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The genius of Apple

jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
41,191
13,339
Portland, OR
Oh Apple Maps, you so funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/apple-maps-sending-motorists-bush-australian-police-warn-040118093.html

Police in Australia are urging motorists not to rely on the company's new maps application after several people using its directions became stranded inside a national park in scorching heat.

Authorities in Mildura, Australia say Apple Maps lists the town of 30,000 as being inside Murray-Sunset National Park--or 45 miles from its actual location. According to the Guardian newspaper, one man was stranded for 24 hours. Three others had to be rescued.
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jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
41,191
13,339
Portland, OR
HardtailHack said:
When people realise that apps can fix everything they don't currently like about 8 it should start selling really well.
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:rofl:

More like "When people realize there are OS's out there that don't require you to mod the hell out of to like, people will stop buying Windows based machines".
 
jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
41,191
13,339
Portland, OR
SkaredShtles said:
Yeah - you and I would love to have lots of it. But companies aren't in business to retire and ride bikes. :D
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And the fact that Apple is nearly as bad as WalMart at it's pay/benefits to retail sales employees is a sign they don't intend for employees to retire any time soon, either. :panic:
 
IH8Rice

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
jimmydean said:
Oh Apple Maps, you so funny.
Click to expand...
while it might not be as good as their old Maps app, ive been using the new app everyday on my Iphone5 with zero issue...hell, even the navigation portion of it isnt too bad, though it lacks some nice features like identifying what side of the road a house/business is on.
i am glad i got the new phone though, especially since it only cost $53. its a pretty noticeable upgrade from my 4
 
CBJ

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,877
4,220
Copenhagen, Denmark
Okay then I will try again :)

The conventional dictum that "correlation does not imply causation" means that correlation cannot be used to infer a causal relationship between the variables. This dictum should not be taken to mean that correlations cannot indicate the potential existence of causal relations. However, the causes underlying the correlation, if any, may be indirect and unknown, and high correlations also overlap with identity relations (tautologies), where no causal process exists. Consequently, establishing a correlation between two variables is not a sufficient condition to establish a causal relationship (in either direction). For example, one may observe a correlation between an ordinary alarm clock ringing and daybreak, though there is no direct causal relationship between these events.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence
 
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Jm_

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,995
9,652
AK
Google should buy Wikipedia. Wiki is always looking for someone to bail them out and the name recognition/power would be huge IMO. Google is doing a lot "right" these days, a browser that poops on IE, their own solid OS, google docs and other web based stuff, and so on.

And yes, google poops on apple maps too. I had to get an iPhone a few months back.
 
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HardtailHack

HardtailHack

used an iron once
Jan 20, 2009
6,745
5,638
jimmydean said:
:rofl:

More like "When people realize there are OS's out there that don't require you to mod the hell out of to like, people will stop buying Windows based machines".
Click to expand...
One app takes the new OS and makes it look almost the same as 7 but it still boots faster is less resource hungry so it is a step in the right direction. I get building a hackitosh but I can't see why anyone that only cares about performance and usability would buy an Apple computer.

Also is it true that Samsung has bump their chip price 20% for Apple or is that just internet nonsense?
 
norbar

norbar

KESSLER PROBLEM. Just cause
Jun 7, 2007
11,369
1,605
Warsaw :/
New Mac OS is less resource hungry? Are you insane? I own a 4gb ram Mac and it is not enough when I only use a browser and word.

I get similar performance out of my 1.5gb ram Celeron laptop pc with Vista.
 
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HardtailHack

HardtailHack

used an iron once
Jan 20, 2009
6,745
5,638
Oops, jimmydean quoted a previous post of mine and it was about Windows 8, sorry, as usual I am off topic.
 
Jm_

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,995
9,652
AK
It just blows my mind that Apple couldn't make a decent map app. I mean, they've got BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of money, Google game out with their maps years ago, and have been refining them the entire time. Are they just not capable? Strange...
 
daisycutter

daisycutter

Turbo Monkey
Apr 8, 2006
1,659
129
New York City
Jm_ said:
It just blows my mind that Apple couldn't make a decent map app. I mean, they've got BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of money, Google game out with their maps years ago, and have been refining them the entire time. Are they just not capable? Strange...
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Google took years to put their map App togeather, Apple rushed theirs and it shows
 
CBJ

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,877
4,220
Copenhagen, Denmark
I like how everybody is an expert on what Apple does and have done. Who knows what is going on behind the scenes with Apple and Google. Rushed or not there could have been all kinds of reasons why they had to make the change.
 
daisycutter

daisycutter

Turbo Monkey
Apr 8, 2006
1,659
129
New York City
Taken from Forbes magazine

I think if Steve Jobs were alive today, Apple Maps would have been introduced at the same time, in the same place and in the same shoddy condition.

Here’s why:

Mapping is probably the most complex of all mobile apps. You need mountains of data, which needs constant revision in near real-time if your product is to be credible. Mistakes on maps are worse than typos in a Forbes column. If your mobile map steers you into road construction or toward a washed out bridge while you are driving alone in the rain at night, your safety may be at risk and your unhappiness with the mapping application will be long-lasting.
9 images Photos: Those Terrible iOS 6 Maps
ould Apple Let Users Select Alternate Default Apps? Anthony Wing Kosner Anthony Wing Kosner Contributor

Mapping is increasing exponentially in importance. In Age of Context, our book-in-progress, Robert Scoble and I name maps as one of the five forces driving the next era of technology. More and more mobile apps must know where you are, what you want to do or where you are going. Location is an essential part of most new social networks and mobile wouldn’t matter if location wasn’t involved.

“Without location, mobile apps have no ground. They lose their context.” Caterina Fake, founder of the soon-to-launch Findery.com, recently told me in an interview for our book.

Map applications cannot be built in a day. They require huge teams, spending enormous amounts of time, to map the world square inch by square inch, and it takes even more than that to keep all the data current. Maps never had to be close to real time before mobile took off. They could be revised every few years when they were still on paper, less than a decade ago.

Google has a team of about 7000 people worldwide working just on maps. The result is a product that remains imperfect, but is pretty darn good and most of us trust what we see. Waze is creating a community of people who travel similar routes and update automatically, so fellow travellers see changes almost as they occur.

Apple has a mere 20,000 employees worldwide. Few of them are mapping experts. A majority remains hardware-oriented. But in the longterm, hardware becomes a commodity and commodities do not maintain high margins of profitability.

Like all other providers of end-user products, the revenue will be increasingly tied to software and maps will be essential to that revenue. As we move further into contextual areas, most users will get ads, offers, and info based on their location. Much of it will be tied directly to maps and much of the remainder will be tied indirectly to them.

Apple, in the long term, cannot possibly continue to partner with Google, which is its most threatening competitor. It would be unwise to give Google revenue and data from its users and more important it cannot share its most secret product plans and strategies.

Google, as the voice-guided directions issue reveals, was moving to make maps better on Android phones than on iOS phones. As the hardware between the two companies becomes closer to equal, mapping becomes more strategically important. As the world becomes more mobile and applications become more contextual, Apple has to ensure that its future does not rest in the hands of an enemy.

And in that there is a rub. You cannot get data for your maps until millions of people are using and sharing them and reporting back new or better data. Google started several years ago with maps. It, too, produced crude products in the beginning.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,100
1,150
NC
Well, I disagree that it could not have been released in better condition. Yes, collected data is helpful in mapping applications, but I think Apple was being either cheap or hasty.

Money or time solve most software problems. While Apple might have been on a time crunch, it's hard for me to accept that they've got a hundred billion in cash reserves but they couldn't build a higher quality maps app.

As evidenced by Google's app almost instantly pegging the top spot in the app store. Though you still can't modify the "handlers" in iOS, so you can't cause Google Maps to launch from any other applications - which significantly hurts its usability...
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,939
24,509
media blackout
Jm_ said:
It just blows my mind that Apple couldn't make a decent map app. I mean, they've got BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of money, Google game out with their maps years ago, and have been refining them the entire time. Are they just not capable? Strange...
Click to expand...
That's because Apple is a hard ware and design company. They make some good software too. But Google is a bigger software company. Their specialty it'd handling massive data sets, which includes gis/mapping data. Apple just couldn't beat them at their own game.
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,939
24,509
media blackout
daisycutter said:
Taken from Forbes magazine

I think if Steve Jobs were alive today, Apple Maps would have been introduced at the same time, in the same place and in the same shoddy condition.

Here’s why:

Mapping is probably the most complex of all mobile apps. You need mountains of data, which needs constant revision in near real-time if your product is to be credible. Mistakes on maps are worse than typos in a Forbes column. If your mobile map steers you into road construction or toward a washed out bridge while you are driving alone in the rain at night, your safety may be at risk and your unhappiness with the mapping application will be long-lasting.
9 images Photos: Those Terrible iOS 6 Maps
ould Apple Let Users Select Alternate Default Apps? Anthony Wing Kosner Anthony Wing Kosner Contributor

Mapping is increasing exponentially in importance. In Age of Context, our book-in-progress, Robert Scoble and I name maps as one of the five forces driving the next era of technology. More and more mobile apps must know where you are, what you want to do or where you are going. Location is an essential part of most new social networks and mobile wouldn’t matter if location wasn’t involved.

“Without location, mobile apps have no ground. They lose their context.” Caterina Fake, founder of the soon-to-launch Findery.com, recently told me in an interview for our book.

Map applications cannot be built in a day. They require huge teams, spending enormous amounts of time, to map the world square inch by square inch, and it takes even more than that to keep all the data current. Maps never had to be close to real time before mobile took off. They could be revised every few years when they were still on paper, less than a decade ago.

Google has a team of about 7000 people worldwide working just on maps. The result is a product that remains imperfect, but is pretty darn good and most of us trust what we see. Waze is creating a community of people who travel similar routes and update automatically, so fellow travellers see changes almost as they occur.

Apple has a mere 20,000 employees worldwide. Few of them are mapping experts. A majority remains hardware-oriented. But in the longterm, hardware becomes a commodity and commodities do not maintain high margins of profitability.

Like all other providers of end-user products, the revenue will be increasingly tied to software and maps will be essential to that revenue. As we move further into contextual areas, most users will get ads, offers, and info based on their location. Much of it will be tied directly to maps and much of the remainder will be tied indirectly to them.

Apple, in the long term, cannot possibly continue to partner with Google, which is its most threatening competitor. It would be unwise to give Google revenue and data from its users and more important it cannot share its most secret product plans and strategies.

Google, as the voice-guided directions issue reveals, was moving to make maps better on Android phones than on iOS phones. As the hardware between the two companies becomes closer to equal, mapping becomes more strategically important. As the world becomes more mobile and applications become more contextual, Apple has to ensure that its future does not rest in the hands of an enemy.

And in that there is a rub. You cannot get data for your maps until millions of people are using and sharing them and reporting back new or better data. Google started several years ago with maps. It, too, produced crude products in the beginning.
Click to expand...
Tl;Dr - Google has the equivalent of 35% of Apple's entire worldwide workforce dedicated to just maps.

And they had nearly a decade head start.

No one should be surprised that Google's mapping solution is superior now, and will be for a long time.

The only thing that Apple's does better is that the app itself is vector based so it zooms and loads faster. But that doesn't do you much good when it's giving you mediocre back end data.
 
IH8Rice

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
binary visions said:
Though you still can't modify the "handlers" in iOS, so you can't cause Google Maps to launch from any other applications - which significantly hurts its usability...
Click to expand...
this is really my only complaint about IOS. id like to make Chrome my default browser but im still stuck with Safari launching from other apps.
 
Jm_

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,995
9,652
AK
jonKranked said:
Honestly, Apple's is a better implementation, because it's not dependent on zoom level, Google's still is.
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Naw, I can't use one hand with the apple maps, the google ones have a zoom in and out button. Perfect, because you look like an idiot trying to do anything else or hold something else and use the map function...unless it's an android. The apple map doesn't pull up nearly as many hits nearby, the logic isn't very good when you don't exactly know the name, hard to get streets to show up sometimes, etc. It's not that the google app is a little better, it's pretty much a hands down slam dunk, and it's amazing given how much $$$ and design-competence that apple has. Google is doing a lot of things right, while Apple is doing them the way they've always done them. That's a recipe for success for google.

I had to boot up my google earth app on my iphone over lunch to point out two cool eateries to someone, after failing miserably with the apple maps.
 
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jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
41,191
13,339
Portland, OR
norbar said:
New Mac OS is less resource hungry? Are you insane? I own a 4gb ram Mac and it is not enough when I only use a browser and word.

I get similar performance out of my 1.5gb ram Celeron laptop pc with Vista.
Click to expand...
My MacBook is an i7, but only has 4G of ram and can be painful if I run xcode with an emulator and ANYTHING else.
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,939
24,509
media blackout
Jm_ said:
Naw, I can't use one hand with the apple maps, the google ones have a zoom in and out button. Perfect, because you look like an idiot trying to do anything else or hold something else and use the map function...unless it's an android. The apple map doesn't pull up nearly as many hits nearby, the logic isn't very good when you don't exactly know the name, hard to get streets to show up sometimes, etc. It's not that the google app is a little better, it's pretty much a hands down slam dunk, and it's amazing given how much $$$ and design-competence that apple has. Google is doing a lot of things right, while Apple is doing them the way they've always done them. That's a recipe for success for google.

I had to boot up my google earth app on my iphone over lunch to point out two cool eateries to someone, after failing miserably with the apple maps.
Click to expand...
I wasn't referring to the app as a whole, just that one particular feature. But overall I agree it's garbage. Enough so that my wife bought a galaxy s3 instead of an iphone
 
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