Apple Maps lose direction with users

Lol... I will have some 4 and 4s's later this year... and after wayne gets his dibs... will toss them into the queue.
 
bwana said:
Back to Wayne again? I thought we sorted this out? :p
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Almost... for some unknown reason the once Apple toting now Galaxy owning SIII relatives still cling to their old unused iDevices. I guess it will all come down to iPhone5 local availability and THEN will come the glut of handmedowns finally.

/or not
/bwana wanna galaxy then?
 
kilobits said:
Almost... for some unknown reason the once Apple toting now Galaxy owning SIII relatives still cling to their old unused iDevices. I guess it will all come down to iPhone5 local availability and THEN will come the glut of handmedowns finally.

/or not
/bwana wanna galaxy then?
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Does it come with maps?
 
I've been using the Apple Maps since Friday, and while the satellite view is crap and annoyingly street view non existent, the satnav part is excellent.

There is a no right turn intersection close to my house, google nav, Garmin, and Nokia Maps all insist I turn right there (and if the navigation takes you that far, the only option is to join the highway and turn about 2km down the road) TomTom has recently fixed the issue and routes around the no right turn, Apple satnav does as well.

The actual Apple map in satnav is clear, and easy to read, integrates well into Siri and so far hasn't made a wrong turn. I don't think there is a problem with the underlying data, Apple just need an updated database for satellite view and definitely need to resolve the non-existence of street view.

It seems like the product is basically good, just rushed to market before it was actually ready, annoyingly very "un-Apple", and shows a sloppy attitude post Jobs.
 
ClintZA said:
Second, so many Apple fans on here expressing their hatred for Android but admitting to the superiority of Google products when it comes to maps. Obviously the enemy is only the enemy when it suits you.
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I am struggling to find the logic in this "argument". anyone??

from this it seems that I cant like Aero, but dislike Bar-One
 
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Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions

http://allthingsd.com/20120926/apple-google-maps-talks-crashed-over-voice-guided-directions/

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says Apple should have continued to use Google’s mapping application in iOS 6 instead of swapping it out for its poorly received home-brewed replacement, and given the sour reception Apple’s Maps app has been given, he may have been right.

But multiple sources familiar with Apple’s thinking say the company felt it had no choice but to replace Google Maps with its own, because of a disagreement over a key feature: Voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions.

Spoken turn-by-turn navigation has been a free service offered through Google’s Android mobile OS for a few years now. But it was never part of the deal that brought Google’s Maps to iOS. And sources say Apple very much wanted it to be. Requiring iPhone users to look directly at handsets for directions and manually move through each step — while Android users enjoyed native voice-guided instructions — put Apple at a clear disadvantage in the mobile space. And having chosen Google as its original mapping partner, the iPhone maker was now in a position where an archrival was calling the shots on functionality important to the iOS maps feature set.

And this caused Apple — which typically enjoys very tight control over its products — no end of philosophical discomfort, sources say. Apple pushed Google hard to provide the data it needed to bring voice-guided navigation to iOS. But according to people familiar with Google’s thinking, the search giant, which had invested massive sums in creating that data and views it as a key feature of Android, wasn’t willing to simply hand it over to a competing platform.

And if there were terms under which it might have agreed to do so, Apple wasn’t offering them. Sources tell AllThingsD that Google, for example, wanted more say in the iOS maps feature set. It wasn’t happy simply providing back-end data. It asked for in-app branding. Apple declined. It suggested adding Google Latitude. Again, Apple declined. And these became major points of contention between the two companies, whose relationship was already deteriorating for a variety of other reasons, including Apple’s concern that Google was gathering too much user data from the app.

“There were a number of issues inflaming negotiations, but voice navigation was the biggest,” one source familiar with Apple and Google’s negotiations told AllThingsD. “Ultimately, it was a deal-breaker.”

At that point, Apple, which had already begun quietly acquiring mapping companies, fast-tracked development of an in-house maps app with voice-guided navigation, with an eye toward making it a tentpole feature of iOS 6. And when Apple realized that it would indeed reach that goal, sources say, it decided to dump Google Maps entirely — even though there was significant time left on its contract with the search giant, as first reported by The Verge. It announced Maps at WWDC in June to the surprise of some, but not to Google, which was well aware the deal was sticks and rags at this point. Then Apple officially launched the app with iOS 6 in September, and now it’s paying the price for what some insiders say was a necessary move made a bit too hastily.

“Apple knew it had a lot of catching up to do in maps,” a person briefed on Apple’s strategy told AllThingsD. “But, given what’s happened the past few days, I think they felt they were farther along than they actually are.”

Hence the current PR debacle from which the company continues to suffer. But Apple is not the only company to be bruised by this rough transition. Gloat as it may over Apple’s mapping missteps, Google suffered a blow when Apple ended the pair’s deal. And it is indeed scrambling to roll out a standalone mapping application for iOS. Google Maps were used by a large portion of iPhone owners, especially in the U.S. And to abruptly lose that user base, particularly one on a rival mobile platform, is a blow. As one geolocation executive observed, “A hundred million devices upgraded is a big body drop” for Google.

Apple declined to comment on the thinking that led to Google’s ouster from Apple Maps. Google did the same thing, though it did take the opportunity to tout its own mapping service: “We believe Google Maps are the most comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use maps in the world. Our goal is to make Google Maps available to everyone who wants to use it, regardless of device, browser, or operating system.”
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I think Apple did the right thing leaving Google Maps when they did. They were being given the screw by Google pretty hard - refusing to give turn-by-turn, wanting greater branding with Latitude etc. And any mapping solution needs time and data to improve properly.

But where they really failed was in controlling user expectations. If they'd come out in the keynote and talked up the new Maps but set it up as a beta which needs time to improve, they probably wouldn't have had such a backlash. The problem is Apple's 'it just works' policy breaks down when applications require time to build up into worthwhile services. Siri now is far better than Siri a year back as well just because of all the data mining they've been doing.
 
What is the issue with the maps, mine seems to work fine and the satellite images for my area are more up to date than the google ones were?
 
theriddler said:
What is the issue with the maps, mine seems to work fine and the satellite images for my area are more up to date than the google ones were?
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people feel the need to engage in mob mentality. I too have yet to have an issue in cape town
 
theriddler said:
What is the issue with the maps, mine seems to work fine and the satellite images for my area are more up to date than the google ones were?
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The satnav part of Apple maps is excellent, and the underlying street mapping is just as good as Google. Where it falls down is a lot of areas have poor quality older satellite images (some even monochrome) and a lot of POIs are not accurately placed.
 
Dave123 said:
The satnav part of Apple maps is excellent, and the underlying street mapping is just as good as Google. Where it falls down is a lot of areas have poor quality older satellite images (some even monochrome) and a lot of POIs are not accurately placed.
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There are actually a lot of improvements over the old iOS Maps - vectors, flyovers, turn-by-turn. They just really should have managed expectations a bit better. And perhaps gotten it up to snuff a bit more before letting it out to the general public.
 
To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO
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http://www.apple.com/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/
 
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