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>Sometimes I fantasize about having a full-time job driving around the country fixing all of Apple Maps' faults. But somehow I suspect the pay would be terrible

>Sometimes I fantasize about having a full-time job driving around the country fixing all of Apple Maps' faults. But somehow I suspect the pay would be terrible. I've thought about doing this too, but for hiking trails. I'm sure the pay would be abysmal, but hiking and updating online maps sounds like a blast as a job. I think it could be done fairly well with a simple GPS recorder and serialization, but the biggest challenge would be managing the partnership between the map customers like google and apple.. If anyone wants to fund this and/or has the connections to play sales/product manager, DM me.. :p

metafizikal 8y ago
When I was hiking in Big Bend, TX, there was a lady with one of those Google Maps backpacks taking imagery for street view, presumably it was collecting other interesting data as well.
Thrymr 8y ago
There is a huge amount of this information maintained by land management agencies (see e.g. [0]). Presumably it is even licensed (in the US at least) in a way that commercial companies could use. But Google Maps coverage of trails and even forest roads is terrible. I presume that you're right, the return is too low, but it is sad that no one is picking up this low hanging fruit. Even OpenStreetMap is hit and miss on this public data (partly because of data import wars). [0] https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php?dsetCategory=transportation https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php?dsetCatego...
- ghaff 8y ago
  I conclude that Google has decided once you get off of "normal" roads, it just doesn't care. (One even wonders if Google considers omitting paths that aren't reliable for automobiles to be a feature rather than a bug.) As you say, OSM is better but can't really be depended on.
bjtitus 8y ago
Natural Atlas is trying to do this type of thing by pulling together data from USGS, USFS, etc: https://naturalatlas.com https://naturalatlas.com

metafizikal 8y ago

When I was hiking in Big Bend, TX, there was a lady with one of those Google Maps backpacks taking imagery for street view, presumably it was collecting other interesting data as well.

Thrymr 8y ago

There is a huge amount of this information maintained by land management agencies (see e.g. [0]). Presumably it is even licensed (in the US at least) in a way that commercial companies could use. But Google Maps coverage of trails and even forest roads is terrible. I presume that you're right, the return is too low, but it is sad that no one is picking up this low hanging fruit. Even OpenStreetMap is hit and miss on this public data (partly because of data import wars). [0] https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php?dsetCategory=transportation https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php?dsetCatego...

ghaff 8y ago
I conclude that Google has decided once you get off of "normal" roads, it just doesn't care. (One even wonders if Google considers omitting paths that aren't reliable for automobiles to be a feature rather than a bug.) As you say, OSM is better but can't really be depended on.

bjtitus 8y ago

Natural Atlas is trying to do this type of thing by pulling together data from USGS, USFS, etc: https://naturalatlas.com https://naturalatlas.com