How humiliating
Still, the user experience is Apples utmost concern.
Less than a day after its release, Google's Maps app has become the most popular download in the iTunes store. On Thursday, Google got its mapping app cleared, three months after being unceremoniously dumped by Cupertino in iOS 6. Apple thought that it could do a better mapping system than Google, and presumably saw no reason …
So can you book an appointment, go into a SAMSUNG shop and get your phone fixed / replaced there and then - thought not. I dropped my iPhone from head height onto concrete - phone was fine but camera much have got slightly dislodged. Went to Apple store - 20 minutes later it's all fixed. See how warm you feel about Samsung when it develops a fault and you are without your phone for weeks and then they just send you a refurb.
Isn't that the point? the iPhone brought the smartphone to the masses. Before then there were a toy for geeks. The success of Android is riding on the back of that "reimagining" of what the smartphone should be.
Something perfectly illustrated here:
http://images.pcworld.com/images/article/2012/04/android_before_after_iphone-11352342.jpg
"Galaxy S3 is £409 SIM free from Amazon right now"
Well, yes, but the Huawei Ascend G300 which is not as good as the SIII or the iPhone 5 but good enough for most sells for £99 at Vodafone. Add to that £5.50 on eBay for unlocking (or £20 to Vodafone) and you're good to go.
Makes a difference - and discounted on Amazon a Galaxy III (also with 16Gb) is £409. The issue is they are all expensive phones and £120 over a 2-4 year lifespan is not all that much - especially if the iPhone lasts longer (better / longer support) or actually has more value when you come to trade in / sell. I know people still running iPhone 3GS every day (now 4 years old and counting) and others than have sold their 2+ year old iPhones back for more than half the price they paid. I also know people who have Androids that are unsupported and now gathering dust after 2 years or less.
Compare smartphone sales before and after the launch of the iPhone. I think you'll find they had a small percentage of the market back in 2006, and quite a large one now.
Also, remember that most people don't pay the full cost of the phone upfront. They pay a deposit then 1 or 2 years worth of line rental to get it.
"the iPhone brought the smartphone to the masses"
False - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_figures
"Before then there were a toy for geeks."
The early iphone was a toy for geeks too. And the first iphone wasn't a smartphone anyway (couldn't run applications).
Mainstream usage came with Android, or perhaps Symbian shortly before that in the late 2000s. (Plus the whole "smartphone" definition is ill-defined anyway - phones with Internet and apps, something the original iphone couldn't do, became standard and mainstream around 2005, it's just that only some were arbitrarily marketed as "smartphones" - the change more recently is simply that more phones are now marketed as smartphones.)
As for before and after, we might as well say before the Nokia 5800 the iphone didn't have apps, and afterwards it did; or before the Samsung Galaxy, the iphone was tiny, and afterwards, it had a larger screen.
"Mainstream usage came with Android, or perhaps Symbian shortly before that in the late 2000s. "
It would be more accurate to say that Apple made the smart phone desirable to the masses, but before the iPhone they were MOST DEFINITELY a geek only 'tool'. Thinking about my HTC TyTn here which I used to use with a bluetooth RS232 interface for switch programming. It was also great as a girl-repellant.
Blackberry sold business users on always on mobile-email.
Cut to a post-iPhone world, and suddenly everything looks like an iPhone as that's what sells. Android and Samsung et al brought cheap alternatives to the masses, but it was Apple who sold them on the concept by making something people actually wanted to use.
and your point must be that the android prototype looks so much better than the rubbish iPhone and the butt ugly other one.
That aside, you're completely confused. The rise of the smartphone was inevitable. The technology just caught up to what people have wanted for decades.
All the chavs down the road have them. They went to payday loans to get the money for them.. They also have really nice union jack covers for them too..
I laugh when people think iPhone or iPad is some kind of status symbol that shows you have made it in life, when every chav has one...
I have an iPhone. I don't consider it a status symbol. It just happens to do what I need, and quite well. Most of my iPhone owning friends feel pretty much the same way.
Compare that to most of my Android owning friends who can't wait to get out their phones and show all and sundry they have the latest Samsung/HTC/<insert name of fashionable phone maker here> mobile, and sit there loudly discussing screen sizes.
I wonder how many downloads are necessary to jump to the top of the charts. I suspect that a percentage in the single digits in a day would be plenty enough. I.e. you could probably have 80% rabid fanbois swearing never to install the maps app of the enemy, and still have the app get to the top if half of the remaining users download it.
"So this would make fanboi quite the hypocrites, would it not?"
You appear to be projecting a simulation of the imaginary iPhone users that you have concocted rather than actual ones.
The reality (as is backed by evidence) is that the average iPhone user just wants something that works properly. TomTom's data (which is used by Apple Maps) clearly has accuracy issues, and I can't think of anyone (including myself) that would not return to tried and tested Google Maps (although it would be fair to point out that Google Maps is not 100% accurate either, however it is clearly superior to Apple's maps solution) .
'Not as well as expected' was what I read with 'analysts citing a shite mapping app as one reason punters were holding off upgrading'
and so forth. I guess those analysts were fake or liars, though, like those climate scientists with inconvenient data, etc, etc,
The problem with this is that Google has more users, and thus get more feedback and corrections. Especially since corrections are vastly easier to report using a desktop web site, which Apple does not have. It have to say I do not understand why Apple is not creating a web site for their maps, like Nokia has done with here.com. It should give their maps a lot more users at a comparatively small price.
EDIT: HOLY $#*! I CAN EDIT MY POST!!1! Adding GO icon!
Used Google Maps to navigate to work - it's only 6 miles but 7 with Google Maps as it took a longer route for some reason. It also got the location of a nearby pub at least 1/2 mile out and another business was marked about 1/2 mile out and on the wrong side of the road. No traffic data and apparently it's a round-OH-bout I need to take the first left at. Can't say I'm impressed and certainly no better than Apple Maps on the same journey.
Will test it some more today.
So here is an item that I've yet to see compared between iOS and Android and Windows Phone - the amount and quality of the traffic data that is displayed.
I got a windows phone (for work, they foisted it on me, not my choice) and I noticed that very few roads have traffic information. I assume that since nobody else has the phones, that Bing Maps isn't getting much data fed to it. Likewise iOS maps would have a similar issue. The lack of data comes down to a lack of handsets reporting their locations. Were there any complaints about Apple maps and their traffic data?
When I first got the phone I was sitting parked, stopped in traffic on what is usually a very busy street. Whip open WinPhone Maps and there was no data on the road... except to show a red line behind me. Does that mean to tell me that I am the only person on that road with a windows phone? A sample size of one??
Where I work in dorset, I tried traffic, google maps said traffic wasn't available in my area. Apple maps has it and looking out of the window, it seemed quite accurate.
But then Apple maps are more accurate with shop locations too, googles locations are quite a way out, even if neither of them can quite keep pace with the speed of shop closures :/
Google satellite view is higher quality though.
Certainly if I was going to London, I would use the google maps, but out here in the sticks, the apple data seems to work better for me. It is certainly nice to have both (I tried nokia maps, but it didn't seem to offer much I didn't already have)
The satellite images are higher quality on Google Maps but much older - at least 4 years old for here whereas Apple maps are perhaps 12-18 months or less. It's win one lose one - I could not really say Google Maps is all that much better - in some ways it is in others it's not.
Actually, now I look at home, the satellite image of my house is exactly the same image, same resolution, cars parked in the same place etc, but further at the end of the road it is different, I can't quite see where the join is. The google maps have (c) google stamped all over them.
Not sure how it works, but here is how I understand it.
Google maps get part of their traffic data from 3rdparties, and part of it from phones using googlemaps.
This means that google maps works (at least over here) on my blackberry just as accurate as google maps using chrome on my desktop computer.
As far as how real time the data is, I've used it a couple of times whilst stuck in traffic (either when I was not driving, or by having handed the phone to someone who was driving with me). The traffic data (at least in the NL, germany, belgium and france) seemed to be accurate upto a few minutes, good enough to get a pretty accurate idea how far you would be stuck in barely moving traffic.
These companies must hate the antipodes because both sets of maps are full of errors. It may not be as bad as getting lost on the way to Mildura, but Google Maps shows a bus stop outside my house which isn't there. It is about 100m further up the road, and street view clearly shows this but Apple got vilified for having errors in their map data, yet Google also has them too. Even in the US there are problems because I went to visit a friend in Alabama and Google Maps put his street address two miles further down the road than it actually is. Sure, we can and do report these problems, but there must be something wrong with the source database or how the data is being modified to get to these apps because they are both difficult to rely on. Even the public transport feature of the new Google Maps app doesn't seem as good as the one that was in the old Apple built one sadly. Still, the existence of the app was enough for me to finally upgrade my iPhone to iOS 6 so we're getting there.
This post has been deleted by its author
No maps app is perfect, but you write as if Google Maps are as unreliable as Apple Maps. Bear in mind, the outcry over Apple Maps is unprecedented, not just in technical magazines, but in mainstream media such as New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Globe and Mail.
Did Tim Cook apologize for nothing? Were two VPs fired for nothing? Did Google Maps overnight became the top free app for nothing (among Apple devotees, no less)? By the way, I own an iPad 3, and my wife owns an iPad mini. Great devices. (I don't own a smartphone, but am eyeing the Nexus 4.)
@mutatedwombat
They cannot buy Google. Their stock price has taken such a crap-kicking lately that they will have to tap into their cash reserves to support operations in the next 6 months, if current trends continue.
The iOS map app sucks and asking Appleoids to send in corrections is like asking a potential girlfriend to recommend a good pharmacy for syphilis meds. You ain't getting to second base pal.
Freely spending cash on a new HQ building and data centers when their user base is deteriorating is not going to result in anything pretty. Wait til their investors who bought in at $600 a share decide they can get better value elsewhere. Then no amount of cash in the world will stop the carnage that follows.
"Their stock price has taken such a crap-kicking lately that they will have to tap into their cash reserves to support operations in the next 6 months, if current trends continue."
That's just delusional - they are making huge profits and sales and profits are increasing - they are just adding to the already huge mountain. They would only need the cash if they were making a loss which is clearly not the case.
Put it this way do you think Apple could afford to buy Google or Google buy Apple.
as all the apps on the store will soon be using Google Maps too, and Apple will have gained fuck all out of this humiliating farce and lost everything.
This time last year, everyone was parading around the office with shiny apple things, now they hide them in their pockets for fear of being laughed out the room...
Nice one Apple... You put your need for cutting Google out above the needs of your users.
I wonder if they'll decide that since everyone has jumped to Google Maps, to discontinue their own maps app since they've got such a huge uphill battle now just to get users back to it.
I mean Apple have got the reputation of not being able to provide accurate maps before considering stuff like Street View etc.
I think Google Maps Navigation is worse than Navigon (WP7 or Android) / Nokia Maps (on WP7).
If you want Ordinance Survey then you can use Bing Maps. (Web version).
(Using Memory Map / Viewranger (with OS data) for outdoor is extremely expensive but probably the best money being no object.)
Surely Apple should have just licensed the Ordinance Survey data. (They have the money to do it). Dunno if it is so easy for other countries but here in the UK OS data is the best. (I have only ever used it for a small town though). They have all the data that you need to do stuff like 3d mapping properly.
And also pretty damn expensive to licence commercially - as it should be, given the high accuracy, and the depth of the data is enough to build a full 3D scale model of the UK!
- At school we built a physical model of a local hill using an OS map. Interesting but took ages.
So while Apple (or Google) could have licensed it, presumably they thought the cost was too high.
Strange because i'ts available in some really nice digitised formats. Friend of mine has them for his squadron to use in DofE planning.
I have an app for my iPhone that uses the OS data. It's bloody nice but a regional map at 1:50 is £9.99. The 1:25 maps by county can be as high as 30 quid each!
Then there's the storage space required. I have 2gb worth of maps installed! That's GB map at 1:250, and 3 sets of regional 1:50 maps. Download time aside, that's a huge chunk of storage space on a bog standard iPhone. It all seems rather "bulky".
It really needs someone clever to take that OS data and perhaps provide it in some kind of vector format rather than what seems to be a whole load bitmaps as in the app I'm using (it's called Outdoors GB and Parks).
In short, I'd like to see OS map data using some of that fancy pants Apple Maps technology. That WOULD be something to get excited about. I'd happily pay for it as well.
Indeed, if Apple users are happy to switch from Apple Maps to Google now, it's reasonable to assume they'll be equally willing to switch from Google to Apple in the future (if/when it actually works).
The only thing is, I don't know if Apple Maps will ever get a commanding market share. In the same way that many people equate Google with searching the Internet (to the point that Bing and Yahoo don't even exist in their mind), Google is fast becoming synonymous with maps too.
Apple not getting its maps right the first time could well see their respective market shares following a similar path to Safari and Chrome.
The difference between apple allowing google to have a maps app on iOS6 and Apple buying their mapping product and making it part of the OS is a huge one. Apple is saving money and no longer funding their competition, while Google appear to have won, but are now giving away something they used to get paid for.
Of course, they can add adds, but then the user experience will not be there, and slowly users will turn away from their app, and back in to Apple's arms. Meanwhile, Apple is now improving their database, and two years from now it will be good enough.
And the availability of the old maps app will boost Apple's sales in the critical Christmas period.
I swear Apple is like the cat with 90 lifes, and they always fall on their feet...
I used Google Maps to navigate home today - it send me on a workable but inefficient route (adding about a mile to the 5 mile journey). Also noticed the location of a pub I passed was more than 1/2 mile out when I know it's accurate with Apple Maps and Apple picks the shorter route.
I'm glad to have the choice but in reality there were errors with Apple Maps but for a new product it's not bad and some of their data is more accurate than Google.
Do we really want Google to have no decent competition?
"Apple tossed a boulder when they KICKED GOOGLE MAPS OUT OF THEIR STORE"
…but do you know why? The license expired. It was either pay *per lookup* or implement a new solution. They licensed TomTom's data to produce their own app, then got burned by the inaccuracies of TomTom data.
Google have clearly been dragging their heels to make their competitor look bad, and now they look like heroes for 'saving the iPhone', however as this is now a Google solution, Apple will not have to pay, and consumers get the benefits of two competing map systems.
Everybody wins.
Nokia Here tried to kill me. Twice. And nothing so subtle as getting me lost in the desert (well, around here that would be 'lost in the swamp', there's a reason why the part of I-75 running east-west across Florida is called 'Alligator Alley'). No, if I'd followed the route specified, I'd have first driven off Forrest Hill and onto the Turnpike, several metres below. If I somehow survived that, and still followed the route, I'd have been directed straight into a concrete wall.
Apple Maps does not do that.
Most of the anti Apple comments on here are from people who have never actually tried the Apple Maps and are just Apple haters or jumping on the bandwagon. I've used Apple Maps daily since I installed iOS 6 and in some ways it's better than Google Maps and in some ways it's worse (previously I had used Google Maps daily so I can compare).
Also very surprised by the colour scheme.
The Apple one, has only two colours - single and dual carriageway - regardless of the actual size of either.
Meanwhile Google have small road, main road, dual carriageway and motorway, much better.
However, the Google treatment of motorways is strange - they are green with a blue central reservation, which you can't see once you zoom out so there's no visible difference between the M1 and the A1 at small scale - a major issue with the Apple one at all zooms.
- For our foreign friends, this matters because there are many vehicles you can drive on one but not the other.
Different to Googles web map, which makes it very weird.
On the brighter side, Google's map still loads much faster than the Apple one.
Apple devices are supposed to work right, right out of the box. That's one of the justifications for the markup in price, and short-sell on the options (and extras).
At least, that's the company line. It took them ages to get copy&paste, video chat etc on their highest-tech devices, but at least (with quite a lot of restrictions) they got it, with cute UI effects.
Apple missed the point completely. When Google releases something new, they release it in beta and then tweak things and add bits to it until they are happy. If you tell users something is in beta, they still tell you how crappy it is but they don't get nearly as upset as if you tell them it is a finished product - like Apple did with Maps. Gmail was in beta for 5 years.
Google have lost 500m+ a year in revenue and will end up stacking ads on their app - all the time Apple will be improving theirs - too many ads and everyone moves back to Apple maps. I actually suspect most people will not even bother with Google Maps - sure it's number 1 in the charts today but that does not really mean that much after all the publicity.
People are defending Apple. I have a single question: Why did Apple ever publish Crappy Mappy using Black and White satellite pictures?
I have bought satellite pictures for my home/business/hotel in one city and for a second hotel in another city. They were in colour and less than 4 months old. If I, a financially distraught person compared to Apple, can do this, why didn't Apple?
Google isn't perfect, but they are very good. They show highways and bridges within a week or two of their being placed in to service. They occasionally confuse people who don't study the Google Maps by showing a ferry boat with a symbol much like a road.
But Google, and everyone one who prints maps omit two streets in the former Imperial capital of Hue! No one, but no one has got this right, yet. And these two streets are big enough to have two hotels.
China and VietNam re-aligned their common borders (when China lost the 1979 invasion, VietNam grabbed a little extra back) and sure enough, Google was there, virtually, almost tracking the workers who hauled the huge marker stones to their new positions.
Everyone seems to ignore the fact that most of Google Maps are free - to the user - and they should be cut a little slack when they have errors. Apple didn't have only "a few errors".
You paint a very rose tinted view of Google Maps - here the Google Maps sat pics must be well over 3 years old whereas the Apple sat pics are less than 12 months old. Google Maps just got slated by a different police department in Australia for a similar issue as Apple Maps.
As for Google adding new roads / bridges within 2 weeks - seems generous as I have reported various issues more than once over the last 2 years and no far zero have been fixed.
HAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA
I only wish St. Jobs of the Ex Cathedra were alive to see this.
Come on "Anonymous iTard," make your comment. I'm sure it's someone other than Apple's fault, as usual. Must be a dastardly Korean spy in Cupertino, or something.
New Google Maps also seems to work much better than before offline.
I downloaded it last night, looked at today's itinerary and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was still seeing some considerable zooming and panning capability once arrived at my destination, despite my being cheap and relying only on WIFI for data.
I suspect it is a side effect of its vector-based graphics, they probably download enough data when you look at something in particular to support offline mode in the vicinity.
Hats off to Google for a job well done. And, kudos to Apple for not being stupidly obstructive and letting them in. Or maybe they were just relieved to have a better map story on iOS6.
We usually use iPads, iPhones and ipad minis, but after some of our team got lost using their phone as Sat Nav ( goodness knows why?) I thought I'd give some Nexus kit a go.
Let the MD have a go with the test model, still not got it back - he loves it.
Looks like what Apple has started another player will finish.
Posted from my iPad - BTW all our plumbers and electricians have Apple kit.
Not sure why anyone would love a Nexus now they have Google Maps on an Apple device.
I actually find it amazing people expect a free mapping app to replace a proper sat nav - if I were a sales person or going from site to site think I would have a proper naviagtion app (which is better still) or a standalone device.
Incidentally tried to use Google Maps (via the web app) to navigate somewhere last week and it got me lost - sent me round a housing estate and was about 2/3rds mile off - switched to Apple Maps and it got me there. So it's not just black and white.
Hi
I agree, some of it might be the MD loving a different shiny thing to the rest of the team - makes him stand out.
Though I do like the Nexus Unit from a personal note (I can do a lot more regarding network analysis) - I do prefer from a work perspective the simplicity of the IOS system as people do find it intuitively easier.
But like a lot of things it is essentially each to their own preference.
I like tweaking and fiddling out of professional curiosity (Was a heavy user of "XDA Developers" in the old days) - but like many Admins don't like the users doing the same thing or me having to perform too much hands on training showing them how to use stuff - no time budget.
The biggest problem I have with Apple is they want to lock you into there way of doing things. Why hasn't apple release a version of it's mapping app for Android? I'm sure that in some areas Apple Maps are better than Google Maps, and vice-verse. But Apple don't let people choose which is best, instead they deny it for some people (non-iOS users) and force it on others (remove Google maps, not add a new mapping choice in iOS 6.) More users = more corrections. I'd give it a go on my droids... why do we even care what OS our phone is running?
Is Apple the new Microsoft wannabe? Microsoft 2.0 perhaps?
Simple - Google make money selling ads on their maps and mining your data - Apple do not (yet) have their revenue stream. Apple were paying Google about 500m+ a year to license Maps for iOS - the contract was due up next year and perhaps Google wanted even more. Now Apple only have to pay for people still running iOS 5 as Google will have to foot the bill for Google maps via their own 'app'.
Now Apple users have better choice - Google or Apple Maps - whichever you prefer or whichever is better where you are (and that's not always Google). Apple can also help iOS developers and give them better access to mapping or at least possibly cheaper access to mapping.
A few things.
1) The reason Google actively support other platforms is due to their primary revenue stream. Apple's primary revenue streams are selling hardware and media from itunes. As such, it's not in their interest to support competing platforms. Google's primary (possibly only) is advertising. As such, it's in their interest to get their products on as many platforms as possible. Remember, whatever they tell you, a company's primary objective is to make money. Apple do not currently make money from maps. Maybe once they do, they'll start allowing Apple Maps use on non-Apple hardware.
2) Apple haven't (in this case at least) stopped people from choosing what is best for them. On the contrary, when they apologised, they started actively pushing the alternatives.
I have absolutely no problems with Apple Maps. Every time I have used it is has been fine. I have noticed plenty of glaring errors in Google maps though and their update is very slow. For example, if you look up Regent Circus, Swindon on Google Maps, it puts it in the wrong place, not by much but not correct. Also it shows the library as a building site whereas it was completed in 2008! It also shows the buildings of Swindon college but they have been demolished. Apple Maps show everything correctly.
After many years, TomTom still have not recognised the roundabout heading into Laverstock from Salisbury.