Apple faces Google with own maps, improved Siri

[Derrick]

Apple faces Google with better Siri, own maps

Apple Inc took the wraps off its own mobile mapping service and improved the search capabilities of its Siri voice assistant, taking the fight into Google Inc’s domain...

 

[marine1]

How many years later?

 

[Vis1/0N]

Not their own maps - they have using data from other services, including not attributing (as per license) until the recent fuss over it. Their own app, yes.

 

[McCrazieGoalz]

I see the weakness of Americans thinking, acting and talking like the whole world live in America has rubbed off on our beloved MyBB reporters.

"At 0.7 inches and weighing under 4.5 pounds" and the iPhone 5 is coming in "the fall".

Why do you have to impose such alien terms on us. Sure we know what they mean, but reading articles written this way makes it just a tad bit harder and cumbersome. Next time please convert these American terms to 'centimeters' and 'fourth quarter or towards Christmas'. We do not have "the fall" in South Africa. I am sure they don't have "fall" either in Australian too. See where using USA based terms for international products got them.

T-huh - 4G... .

 

[Jan]

This is an article from Reuters, so there isn't much we can do about their inferior measurement system choice.

You'll see in the articles I did for MyBB last night about the WWDC keynote I elaborate on what "fall" means.

 

[surfs-up]

I see the weakness of Americans thinking, acting and talking like the whole world live in America has rubbed off on our beloved MyBB reporters.

"At 0.7 inches and weighing under 4.5 pounds" and the iPhone 5 is coming in "the fall".

Why do you have to impose such alien terms on us. Sure we know what they mean, but reading articles written this way makes it just a tad bit harder and cumbersome. Next time please convert these American terms to 'centimeters' and 'fourth quarter or towards Christmas'. We do not have "the fall" in South Africa. I am sure they don't have "fall" either in Australian too. See where using USA based terms for international products got them.

T-huh - 4G... .

I really don't see what the fuss is all about. This is an American engineered product, and they are welcome to express themselves using the terms that they are familiar with.

It's like telling you not to use the word braai anymore....you must call it a barbecue, because the rest of the world use barbecue.

I quite like the use of the seasons in announcing a new product.....makes for a change

 

[[)roi(]]

Not their own maps - they have using data from other services, including not attributing (as per license) until the recent fuss over it. Their own app, yes.

FYI Apple's iOS6 map app states "Data from TOM TOM and others"; visible on the map config section i.e. page curl

Yet they did also purchase C3 Technologies, Poly9, and Placebase i.e. aside from the data partnerships, they clearly from the 3 acquisitions also own quite a bit of mapping data.

On a side note: the flyover facility (although very slow in beta) is very cool, and makes google's street maps look dated and clunky. Sadly though the places where this is available is very limited, and who knows where South Africa is placed in terms of Apple's priorities; most probably down towards the bottom of a very long list (... and of course we don't have a World cup type event on the horizon i.e. the catalyst for Google's street maps of SA).

The current SA views on Apple's map solution are limited to satellite pictures; similarly to Google i.e. not very good quality, and the Tom Tom data integration is buggy at best i.e. simple routing works; medium to complex routes don't... yet the same problem occurs even for routing in the US (so most likely a general bug, rather than a SA issue)

 

[will1023631]

FYI Apple's iOS6 map app states "Data from TOM TOM and others"; visible on the map config section i.e. page curl

Yet they did also purchase C3 Technologies, Poly9, and Placebase i.e. aside from the data partnerships, they clearly from the 3 acquisitions also own quite a bit of mapping data.

On a side note: the flyover facility (although very slow in beta) is very cool, and makes google's street maps look dated and clunky. Sadly though the places where this is available is very limited, and who knows where South Africa is placed in terms of Apple's priorities; most probably down towards the bottom of a very long list (... and of course we don't have a World cup type event on the horizon i.e. the catalyst for Google's street maps of SA).

The current SA views on Apple's map solution are limited to satellite pictures; similarly to Google i.e. not very good quality, and the Tom Tom data integration is buggy at best i.e. simple routing works; medium to complex routes don't... yet the same problem occurs even for routing in the US (so most likely a general bug, rather than a SA issue)

As far as I understand the company responsible for the 3D mapping is still working at. They have mapped most of the major US and EU cities and are continuing to do so on an active basis. They also using missile targeting algorithms and UAVs to achieve this which on it's own is impressive considering the amount of detail and accuracy of their system.

 

[biometrics]

Has anyone in SA found Siri useful?

 

[[)roi(]]

As far as I understand the company responsible for the 3D mapping is still working at. They have mapped most of the major US and EU cities and are continuing to do so on an active basis. They also using missile targeting algorithms and UAVs to achieve this which on it's own is impressive considering the amount of detail and accuracy of their system.

Yes of course, they stated as much (that they have planes flying around taking pictures).

Yet my point was that in the current beta the flyover views are limited to parts of California, e.g. San Francisco, Santa Clara, Cupertino, ... South Africa IMO is not going to be a priority for Apple i.e. we barely break 100K in unit sales, hence what is the urgency for them to send planes our way.

Google's maps will still for a period be the better SA solution.

 

[marine1]

My mates one, every time he uses it its like a hit or miss, usually miss.

 

[[)roi(]]

Has anyone in SA found Siri useful?

The new one in iOS6 is slightly improved (speech recognition, ...) -- yet similarly to my statement on the mapping our market is too small for us to be a priority for Apple, Google or any other company in regard to these types of services.

Our only real hope at improved services is for Apple to open the Siri API for developers; that way SA developers could develop services for SA to bolster the usefulness; sadly Apple has chosen like with notification APIs not to make this available in iOS6.

To answer your question: yes although limited in functionality I do find it very useful, for example while I'm driving:

• to make phone calls
• to request music to be played
• to send short text messages

For me the US english works best (even though I have a UK accent); with subtle adjustments to my pronunciation I have found it works in about 80% of my cases (air conditioner, and ambient noise does affect it though).

So yes it of course in iOS5 still suffers from many speech recognition issues; iOS6 has improved it a bit (yet it's no where close to perfect); also the 100% dependency on network connections is very frustrating, considering our less than perfect cellular networks and the slow responses from Apple's Siri servers.

 

[Elimentals]

On a side note: the flyover facility (although very slow in beta) is very cool, and makes google's street maps look dated and clunky. Sadly though the places where this is available is very limited, and who knows where South Africa is placed in terms of Apple's priorities; most probably down towards the bottom of a very long list (... and of course we don't have a World cup type event on the horizon i.e. the catalyst for Google's street maps of SA).

The current SA views on Apple's map solution are limited to satellite pictures; similarly to Google i.e. not very good quality, and the Tom Tom data integration is buggy at best i.e. simple routing works; medium to complex routes don't... yet the same problem occurs even for routing in the US (so most likely a general bug, rather than a SA issue)

Erm....

[video=youtube;HMBJ2Hu0NLw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBJ2Hu0NLw&t=37m45s[/video]

 

[[)roi(]]

Erm....

For now it's nothing more than vaporware i.e. who aside from Google is able to play with it.

At least Apple's one although very buggy is quite usable (already loaded on my iPad; still too buggy for my iPhone though).

Yet of course there is no doubt that Apple is playing catch up, and this area has been a particular strength of Google; and we know they won't be resting on their laurels. Maybe you missed my comment:

Google's maps will still for a period be the better SA solution.

 

[Elimentals]

For now it's nothing more than vaporware i.e. who aside from Google is able to play with it.

At least Apple's one although very buggy is quite usable (already loaded on my iPad; still too buggy for my iPhone though).

Yet of course there is no doubt that Apple is playing catch up, and this area has been a particular strength of Google; and we know they won't be resting on their laurels. Maybe you missed my comment:

Not really vaporware, have you looked at Google Earth lately, do yourself a fav and go fly over some of the major US cities.

Yes we are behind as SA ones only got some 3D vector models going now, they even have PE city center in 3D vectors so I recon its not to bad.

I don't know how Apple's one looks so can not comment, only our iOS dev has access to our dev account so I am dying to see how Apple's maps compare for SA cities, esp PE for example.

Also a big strength for me re Google is the ability to use map editor http://www.google.com/mapmaker

 

[[)roi(]]

Not really vaporware, have you looked at Google Earth lately, do yourself a fav and go fly over some of the major US cities.

Yes we are behind as SA ones only got some 3D vector models going now, they even have PE city center in 3D vectors so I recon its not to bad.

I don't know how Apple's one looks so can not comment, only our iOS dev has access to our dev account so I am dying to see how Apple's maps compare for SA cities, esp PE for example.

Also a big strength for me re Google is the ability to use map editor http://www.google.com/mapmaker

Yes I have looked at Google Earth; after your comment I made sure I had the latest version and compared San Francisco; Apple's product although rough looked better for the 3D bits; the rest is crappy i.e. Google's flat / hybrid views are better.

On the SA side I wouldn't bother if I was you; the street overlays look really bad, and in most case the street names don't track well with zooming and rotation; worse yet the physical location linked with searched address in my neighbourhood, for example Parkhurst is off by more than a 100 meters.

Topographical imagery is really great (PE included), yet once you get down to street level the satellite images are just as crappy as Google maps (i.e. I would guess no HD satellite images have been taken for most of SA)

If you like PM a street address in PE and I'll screen shot what it looks like.

 

[tortured]

"half its mobile map traffic now comes from iPhones and iPads"

Can anyone point me to a source as I am unable to find anything. There is thousands of sites saying the same thing (copy/paste article I know) but none with a source.

 

[Elimentals]

"half its mobile map traffic now comes from iPhones and iPads"

Can anyone point me to a source as I am unable to find anything. There is thousands of sites saying the same thing (copy/paste article I know) but none with a source.

Dont know about source but I recon that sounds about right as most Android users would most probably disable the Geo data upload.

 

[will1023631]

Yes of course, they stated as much (that they have planes flying around taking pictures).

Yet my point was that in the current beta the flyover views are limited to parts of California, e.g. San Francisco, Santa Clara, Cupertino, ... South Africa IMO is not going to be a priority for Apple i.e. we barely break 100K in unit sales, hence what is the urgency for them to send planes our way.

Google's maps will still for a period be the better SA solution.

Indeed. Pity that we aren't recognised as an IT superpower as of yet. We're always left out

 

[Vis1/0N]

FYI Apple's iOS6 map app states "Data from TOM TOM and others"; visible on the map config section i.e. page curl

Until the recent fuss over it. But I said that already.