'Apple's iOS 6 maps app is SHOCKING, rushed and half-baked' This was the week when Microsoft chieftain Steve Ballmer tried to convince everyone that 2012 will be "the most epic year in Microsoft history". And how did the chair-tossing potty-mouthed bossman attempt to prove this glorious epoch will be achieved? Well, it wasn't by suggesting its Surface fondleslabs should be sold at an …
Wow, why do people say this? As if it's somehow acceptable?
Apple has basically mucked their users around by deliberately giving them something inferior simply because they don't like Google.
What if someone releases a car with wax lamps instead of electric tungsten-halogen lamps?
Will all the apologists say "It'll get better though, eventually".
How about not deciding to regress functionality significantly over a petty feud?
What a silly comment its irrelevant if google maps was not that good first time around, the iphone was using the current version of google maps not version 1.
The regression in features i can life with but the blatant shoddyness of locations, aerial images and place data is shocking ad in laces non existent.
In many places the roads are simply not mapped, in others they are spelt incorrectly and as the sear only allows exact matches some businesses and places will never be matched
Apple didnt need to release this now they should of got it out of version 0.00001 instead of putting their ego related google battles before their customers
Not much of an excuse to deliver a shoddy product, maps, they're hardly a startup struggling for cash.
How true is the rumour that google wouldn't let apple do turn by turn with their data? because it sounds like "6 of one and half a dozen of the t'uther" when any big tech companies start blaming each other.
It will probably get better - it damn well needs to - but releasing beta software and making you pay for it? No thanks.
They said Siri was in its early days too... That was a year ago... Does it work properly outside the USA yet? I asked my Iphone4S owning brother last night. His reply "Oh God it's so annoying, I don't use it".
I have to agree. I am left wondering whether Saint Jobs would have pushed out semthing as horribly broken as that.
On another not, everyone in my office who owns an iphone went ahead and upgraded straight away.
Im staying on v5, as far as I can tell iOS 6 will improve my iphone4 by a factor of less tha zero.
None of the alleged improvements they have made in this new OS will work on an iphone 4, but lots of stuff that used to work will dissapear.
Someone told me that the YouTube app is gone too. I don't know if that is true though.
I cannot see the upside of upgrading.
As I said to the numpties at work, "don't feel too bad, at least you will be able to go to Settings->About and see a shiny new 6 where there used to be a 5. Happy days!"
"Windows 95 was certainly the biggest thing in the last 20 years until now. I think Windows 8 certainly surpasses it."
What is Balmer smoking? Windows 95 the biggest thing in what? Computing? I would think other things in computing have been bigger (or at least better) in the last 20 years. The world-wide web, for one. OK that made its first wobbly steps in 1990/1991, so outside the time frame, but it only really took off the years after. The Mosaic Browser (1993) was a seminal event in computing. Windows 95 was not.
In my view, Windows 95 improved upon Windows 3.1(1) in that it camouflaged the fact that it was a graphic shell overlaid on MS-DOS rather better. It did a bit more than that, and popularized the WIMP-style (windows, icons, menus, pointer) GUIs still with use today. Yes I know MS did not invent them, but W95 did bring them to a big audience, and took the MS-DOS crowd away from the command line.
Pirate icon because I was ill on "Talk like a pirate day"
Partially agree with you, but surely the WIMP enabled the browser to become mainstream, which catapulted the WWW. I cant imagine a browser running in DOS would have been quite the money shot.
I do admit at that stage though I was mid-teens and drunk most of the time, so could have a clouded judgement of history ;)
Windows 95 was big in that it ripped Windows out of 16-bit land and into 32-land and introduced stuff like the start menu, taskbar etc. that we still use today. I suppose Balmer hopes that metro has the potential to be as significant as Windows 95 was in reinventing the desktop paradigm and we can all look forward to a glorious Microsoft future.
> "What is Balmer smoking? Windows 95 the biggest thing in what?"
In Microsofts history. You've taken the quote completely out of context. Of course Windows 95 wasn't the biggest thing in computing in the last 20 years. Even Ballmer isn't mad enough to believe that (although I'm sure a few of the Reg readers wouldn't agree with me). I can see where he's coming from with the quote in context though. It's easily the biggest UI shift in Microsofts history since Windows 95.
Smiley face for you my friend. Context is a wonderful thing.
Yeh issue out of nothing, apple replaces an app with a shocking product ad all you say is people should just use a webpage. How exactly will the majority of people know how to do this and why should they have to.
Im pretty sure if apple put out a press release saying if you go to an apple store they will bend you over and give it to you good and proper more apple fanboys would turn upand somehow justify it
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Can I just add that the Kindle is a very good product. It is clear about what it's for, it does that job well and you buy it to do that job. I hate that tech companies have lost sight of the fact that a device designed to serve a function will always be better than a multi functional device designed to do many things.
The problem that Steve Balmer doesnt quite get is that I can buy a laptop to do homework on for 200 GBP, why would I pay MORE to do that on a surface tablet? Ipads have done well in some quarters because they're seen as cool, but Microsoft just doesnt have that image. Until the storage and functionality of their surface tablets is good enough to REPLACE a laptop why would you pay more for a surface device?
I don't think Balmer has missed anything in this case. Microsoft are releasing a premium tablet device which will be priced comparatively with other premium tablet devices. It's not a laptop, it's a consumption device.
Plus I've never seen a new laptop for £200. And you won't find one in the UK. And if you mean a netbook then 'facepalm' is all I have to say. I found one online for about £250 (a proper laptop that is), but I've used sub-£300 laptops before and it's never a good sign when the screen bends considerably when put under any stress.
WinRT tablets aren't designed to replace laptops. The Surface Pro and other similar tablets may help pave the way for this, but again, these are premium devices that you will not be able to pick up for £200. Not a cats chance in hell.
All in all, I'm not sure what you are moaning about. Did you expect MS to offer you a £200 Surface Pro so you can replace your cheap Tosh £250 laptop?
The post didn't say a new laptop, and yes I am pretty sure 200 quid for a second hand one is perfectly possible (try my local car boot on Sunday - of course no telling whose house they were nicked from ).
Besides if you go to Dell and look at the refurbished laptops, sort by price, the guy is right, he can get a CHOICE of laptop for less than £200, even with VAT its less than 210 (so within rounding error) and currently free delivery on some... and these are proper laptops. (even though crippled by the appalling windows 7)
So MS are being criticised because their ultra-portable high spec laptop and tablet hybrid will have an RRP higher than the price of a second hand bottom of the range laptop?
Yes for many people, the latter may suffice, but that's an argument against any new laptop on the market (including Apple).
Windows 7 works fine for me.
Not a chance, I HATE - and I mean HATE these tablets and touch screen phones I WANT BUTTONS (and incidentally on a phone I want a flip that neatly covers the buttons so they don't get pressed in my pocket).
Yet EVERYONE seems to be copying the same sad ideas (not Apples ideas- - Apple had copied them from people that went before - from the iPhone to the tablet they are ALL copies of devices that were around years before them). I want VARIETY, not everyone wants a keyboard - good luck to those who don't need one, BUT I do want a keyboard. We need choice - so that all of us can be satisfied. It would be a disaster if we all wanted the same thing, but it is equally a disaster if there is only one thing available.
I had none of these issues during the beta period since early July...I must admit I hardly use satellite imagery but I did check my own house which before this week was clear and now it isn't...
I think something else is going on rather than fundamentally daft maps as it has been fine...
Greed is killing both MS and Apple. Hurry up and kick out the product so we can make bank. Ever notice back in the day, one had time to really master a programming language or OS? These systems are so complex that it literally takes at least a year or two to master them. Now, by the time you get something mastered, they kick out something else and you just lost 2 years of work and study to have to learn something else. Add in that everybody feels the need to change things to be new and fresh... thus screwing up tried and proven paradigms.
Greed is also why the hackers are winning. Security is secondary to getting the product out. Hurry up so we can beat our competitor in the market share.
Did anybody read what the Woz just said? Steve Wozniak - “I wish everybody would just agree to exchange all the patents and everybody can build the best forms they want to use everybody’s technologies.”
And I agree with that. But with the current mentality, it will not materialize until after the next technology bust of the 90's. If ever. All I know is, if the current mentality does not change, then expect the same rushed out crap products, upgrades and virus hacks for the foreseeable future.
one mile ONLY? I really need to show a screenshot with a city labeled over newly plugged crop fields w/o and road to it ... and that's still nothing -- getting the same town twice on the map, just around 30miles from it-shadow-self and both locations are at least 20miles off... one of the them on the top of a mountain.
Nice features include absolute winter cloudy sky for satellite view. Probably even I can sell such pictures as well and they are going to be as accurate.
On a plus side: the building 3D view over NY city is 'pretty'... which is good for the marketing.
I blogged about this today:
http://cw.com.hk/blog/iphone-app-pinpoints-ifc-mall-no8-middle-ring-jinrong-street
"It seems as though all of Hong Kong was fed through a mainland-translation machine at Apple Headquarters in Cupertino. Searching “Apple store Hong Kong” yields such gems as:
“Red Apple Pet Shop”
Address?
“China, Hong Kong Tebie Administration Area, Fenlinglou Road”...WHAT?!?
Apple clearly understands the importance of Hong Kong in its business-strategy: their iconic retail operation in the IFC mall was the only ex-Japan location in Asia to offer the iPhone 5 last Friday. But Apple's much-criticized Maps app adds this surreal information to the text-listing for its own store in the HKSAR:
“No.8 Middle Ring Jinrong Street”...again the mysterious “Hong Kong Tebie Administration Area.”
But cut/paste the Chinese characters listed on Apple's own site (國際金融中心商場
中環金融街 8 號) into Google Translate and you get:
"8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong"
...so I can join in the fun of finding errors in their mapping.
But I just looked at the cost, on a 2 year contract I can expect an annualised TCO of £400 which compares poorly with closer to £100 for my ageing Android - which seems to have quite usable mapping capabilities.
"Which would be fine if the thing wasn't occasionally inaccurate and somewhat shoddy."
No, it would not. Even if Apple's maps were as good or better than Google, I would like to make that judgement myself thank you very much. And if the web app is good enough, I'll make that judgement as well.
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