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I find it interesting that Apple is adding driving navigation with no transit or bicycle directions (apart from third-party apps) while Google seems to be reall
by pkulak 14y ago
I find it interesting that Apple is adding driving navigation with no transit or bicycle directions (apart from third-party apps) while Google seems to be really putting a lot of effort into public transit. This is all while car ownership is plummeting among youth, the people who I thought were Apple's core user base.
- jonknee 14y agoThis stuff is hard, Google has been doing it for years. Apple is just getting started.
- salman89 14y agoI think its more an issue of platform maturity. Google has years on Apple in terms of building up these data sources. Apple (I believe) will be licensing map data, whose cost is not cheap. Google uses mostly their own maps, and have spent years and $$$ building data.
- _delirium 14y agoA good portion of the transit data is open; Google defined a transit-route data format (GTFS) and encouraged agencies to publish such data publicly, which a number did: http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFeeds http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFe... I'd guess they might also have private arrangements with additional agencies, but a good amount of the data is available to anyone.
- salman89 14y agoFair point. But having said data is only the first step. Routing and directions based on the data is another. That list looks really short though.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoWith iOS 6, Apple released Transit APIs that let third party devs (read: public transit providers) add public transit data themselves. “The new Transit APIs, referred to by Scott Forstall at 108:58 in Monday's keynote, allow developers to register their app as a directions provider for routing directions for a particular set of coordinates. It will then be displayed in the list of available third-party apps for transit. Clicking a transit app launches that app, passing the start and end values to the app. Contrary to other analysis, transit routes can't be displayed inline from the Maps app.” This seems to me like a clever move, this way Apple won't have to collect all the data. http://waxy.org/2012/06/busting_the_ios_6_transit_map_myths/ http://waxy.org/2012/06/busting_the_ios_6_transit_map_myths/
- justinph 14y agoHow many quality transit applications are out there and maintained enough by their public agencies? I predict that Apple's API cop-out goes precisely nowhere.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoI don't know about the situation in the Midwest, but where I live, all the public transit providers offer excellent apps (and they're free!).
- milesskorpen 14y agoHopefully Google Maps will be the best provide for this data in any given location, once they make their own iOS app.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoWhy would they do that? Google stands little to gain and a lot to lose by offering a good Google Maps app for iOS. Many of the features they offer for Google Maps on Android haven't been implemented for iOS (turn by turn navigation, interior views, floor plans, 3D models, etc.) Google is already polluting the iOS Maps app with sponsored listings, degrading the user experience severely. I doubt that a separate Google Maps app for iOS will be any better.
- smackfu 14y agoSeems like you answered your own question there. Why would Google make a good maps app? So that people on ios use it and they can show them sponsored places.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoIMO, a Maps app with ads or ‘sponsored places’ is a shitty app. I will always choose a paid app without ads over a ‘free’ app with ads. That's also the main reason why I backed App.net. When I wrote about a ‘good Google Maps app for iOS’ I meant one that has feature parity with Google Maps on Android and contains no ads. Up until two years a go, the Maps app on iOS was such an app.