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They seem to frequently fail at software. iTunes is a dog, Mac OS X is getting worse and worse, the Mac App store is horrendous. iCloud is a joke. They do nice

by steve19 10y ago

They seem to frequently fail at software. iTunes is a dog, Mac OS X is getting worse and worse, the Mac App store is horrendous. iCloud is a joke. They do nice interfaces, and iOS is great. I have no doubt they would produce an amazing luxury car with a beautiful software UI, but I do not see them morphing into a machine learning software powerhouse anytime soon, at least compared to Google. Google Now easily beats Siri and Google Maps beats Apple Maps.

comex 10y ago
Google Maps' advantage has a lot more to do with data than algorithms. Google Now is probably a better example, though I've never used it myself.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  "Google Maps' advantage has a lot more to do with data than algorithms." Given literally everyone else collected the data well before google, and maps was still better, this seems wrong. Google developed better ways to get the data and automate it, not just got better data. For years, literally everyone else had better data.
  - dizzy3gg 10y ago
    Not really. Google collect more, like wifi info :/ and images (street view). Google really did revolutionise mapping.
    - regularfry 10y ago
      Google Maps was better before they did that.
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    Apple is not even trying, or is leaving their Maps team terribly under resourced. I've been running some experiments submitting the same edits to Google, Yelp & Apple simultaneously (since Apple uses Yelp data), and timing how long each takes to update. The last time I publicly recorded my results: Google Maps: 40 minutes Yelp: 3 days 20 hours Apple Maps: 13 days https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/668473075365642240 https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/668473075365642240 I know Apple's policy is to screen edits carefully to ensure accuracy & avoid vandalism, but it's actually making their maps more inaccurate, because it takes longer for errors to be fixed. Google has also started incentivising frequent editors with rewards (like free 1TB Google Drive subscriptions), which helps encourage people to make the corrections in the first place.
    - Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
      OpenStreetMap: 0 minutes
      - mcphage 10y ago
        That wouldn't be good, either, since it would mean no quality control of the data going in.
        Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
        Most first-user contributions to OSM are reviewed by the existing community: for example, many of the regional OSM IRC channels have a bot which pops up first-time edits, so a regular can check on them. It's just that they're retroactively moderated rather than proactively, which avoids new users being disillusioned when their edits don't show.

by steve19 10y ago

comex 10y ago

Google Maps' advantage has a lot more to do with data than algorithms. Google Now is probably a better example, though I've never used it myself.

DannyBee 10y ago
"Google Maps' advantage has a lot more to do with data than algorithms." Given literally everyone else collected the data well before google, and maps was still better, this seems wrong. Google developed better ways to get the data and automate it, not just got better data. For years, literally everyone else had better data.
- dizzy3gg 10y ago
  Not really. Google collect more, like wifi info :/ and images (street view). Google really did revolutionise mapping.
  - regularfry 10y ago
    Google Maps was better before they did that.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  Apple is not even trying, or is leaving their Maps team terribly under resourced. I've been running some experiments submitting the same edits to Google, Yelp & Apple simultaneously (since Apple uses Yelp data), and timing how long each takes to update. The last time I publicly recorded my results: Google Maps: 40 minutes Yelp: 3 days 20 hours Apple Maps: 13 days https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/668473075365642240 https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/668473075365642240 I know Apple's policy is to screen edits carefully to ensure accuracy & avoid vandalism, but it's actually making their maps more inaccurate, because it takes longer for errors to be fixed. Google has also started incentivising frequent editors with rewards (like free 1TB Google Drive subscriptions), which helps encourage people to make the corrections in the first place.
  - Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
    OpenStreetMap: 0 minutes
    - mcphage 10y ago
      That wouldn't be good, either, since it would mean no quality control of the data going in.
      - Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
        Most first-user contributions to OSM are reviewed by the existing community: for example, many of the regional OSM IRC channels have a bot which pops up first-time edits, so a regular can check on them. It's just that they're retroactively moderated rather than proactively, which avoids new users being disillusioned when their edits don't show.