4 ms·

>The people most upset seem to generally be edge cases I love it how you dismiss 99% of people and the globe as an edge case by your anecdote of it working wel

>The people most upset seem to generally be edge cases I love it how you dismiss 99% of people and the globe as an edge case by your anecdote of it working well for you. Let me take a guess, you live on the West Coast where Apple engineers live?

kmfrk 14y ago
We're only talking about a demographic of ~5B people and 63 countries, don't be so hyperbolic: http://theunderstatement.com/post/31855177665/quantifying-the-impending-ios-6-maps-backlash http://theunderstatement.com/post/31855177665/quantifying-th....
- nostromo 14y ago
  This is exactly my point about the hyperbole. As if 5 billion people are wandering alone in the wilderness today because of a new map app. To quote Steve Jobs, "Relax... it is just a phone."
- sirn 14y ago
  From the article: > The biggest losers are Brazil, India, Taiwan, and Thailand (population: 1.5 billion) which overnight will go from being countries with every maps feature (transit, traffic, and street view) to countries with none of those features, nor any of the new features either. To be fair, Apple's Maps in Bangkok is actually pretty good. We never have Street View until a few months ago (and it only covers central part of Bangkok). Google Maps transit was never really good here since it only contains data from BMTA, traffic is possibly the only thing I truly miss.
- mbesto 14y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the complaints aren't based on lack of those features, but very poor POI and mapping. How does one provide statistics on that without end users actively documenting every mishap?
mirkules 14y ago
The OP's point is that this feels a lot like Antennagate 2010, where a large number of non-Apple users latched onto the fact that there was something wrong with Apple products, and complained louder than the actual Apple users. At this point, we can call all the evidence anecdotal until we see some hard numbers on how much map data is actually incorrect, and what actual percentage of the population is affected (I'm not holding my breath for that data, though). I agree, though, that Apple rushed in prematurely with a new version of Maps -- either they screwed up big time engineering/management wise, or their hand was forced business-wise (I'm leaning towards the latter). So putting the "outrage" aside for a moment, how well do maps work on your phone, and did you notice any problems so far?
- mikeash 14y ago
  Everybody I've seen complaining is an iPhone user upset that they've lost functionality.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  To me, Google's tone at their pre-WWDC Maps event (and the effort they made to demonstrate things on iOS devices) doesn't seem consistent with the hypothesis that they decided to force Apple's hand.
  - ryanhuff 14y ago
    Its entirely plausible that Google framed the map situation one way publicly, but another with Apple in private.
    - fpgeek 14y ago
      Possible, yes. But given the way many people criticized Google's tone at the time (nervous, etc.) it doesn't seem likely to me.
- johnbellone 14y ago
  > The OP's point is that this feels a lot like Antennagate 2010, where a large number of non-Apple users latched onto the fact that there was something wrong with Apple products, and complained louder than the actual Apple users. The difference here is that there actually was something wrong with the iPhone rather than people having a preference to using Google Maps. Apple is banking on turn-by-turn keeping enough people at by until they're able to squash the shortcomings.
27182818284 14y ago
I like your comment a lot because I often feel like Silicon Valley dismisses the Midwest (sometimes even including Chicago!) as an edge case / not important and that's in the same country even.
halostatue 14y ago
My experience is the same as the GP comment—the maps are fairly decent—and I live in Toronto. Are there problems? Yes. Will they get fixed? Yes. Does Apple have to do an OS update to fix these? No. People are finding major problems because they’re looking for major problems. Apple has failed to clear the hurdle of "as good as" the old mapping data from Google, but for most people I suspect it will be "good enough."

kmfrk 14y ago

We're only talking about a demographic of ~5B people and 63 countries, don't be so hyperbolic: http://theunderstatement.com/post/31855177665/quantifying-the-impending-ios-6-maps-backlash http://theunderstatement.com/post/31855177665/quantifying-th....

nostromo 14y ago
This is exactly my point about the hyperbole. As if 5 billion people are wandering alone in the wilderness today because of a new map app. To quote Steve Jobs, "Relax... it is just a phone."
sirn 14y ago
From the article: > The biggest losers are Brazil, India, Taiwan, and Thailand (population: 1.5 billion) which overnight will go from being countries with every maps feature (transit, traffic, and street view) to countries with none of those features, nor any of the new features either. To be fair, Apple's Maps in Bangkok is actually pretty good. We never have Street View until a few months ago (and it only covers central part of Bangkok). Google Maps transit was never really good here since it only contains data from BMTA, traffic is possibly the only thing I truly miss.
mbesto 14y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the complaints aren't based on lack of those features, but very poor POI and mapping. How does one provide statistics on that without end users actively documenting every mishap?

mirkules 14y ago

The OP's point is that this feels a lot like Antennagate 2010, where a large number of non-Apple users latched onto the fact that there was something wrong with Apple products, and complained louder than the actual Apple users. At this point, we can call all the evidence anecdotal until we see some hard numbers on how much map data is actually incorrect, and what actual percentage of the population is affected (I'm not holding my breath for that data, though). I agree, though, that Apple rushed in prematurely with a new version of Maps -- either they screwed up big time engineering/management wise, or their hand was forced business-wise (I'm leaning towards the latter). So putting the "outrage" aside for a moment, how well do maps work on your phone, and did you notice any problems so far?

mikeash 14y ago
Everybody I've seen complaining is an iPhone user upset that they've lost functionality.
fpgeek 14y ago
To me, Google's tone at their pre-WWDC Maps event (and the effort they made to demonstrate things on iOS devices) doesn't seem consistent with the hypothesis that they decided to force Apple's hand.
- ryanhuff 14y ago
  Its entirely plausible that Google framed the map situation one way publicly, but another with Apple in private.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    Possible, yes. But given the way many people criticized Google's tone at the time (nervous, etc.) it doesn't seem likely to me.
johnbellone 14y ago
> The OP's point is that this feels a lot like Antennagate 2010, where a large number of non-Apple users latched onto the fact that there was something wrong with Apple products, and complained louder than the actual Apple users. The difference here is that there actually was something wrong with the iPhone rather than people having a preference to using Google Maps. Apple is banking on turn-by-turn keeping enough people at by until they're able to squash the shortcomings.

27182818284 14y ago

I like your comment a lot because I often feel like Silicon Valley dismisses the Midwest (sometimes even including Chicago!) as an edge case / not important and that's in the same country even.

halostatue 14y ago

My experience is the same as the GP comment—the maps are fairly decent—and I live in Toronto. Are there problems? Yes. Will they get fixed? Yes. Does Apple have to do an OS update to fix these? No. People are finding major problems because they’re looking for major problems. Apple has failed to clear the hurdle of "as good as" the old mapping data from Google, but for most people I suspect it will be "good enough."