. I therefore take issue with your thumbs-up on the minimalistic design of the new Maps. Although I dont miss the buildings, I do miss a clear indication of secondary road and major thoroughfare. This may not be apparent to looking at a map of the Bay area, but if you look at my home town (Apeldoorn, town of 160,000 in the Netherlands) when zoomed out to see the entire area, you see nothing but a "white hole", surrounded by an obnoxious sea of green, depicting the forests. Other then a freeway on its eastern edge (with an overabundance of labels!), it appears as thought no other roads exist. Zooming in, a ring-road gets road numbers (again, way too many!) but the road itself is indistinguishable, with it faint grey edge and white fill. Try reading that in your car! As for road labelling. It appears as though what roads get labelled is based solely on what fits 'nicely' on the map and not the relevance of the road. Many of the Maps issues have been attributed to the data. Given it comes from TomTom and I use their navigation device daily, I know for a fact that this does not account for the 'incompleteness' of the maps I have been viewing. I believe Apple's interpretation and rendering is the cause, creating a 'pretty' map but rather useless one. It will take much more then 'data tweaking' to make this a usable app.
This article ignores the problems that Maps has with basic display. For instance, the color choice. That's right, color.
It is a basic rule that you should use muted colors for large areas, saving bright colors for only the most important things or very small patches. This advice appears in the original Inside Mac when color was introduced.
So why does Maps insist on using REALLY BRIGHT green for parks and forest, and almost as bright purple for airports? These colors completely wash out all the surrounding detail. At any zoom level, my local suburbia appears to be almost completely forested, yet the local roads are almost impossible to see.
The most important thing on a road map are the roads. And so one wonders why they're so small in Maps. Compare the width of the roads in Google with Maps for instance - Google is about actual size in most cases, why Maps's residential roads are the size of sidewalks.
Combine this with the lack of labels until you're well zoomed in.
Those three items alone - toning down forests while toning up roads, making the roads wider on-screen, and allowing labels to appear earlier - would solve many of the problems people have with Maps.
And when they put any of the towns in Ontario in the right place, I'll personally be happy.
this article confirms, besides highlighting the tech, that the
"mapgate" stuff is just the wannabe competitors' "scoff campaign".
also, the really important bit illustrated for frisco is pinning
LOLZ.
I live in Ajax Ontario. My parents have a cottage outside Algonquin Park. During the drive we sometimes stop in Bowmanville, Peterborough, Young's Point, Bancroft, Maynooth and Whitney.
Of these cities and towns, Maps displays Bowmanville as Clarington, doesn't know Young's Point or Maynooth (but, amusingly, does know POI's in them), and completely ignores Whitney and doesn't even display the streets there when you zoom in. Bancroft is placed in the middle of a field, miles away from its actual location, and zooming out slightly one can see that all of the towns within 100 miles are either in very wrong places, or missing entirely. Of all these points, only Peterborough works as it should.
Apple should leave the traffic exactly how it is now. Google Maps traffic is meaningless since every single road constantly flashes red every three seconds.
At least you can see it. Apple's solution is almost invisible, and doesn't work at all for the multi-lane hiways. Zoom in on Google and you can see different colors for individual parts of the hiway.
The good news is that there are apps that overlay Google data on Apple's vectors. That works fine.
In cities however, Apple's automated 3D satellite perspective images appear relatively flat, just like the flat satellite images Google supplies in its Android app when looking at street perspectives. In some places, Apple's 3D rendering software depicts structures or landscapes incorrectly.
3D Flyover views
To improve upon this, Apple acquired C3, the company Nokia partnered with to deliver its experimental Maps 3D project. Similar in some respects to Google Earth, the technology builds detailed 3D maps of buildings and other man-made structures, a feature Apple brands "Flyover." Unlike its competitors, Apple integrated its Flyover feature directly into the mobile Maps app as a feature of the Satellite layer.
Turn on satellite images and you can activate Flyover (anywhere that "3D" is replaced with Apple's buildings icon) to get an even better real-world depiction of what things look like at closer zoom levels. This was also never supported in iOS 5 Maps.
While Flyover does a good job of automatically rendering mountain landscapes in perspective, it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures. Apple has to manually build models of cities, and this currently limited primarily to US cities (although support for Flyover is quickly spreading).
Apple's Flyover works in places its "3D Buildings in Navigation" does not, such as Portland, Oregon, which currently lacks grey 3D models in Standard view, but does have hand-drafted, photorealistic buildings in Flyover (below).
I don't believe the following paragraph from the article is accurate -- it cives the impression that "it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures.Apple has to manually build models of cities"
Quote:
While Flyover does a good job of automatically rendering mountain landscapes in perspective, it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures. Apple has to manually build models of cities, and this currently limited primarily to US cities (although support for Flyover is quickly spreading).
Consider:
Quote:
Smith says that C3's technique is about "98 percent" automated, in terms of the time it takes to produce a model from a set of photos. "Our computer vision software is good enough that there is only some minor cleanup," he says. "When your goal is to map the entire world, automation is essential to getting this done quickly and with less cost." He claims that C3 can generate richer models than its competitors, faster.
Manhattan still looks like Salvador Dali meltdown- lets get real here.
And the buildings are too tall so you can't see the roads?
Sure, let's get real..keep in mind the detail in the below shots is limited by hardware (RAM/cpu)..
Yeah, so fucking appalling. Quit your trolling.
Yeah, if you zoom into some buildings there WILL be distortions and imperfections. It's systematic and part of the insanely complex process to generate this stuff. It's still above and beyond what any other company is doing out there in respects to 3D, its infinitely better than a flat satellite photo, and any such distortions in no way impede one's usage. Such a whining, spoiled, bitchy, entitled viewpoint- we get pretty mind-blowing tech like this rolled out, and all people like you are bitch about the imperfections. I mean, really? Are you being inconvenienced by them? Should companies not embark on ambitious projects such as this until the tech is 100% perfect to the brick? Apple is now by far leading the pack in mapping the entire planet in fully manipulatable 3D, in pretty impressive detail, almost photorealistic at many angles, something that has been a fictional fantasy for so long. Yet all people like you can do is bitch and whine, pretending that the product is not up to your special little "standards", even though it beats the pants out of everything else out there. Insanely pathetic, and from my experience people like you are the ones who have never created anything worthwhile in their lives- because if they had, they would be more aware of the massive amounts of work involved to do so, without being so quick to bash and criticize- especially when the small flaws don't impede usage of the product in the least.
Squuiid, you may need to restart your device, Hoover Dam is the bomb and so are the hills of Tennesse. And they are totally balls out (in?) on the Grand Canyon. I'm glad they went over it in this article. Apples maps are the shiznit, the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, the uncut funk, Da Bomb.
I just reset my devices (iP5, iP4S, iPad 3, iPad 2) and the Hoover Dam FlyOver 3 D image is still screwed up!
Give him some time to Google 'IOS6 MAPS IS HORRIBLE' and get some pics, it's not like he actually owns it.
Also, most smaller buildings will show distortion at close zoom levels- the point is, who cares? The tech isn't optimized for ULTRA CLOSE inspection, and from a distance everything looks amazing. It's just whining nitpicking, trying to find shit to bitch about that doesnt affect the user experience. At the end of the day flyover is still a mind-blowingly amazing tech, I've wasted hours exploring cities, and not once did "melting buildings" temper that fascination. You only need a shred of perspective to think about what the tech is doing, and how incredibly accurate it is keeping in mind the sheer scale of it all.
Excellent article, I feel I must notify you of some errors; however.
Unless you are British, "orientating" is not proper English. The appropriate word in the United States is "orienting."
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
In place of street level views, Apple developed technology (based on its acquisition of C3) to take existing satellite data and build 3D topographical images out of it.
Unfortunately, this statement is erroneous. Apple has leveraged their acquisition of Poly9 to create a virtual globe using high-resolution satellite imagery and aerial photography. Poly9 Globe was a Adobe Flash-based competitor for Google Earth with a minimal footprint (303 kb) that can be connected to any satellite imagery data source although improvements in speed are possible as Poly9 does not “make use of graphic hardware acceleration (e.g. OpenGL / DirectX)” (1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
While Flyover does a good job of automatically rendering mountain landscapes in perspective, it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures. Apple has to manually build models of cities, and this currently limited primarily to US cities (although support for Flyover is quickly spreading).
Apple stretches high resolution satellite maps over a digital elevation model for a sculpted landscape view which is entirely different than the "photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures" which are automatically generated using C3 Technologies solution. The C3 Technologies solution captures as many as 100 images of a single object from different angles with resolutions as high as 10 cm. A 3D reconstruction is generated from a volume data set of one million LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) scans per second. The digital photography is overlayed on the 3D urban terrain map resulting from the LIDAR scanning. (2)
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Apple's Flyover works in places its "3D Buildings in Navigation" does not, such as Portland, Oregon, which currently lacks grey 3D models in Standard view, but does have hand-drafted, photorealistic buildings in Flyover (below).
I will emphasize again that the C3 Technologies process is automated. "Unlike Google or Bing, all of our maps are 360° explorable," C3 Chief Strategy Officer Paul Smith said earlier this year. "Everything, every building, every tree, every landmark, from the city center to the suburbs, is captured in 3D—not just a few select buildings." (3)
Just before Apple bought C3 technologies, I remember seeing videos showing some of the places that they had 3D mapped -- These included London, Oslo, etc. For some reason, these were not included in the original iOS 6 release (London was added later, as was the Statue of Liberty)...
It makes me wonder if Apple did not automatically get rights to the data... or there was some political or military reasons fro not including some 3D maps...
I'd bet there are some pretty detail 3D maps over the middle east (that are unavailable to the public).
Apple is just starting into the Map business. I bet when they update maps (just like they did with SIRI) it will be a major plus. I would use it now as it is. I have to take a 250 mile trip soon and will use iOS 6 Maps.
I just finished a 2100 mile trip from the Chicago area through Texas then to Roswell NM and then to Mogollon Rim country in AZ. I used my cars built in Sync Nav system (with current maps upgrade) with the new Apple iOS 6.0 maps navigation. In all, iOS far far outperformed the built in system with navigation (I stayed off of freeways mostly) making a single mistake on the off backroads in a State Park within NM.
The iOS 6.0 maps proved to be very up-to-date and actually very accurate. Siri always found a place to eat though I know I was missing many available options. The one thing I really really missed was:
1) The ability to pause.
2) The ability to set way-points.
3) sometimes iOS Maps would aggressively reroute on a missed turn and take me to route option 1 instead of my selected route 2 or 3.
I was very impressed with iOS to navigate in obscure back county dirt roads and get the road names and addresses correct. The Sync system would give the "Incomplete map data. Navigation cannot be provided in this area. Please refer to the map for details."
Did you enjoy the "Muggy-yon" Rim? Hope you visited Red Rock Country, Taos, Santa Fe... and did you "save a day for Canyon De Chelly"?
BTW, Santa Fe, NM was founded 10 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock!
Quote:
Don Pedro de Peralta, however, founded a new city at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in 1610, which he called La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1610, he made it the capital of the province, which it has almost constantly remained,[7] making it the oldest capital city in what is the modern United States.
Are you suggesting Apple's Maps are equal to Google's in Tokyo? Seriously? y2an is dead on. The difference is huge, and all in Google's favor. No exit information for stations. Otemachi station probably has over 50 exits scattered over blocks. Not being able to find a specific exit before you arrive is a problem. It's make meeting people at stations easy, instead of a nightmare. I have to keep google maps, or another alternative available just for this. Lack of underground walkways is a problem for many of the areas around Tokyo. They also miss most 98% it seems of pedestrian overpasses and underpasses. Also a big problem. Search in Japan is a problem.
The lack of visible train lines until you zoom is a major usability flaw. Nearly all maps have the major train lines visible from a very high level and that's how most people living here can jump to a location in a map quickly. Not having them means I take three times longer or more to find major stations, and a lot longer for minor ones. They really need to have subway lines on the map too. They can disappear once you go into navigation mode (driving only), but they should be there for everything else.
Search is an issues, more so for foreigners mainly because English search is so bad. A lot of stores here basically have their names in both English and Japanese and one may not work, or the search results are different depending on what you search for. I have English labels off, but many places appear in English that never use English characters for their name.
Address divisions aren't done well at all. At the ku level (municipalities) it's ok, but trying to work down to smaller chome (city district) is nearly impossible. Often the names don't appear, or the numbers are missing. It's pretty much worthless and I'd need to rely on Yahoo or Google maps.
They did improve the points of interest system, but I still think it's a mess. You say it has a density comparable to San Francisco or Paris. That's exactly the problem. It should be ten times as dense. The POI system works well for most cities, but it completely falls apart in a city like Tokyo, or even a quarter as dense. Having 10+ restaurants + other shops in a single smallish building isn't unusual. A building nearby me probably has about 40 bars in it, 10 floors, 4 each level I think. It's clearly not designed for cities in Japan.
EDIT: I forgot another problem with Apple's POI system, it obscures building names which are often used for directions here. A lot of instructions say go to the 5ft floor of the Velvia building, or the 8th floor of the BLD building, basement of the Sony building... etc. You meet your friends at the ALTA building, Tokio building, Maru building. These names are often obscured on the POI markers. Sometimes they'll appear when zoomed in close, often they don't appear at all. That's far more important information than the name of a store in that building that probably isn't even visible. The whole system really just needs to be removed in Tokyo and replaced with something else.
As y2an said, it's designed for western cities were people drive. It's going to have to change a lot to work for Tokyo.
I like what Apple is doing a lot and I'm looking forward to it getting better. I think it works quite well in the US, but don't suggest it's anywhere close to Google maps in Japan. Apple has their work cut out for them.
I think that one thing that Apple can do is provide an option where there is a slider that the user can change to a (djust the level of detain shown at any zoom level (overriding the defaults). I think that this can be implemented without going to the servers for additional data.
Excellent article, I feel I must notify you of some errors; however.
Unless you are British, "orientating" is not proper English. The appropriate word in the United States is "orienting."
Indeed, oriented vs orientated... In the UK both are equally accepted and are interchangeable, though the longer form appeared later. However the idea that the US can help determine "proper" English always makes me laugh. This is the country that believes "normalcy" and "burglarised" are proper words, instead of "normality" and "burgled". It still galls me that Adobe want to install everything on my machine as "International English"...
this article confirms, besides highlighting the tech, that the
"mapgate" stuff is just the wannabe competitors' "scoff campaign".
also, the really important bit illustrated for frisco is pinning
LOLZ.
I live in Ajax Ontario. My parents have a cottage outside Algonquin Park. During the drive we sometimes stop in Bowmanville, Peterborough, Young's Point, Bancroft, Maynooth and Whitney.
Of these cities and towns, Maps displays Bowmanville as Clarington, doesn't know Young's Point or Maynooth (but, amusingly, does know POI's in them), and completely ignores Whitney and doesn't even display the streets there when you zoom in. Bancroft is placed in the middle of a field, miles away from its actual location, and zooming out slightly one can see that all of the towns within 100 miles are either in very wrong places, or missing entirely. Of all these points, only Peterborough works as it should.
Every time I read a Daniel Eran Dilger article I ask myself: is there anything Apple can do that he'd disagree with? This mapping series is atrocious for how defensive it is. When even Tim Cook comes out and apologizes for how bad maps is (a move one would only take when it's the last resort), it's time to stop defending and start helping them.
A true friend tells you when you have egg on your face. He doesn't tell you that the color of the egg on your face compliments your eyes.
That's really not true. A real defender would point out what would be improved.
After all, the CEO of the company came out and said 'please use our competition until we make things better.'
So: start pointing out how things could be better! Make a list. This isn't a game where the side with the loudest advocates wins, it's a game where the best products win. You can't get to the best products without constructive criticism.
I've read zero words of constructive criticism in this maps series. There's no balance at all.
I'm not looking for Apple-sucks-style criticism that I see on other sites, I'm looking for good, constructive feedback on what can be improved.
So: start pointing out how things could be better! Make a list. This isn't a game where the side with the loudest advocates wins, it's a game where the best products win. You can't get to the best products without constructive criticism.
Comments
Today, however, I feel you, and many others, mix and/or equate the function of viewing a map and navigation. The function of a map is to get a clear overview of an area and its features. You want to see the roads and how they relate to one another, detail depending on zoom level of course. Navigation should focus the map to the significant features that lie ahead. The appearance of a road would change depending on its relevance in reaching our destination.
I therefore take issue with your thumbs-up on the minimalistic design of the new Maps. Although I dont miss the buildings, I do miss a clear indication of secondary road and major thoroughfare. This may not be apparent to looking at a map of the Bay area, but if you look at my home town (Apeldoorn, town of 160,000 in the Netherlands) when zoomed out to see the entire area, you see nothing but a "white hole", surrounded by an obnoxious sea of green, depicting the forests. Other then a freeway on its eastern edge (with an overabundance of labels!), it appears as thought no other roads exist. Zooming in, a ring-road gets road numbers (again, way too many!) but the road itself is indistinguishable, with it faint grey edge and white fill. Try reading that in your car!
As for road labelling. It appears as though what roads get labelled is based solely on what fits 'nicely' on the map and not the relevance of the road.
Many of the Maps issues have been attributed to the data. Given it comes from TomTom and I use their navigation device daily, I know for a fact that this does not account for the 'incompleteness' of the maps I have been viewing. I believe Apple's interpretation and rendering is the cause, creating a 'pretty' map but rather useless one. It will take much more then 'data tweaking' to make this a usable app.
It is a basic rule that you should use muted colors for large areas, saving bright colors for only the most important things or very small patches. This advice appears in the original Inside Mac when color was introduced.
So why does Maps insist on using REALLY BRIGHT green for parks and forest, and almost as bright purple for airports? These colors completely wash out all the surrounding detail. At any zoom level, my local suburbia appears to be almost completely forested, yet the local roads are almost impossible to see.
The most important thing on a road map are the roads. And so one wonders why they're so small in Maps. Compare the width of the roads in Google with Maps for instance - Google is about actual size in most cases, why Maps's residential roads are the size of sidewalks.
Combine this with the lack of labels until you're well zoomed in.
Those three items alone - toning down forests while toning up roads, making the roads wider on-screen, and allowing labels to appear earlier - would solve many of the problems people have with Maps.
And when they put any of the towns in Ontario in the right place, I'll personally be happy.
Originally Posted by retiarius
this article confirms, besides highlighting the tech, that the
"mapgate" stuff is just the wannabe competitors' "scoff campaign".
also, the really important bit illustrated for frisco is pinning
LOLZ.
I live in Ajax Ontario. My parents have a cottage outside Algonquin Park. During the drive we sometimes stop in Bowmanville, Peterborough, Young's Point, Bancroft, Maynooth and Whitney.
Of these cities and towns, Maps displays Bowmanville as Clarington, doesn't know Young's Point or Maynooth (but, amusingly, does know POI's in them), and completely ignores Whitney and doesn't even display the streets there when you zoom in. Bancroft is placed in the middle of a field, miles away from its actual location, and zooming out slightly one can see that all of the towns within 100 miles are either in very wrong places, or missing entirely. Of all these points, only Peterborough works as it should.
Massive, complete, FAIL.
Apple should leave the traffic exactly how it is now. Google Maps traffic is meaningless since every single road constantly flashes red every three seconds.
At least you can see it. Apple's solution is almost invisible, and doesn't work at all for the multi-lane hiways. Zoom in on Google and you can see different colors for individual parts of the hiway.
The good news is that there are apps that overlay Google data on Apple's vectors. That works fine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
3D Satellite views
In cities however, Apple's automated 3D satellite perspective images appear relatively flat, just like the flat satellite images Google supplies in its Android app when looking at street perspectives. In some places, Apple's 3D rendering software depicts structures or landscapes incorrectly.
To improve upon this, Apple acquired C3, the company Nokia partnered with to deliver its experimental Maps 3D project. Similar in some respects to Google Earth, the technology builds detailed 3D maps of buildings and other man-made structures, a feature Apple brands "Flyover." Unlike its competitors, Apple integrated its Flyover feature directly into the mobile Maps app as a feature of the Satellite layer.3D Flyover views
Turn on satellite images and you can activate Flyover (anywhere that "3D" is replaced with Apple's buildings icon) to get an even better real-world depiction of what things look like at closer zoom levels. This was also never supported in iOS 5 Maps.
While Flyover does a good job of automatically rendering mountain landscapes in perspective, it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures. Apple has to manually build models of cities, and this currently limited primarily to US cities (although support for Flyover is quickly spreading).
Apple's Flyover works in places its "3D Buildings in Navigation" does not, such as Portland, Oregon, which currently lacks grey 3D models in Standard view, but does have hand-drafted, photorealistic buildings in Flyover (below).
I don't believe the following paragraph from the article is accurate -- it cives the impression that "it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures.Apple has to manually build models of cities"
Quote:
While Flyover does a good job of automatically rendering mountain landscapes in perspective, it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures. Apple has to manually build models of cities, and this currently limited primarily to US cities (although support for Flyover is quickly spreading).
Consider:
Quote:
Smith says that C3's technique is about "98 percent" automated, in terms of the time it takes to produce a model from a set of photos. "Our computer vision software is good enough that there is only some minor cleanup," he says. "When your goal is to map the entire world, automation is essential to getting this done quickly and with less cost." He claims that C3 can generate richer models than its competitors, faster.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423838/ultrasharp-3-d-maps/2/
The included video states that the C3 process is accurate to within 15 centimeters -- 5.9 inches.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iSheldon
Manhattan still looks like Salvador Dali meltdown- lets get real here.
And the buildings are too tall so you can't see the roads?
Sure, let's get real..keep in mind the detail in the below shots is limited by hardware (RAM/cpu)..
Yeah, so fucking appalling. Quit your trolling.
Yeah, if you zoom into some buildings there WILL be distortions and imperfections. It's systematic and part of the insanely complex process to generate this stuff. It's still above and beyond what any other company is doing out there in respects to 3D, its infinitely better than a flat satellite photo, and any such distortions in no way impede one's usage. Such a whining, spoiled, bitchy, entitled viewpoint- we get pretty mind-blowing tech like this rolled out, and all people like you are bitch about the imperfections. I mean, really? Are you being inconvenienced by them? Should companies not embark on ambitious projects such as this until the tech is 100% perfect to the brick? Apple is now by far leading the pack in mapping the entire planet in fully manipulatable 3D, in pretty impressive detail, almost photorealistic at many angles, something that has been a fictional fantasy for so long. Yet all people like you can do is bitch and whine, pretending that the product is not up to your special little "standards", even though it beats the pants out of everything else out there. Insanely pathetic, and from my experience people like you are the ones who have never created anything worthwhile in their lives- because if they had, they would be more aware of the massive amounts of work involved to do so, without being so quick to bash and criticize- especially when the small flaws don't impede usage of the product in the least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WisdomSeed
Squuiid, you may need to restart your device, Hoover Dam is the bomb and so are the hills of Tennesse. And they are totally balls out (in?) on the Grand Canyon. I'm glad they went over it in this article. Apples maps are the shiznit, the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, the uncut funk, Da Bomb.
I just reset my devices (iP5, iP4S, iPad 3, iPad 2) and the Hoover Dam FlyOver 3 D image is still screwed up!
If you have correct images, please post them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iSheldon
Manhattan still looks like Salvador Dali meltdown- lets get real here.
And the buildings are too tall so you can't see the roads?
Post pictures to support your assertion!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Post pictures to support your assertion!
Give him some time to Google 'IOS6 MAPS IS HORRIBLE' and get some pics, it's not like he actually owns it.
Also, most smaller buildings will show distortion at close zoom levels- the point is, who cares? The tech isn't optimized for ULTRA CLOSE inspection, and from a distance everything looks amazing. It's just whining nitpicking, trying to find shit to bitch about that doesnt affect the user experience. At the end of the day flyover is still a mind-blowingly amazing tech, I've wasted hours exploring cities, and not once did "melting buildings" temper that fascination. You only need a shred of perspective to think about what the tech is doing, and how incredibly accurate it is keeping in mind the sheer scale of it all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
Excellent article, I feel I must notify you of some errors; however.
Unless you are British, "orientating" is not proper English. The appropriate word in the United States is "orienting."
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
In place of street level views, Apple developed technology (based on its acquisition of C3) to take existing satellite data and build 3D topographical images out of it.
Unfortunately, this statement is erroneous. Apple has leveraged their acquisition of Poly9 to create a virtual globe using high-resolution satellite imagery and aerial photography. Poly9 Globe was a Adobe Flash-based competitor for Google Earth with a minimal footprint (303 kb) that can be connected to any satellite imagery data source although improvements in speed are possible as Poly9 does not “make use of graphic hardware acceleration (e.g. OpenGL / DirectX)” (1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
While Flyover does a good job of automatically rendering mountain landscapes in perspective, it can't automatically build photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures. Apple has to manually build models of cities, and this currently limited primarily to US cities (although support for Flyover is quickly spreading).
Apple stretches high resolution satellite maps over a digital elevation model for a sculpted landscape view which is entirely different than the "photorealistic models of cities, bridges and other small-scale man-made structures" which are automatically generated using C3 Technologies solution. The C3 Technologies solution captures as many as 100 images of a single object from different angles with resolutions as high as 10 cm. A 3D reconstruction is generated from a volume data set of one million LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) scans per second. The digital photography is overlayed on the 3D urban terrain map resulting from the LIDAR scanning. (2)
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Apple's Flyover works in places its "3D Buildings in Navigation" does not, such as Portland, Oregon, which currently lacks grey 3D models in Standard view, but does have hand-drafted, photorealistic buildings in Flyover (below).
I will emphasize again that the C3 Technologies process is automated. "Unlike Google or Bing, all of our maps are 360° explorable," C3 Chief Strategy Officer Paul Smith said earlier this year. "Everything, every building, every tree, every landmark, from the city center to the suburbs, is captured in 3D—not just a few select buildings." (3)
1. Greg Sadetsky. Published 15 May 2008. In response to Poly9 FreeEarth: It's like Google Earth, but Flash-based, and slower. Switched. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
2. Published 17 December 2010. Saab Rapid 3D Mapping. YouTube. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
3. No author provided. Published 29 October 2011. Apple rumored to take on Google's 3D maps with superior technology. Apple Insider. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
Thanks for those links!
Just before Apple bought C3 technologies, I remember seeing videos showing some of the places that they had 3D mapped -- These included London, Oslo, etc. For some reason, these were not included in the original iOS 6 release (London was added later, as was the Statue of Liberty)...
It makes me wonder if Apple did not automatically get rights to the data... or there was some political or military reasons fro not including some 3D maps...
I'd bet there are some pretty detail 3D maps over the middle east (that are unavailable to the public).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven N.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tylerk36
Apple is just starting into the Map business. I bet when they update maps (just like they did with SIRI) it will be a major plus. I would use it now as it is. I have to take a 250 mile trip soon and will use iOS 6 Maps.
I just finished a 2100 mile trip from the Chicago area through Texas then to Roswell NM and then to Mogollon Rim country in AZ. I used my cars built in Sync Nav system (with current maps upgrade) with the new Apple iOS 6.0 maps navigation. In all, iOS far far outperformed the built in system with navigation (I stayed off of freeways mostly) making a single mistake on the off backroads in a State Park within NM.
The iOS 6.0 maps proved to be very up-to-date and actually very accurate. Siri always found a place to eat though I know I was missing many available options. The one thing I really really missed was:
1) The ability to pause.
2) The ability to set way-points.
3) sometimes iOS Maps would aggressively reroute on a missed turn and take me to route option 1 instead of my selected route 2 or 3.
I was very impressed with iOS to navigate in obscure back county dirt roads and get the road names and addresses correct. The Sync system would give the "Incomplete map data. Navigation cannot be provided in this area. Please refer to the map for details."
Did you enjoy the "Muggy-yon" Rim? Hope you visited Red Rock Country, Taos, Santa Fe... and did you "save a day for Canyon De Chelly"?
BTW, Santa Fe, NM was founded 10 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock!
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Don Pedro de Peralta, however, founded a new city at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in 1610, which he called La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1610, he made it the capital of the province, which it has almost constantly remained,[7] making it the oldest capital city in what is the modern United States.
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Originally Posted by cjlacz
Are you suggesting Apple's Maps are equal to Google's in Tokyo? Seriously? y2an is dead on. The difference is huge, and all in Google's favor. No exit information for stations. Otemachi station probably has over 50 exits scattered over blocks. Not being able to find a specific exit before you arrive is a problem. It's make meeting people at stations easy, instead of a nightmare. I have to keep google maps, or another alternative available just for this. Lack of underground walkways is a problem for many of the areas around Tokyo. They also miss most 98% it seems of pedestrian overpasses and underpasses. Also a big problem. Search in Japan is a problem.
The lack of visible train lines until you zoom is a major usability flaw. Nearly all maps have the major train lines visible from a very high level and that's how most people living here can jump to a location in a map quickly. Not having them means I take three times longer or more to find major stations, and a lot longer for minor ones. They really need to have subway lines on the map too. They can disappear once you go into navigation mode (driving only), but they should be there for everything else.
Search is an issues, more so for foreigners mainly because English search is so bad. A lot of stores here basically have their names in both English and Japanese and one may not work, or the search results are different depending on what you search for. I have English labels off, but many places appear in English that never use English characters for their name.
Address divisions aren't done well at all. At the ku level (municipalities) it's ok, but trying to work down to smaller chome (city district) is nearly impossible. Often the names don't appear, or the numbers are missing. It's pretty much worthless and I'd need to rely on Yahoo or Google maps.
They did improve the points of interest system, but I still think it's a mess. You say it has a density comparable to San Francisco or Paris. That's exactly the problem. It should be ten times as dense. The POI system works well for most cities, but it completely falls apart in a city like Tokyo, or even a quarter as dense. Having 10+ restaurants + other shops in a single smallish building isn't unusual. A building nearby me probably has about 40 bars in it, 10 floors, 4 each level I think. It's clearly not designed for cities in Japan.
EDIT: I forgot another problem with Apple's POI system, it obscures building names which are often used for directions here. A lot of instructions say go to the 5ft floor of the Velvia building, or the 8th floor of the BLD building, basement of the Sony building... etc. You meet your friends at the ALTA building, Tokio building, Maru building. These names are often obscured on the POI markers. Sometimes they'll appear when zoomed in close, often they don't appear at all. That's far more important information than the name of a store in that building that probably isn't even visible. The whole system really just needs to be removed in Tokyo and replaced with something else.
As y2an said, it's designed for western cities were people drive. It's going to have to change a lot to work for Tokyo.
I like what Apple is doing a lot and I'm looking forward to it getting better. I think it works quite well in the US, but don't suggest it's anywhere close to Google maps in Japan. Apple has their work cut out for them.
I think that one thing that Apple can do is provide an option where there is a slider that the user can change to a (djust the level of detain shown at any zoom level (overriding the defaults). I think that this can be implemented without going to the servers for additional data.
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Originally Posted by kedward
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Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
Excellent article, I feel I must notify you of some errors; however.
Unless you are British, "orientating" is not proper English. The appropriate word in the United States is "orienting."
Indeed, oriented vs orientated... In the UK both are equally accepted and are interchangeable, though the longer form appeared later. However the idea that the US can help determine "proper" English always makes me laugh. This is the country that believes "normalcy" and "burglarised" are proper words, instead of "normality" and "burgled". It still galls me that Adobe want to install everything on my machine as "International English"...
My favorite is "athleticness"
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Originally Posted by Maury Markowitz
Originally Posted by retiarius
this article confirms, besides highlighting the tech, that the
"mapgate" stuff is just the wannabe competitors' "scoff campaign".
also, the really important bit illustrated for frisco is pinning
LOLZ.
I live in Ajax Ontario. My parents have a cottage outside Algonquin Park. During the drive we sometimes stop in Bowmanville, Peterborough, Young's Point, Bancroft, Maynooth and Whitney.
Of these cities and towns, Maps displays Bowmanville as Clarington, doesn't know Young's Point or Maynooth (but, amusingly, does know POI's in them), and completely ignores Whitney and doesn't even display the streets there when you zoom in. Bancroft is placed in the middle of a field, miles away from its actual location, and zooming out slightly one can see that all of the towns within 100 miles are either in very wrong places, or missing entirely. Of all these points, only Peterborough works as it should.
Massive, complete, FAIL.
Did you report these errors?
Every time I read a Daniel Eran Dilger article I ask myself: is there anything Apple can do that he'd disagree with? This mapping series is atrocious for how defensive it is. When even Tim Cook comes out and apologizes for how bad maps is (a move one would only take when it's the last resort), it's time to stop defending and start helping them.
A true friend tells you when you have egg on your face. He doesn't tell you that the color of the egg on your face compliments your eyes.
Originally Posted by inkyink
…it's time to stop defending and start helping them.
And defenders are, by saying what isn't broken.
Fun with Fuji
Here's an interesting side effect on the way (multiple image sources) Apple maps generates 3D images:
That's really not true. A real defender would point out what would be improved.
After all, the CEO of the company came out and said 'please use our competition until we make things better.'
So: start pointing out how things could be better! Make a list. This isn't a game where the side with the loudest advocates wins, it's a game where the best products win. You can't get to the best products without constructive criticism.
I've read zero words of constructive criticism in this maps series. There's no balance at all.
I'm not looking for Apple-sucks-style criticism that I see on other sites, I'm looking for good, constructive feedback on what can be improved.
Originally Posted by inkyink
I've read zero words of constructive criticism in this maps series. There's no balance at all.
Then you haven't been reading much!
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Originally Posted by inkyink
So: start pointing out how things could be better! Make a list. This isn't a game where the side with the loudest advocates wins, it's a game where the best products win. You can't get to the best products without constructive criticism.
Find error > drop pin > report with comment.
What else is there to know?