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I've been using the beta to navigate around Vancouver for a month or so and it works quite well. Turn by turn with voice commands through bluetooth to my car is

by poutine 14y ago

I've been using the beta to navigate around Vancouver for a month or so and it works quite well. Turn by turn with voice commands through bluetooth to my car is great. The Yelp integration is pretty useful too. Big thing that's missing is the street view, but not something I've used much in the past. Regardless of how it stands compared to standalone GPS units and Android it's a big improvement over the previous maps app.

snogglethorpe 14y ago
> Big thing that's missing is the street view, but not something I've used much in the past. I suspect that puts you in a tiny minority... Streetview is a huge deal. The lack of transit integration also pretty much makes Apple's maps a non-starter for me. I'm curious to see what they do in places like Tokyo, where public transit is used for a huge majority of trips, and the transit system is complicated enough that a good routing app is very useful. The iphone is very popular in Japan, so I'd think Apple would be somewhat reluctant to just give its customers the finger like that...
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > The iphone is very popular in Japan, so I'd think Apple would be somewhat reluctant to just give its customers the finger like that... This is a potential goldmine for Android OEMs. The Japanese frequently buy new phones (more so than any other country, I believe), and if word gets out that the iPhone doesn't have public transit directions, they could easily make a lot of sales.
  - taligent 14y ago
    Then again I've heard that the Japanese have this magical invention called an "app" which someone can install on their phone to add new functionality. I've even heard that there are some ones already for say the Tokyo subway.
    - snogglethorpe 14y ago
      There are lots of third-party transit routing possibilities (although many are not so great). Nonetheless, many people will use the defaults, and having to switch apps to do something which didn't use to require it is, of course, annoying. Basically, the phone sucking by default is not a particularly good business strategy. My suspicion is that the Japanese resellers (au, SoftBank) will preinstall something better than Apple's map (maybe Google's rumored new mapping app). I've no idea how much freedom they have to do this under their contracts with Apple, though, or whether they could integrate such an app more deeply (e.g. cause it to be used as the system default mapping app).
- taligent 14y ago
  No I suspect you are the minority. Streetview is nice but hardly critical. And transit integration is important ONLY for those in the US but poorly implemented/not existent in the rest of the world. Most public transport providers I've seen have had their own dedicated apps for transit for years now.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    > And transit integration is important ONLY for those in the US but poorly implemented/not existent in the rest of the world You are wrong. Hint: I don't live in the U.S. > Most public transport providers I've seen have had their own dedicated apps for transit for years now. ... and most suck. Even those that don't suck explicitly, suck simply by requiring the user to switch apps for something that is very naturally integrated with mapping. And of course in the case of cities like Tokyo, where there are dozens of different rail operators, and a single trip often involves more than one, provider-specific apps are a decidedly poor solution.
- aikinai 14y ago
  Actually Google's transit directions are horrible in Japan, so the Japanese will probably be the least affected by this.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    > Actually Google's transit directions are horrible in Japan This is absolutely not true. Or rather, it wasn't true until about a week or two ago, when something suddenly seemed to go dreadfully wrong. My presumption is that this was a bug in a new release; we'll see.

by poutine 14y ago

snogglethorpe 14y ago

> Big thing that's missing is the street view, but not something I've used much in the past. I suspect that puts you in a tiny minority... Streetview is a huge deal. The lack of transit integration also pretty much makes Apple's maps a non-starter for me. I'm curious to see what they do in places like Tokyo, where public transit is used for a huge majority of trips, and the transit system is complicated enough that a good routing app is very useful. The iphone is very popular in Japan, so I'd think Apple would be somewhat reluctant to just give its customers the finger like that...

w1ntermute 14y ago
> The iphone is very popular in Japan, so I'd think Apple would be somewhat reluctant to just give its customers the finger like that... This is a potential goldmine for Android OEMs. The Japanese frequently buy new phones (more so than any other country, I believe), and if word gets out that the iPhone doesn't have public transit directions, they could easily make a lot of sales.
- taligent 14y ago
  Then again I've heard that the Japanese have this magical invention called an "app" which someone can install on their phone to add new functionality. I've even heard that there are some ones already for say the Tokyo subway.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    There are lots of third-party transit routing possibilities (although many are not so great). Nonetheless, many people will use the defaults, and having to switch apps to do something which didn't use to require it is, of course, annoying. Basically, the phone sucking by default is not a particularly good business strategy. My suspicion is that the Japanese resellers (au, SoftBank) will preinstall something better than Apple's map (maybe Google's rumored new mapping app). I've no idea how much freedom they have to do this under their contracts with Apple, though, or whether they could integrate such an app more deeply (e.g. cause it to be used as the system default mapping app).
taligent 14y ago
No I suspect you are the minority. Streetview is nice but hardly critical. And transit integration is important ONLY for those in the US but poorly implemented/not existent in the rest of the world. Most public transport providers I've seen have had their own dedicated apps for transit for years now.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  > And transit integration is important ONLY for those in the US but poorly implemented/not existent in the rest of the world You are wrong. Hint: I don't live in the U.S. > Most public transport providers I've seen have had their own dedicated apps for transit for years now. ... and most suck. Even those that don't suck explicitly, suck simply by requiring the user to switch apps for something that is very naturally integrated with mapping. And of course in the case of cities like Tokyo, where there are dozens of different rail operators, and a single trip often involves more than one, provider-specific apps are a decidedly poor solution.
aikinai 14y ago
Actually Google's transit directions are horrible in Japan, so the Japanese will probably be the least affected by this.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  > Actually Google's transit directions are horrible in Japan This is absolutely not true. Or rather, it wasn't true until about a week or two ago, when something suddenly seemed to go dreadfully wrong. My presumption is that this was a bug in a new release; we'll see.