7 ms·

Have iOS6 users been waiting this long to get GMaps back?? Given the blowout, why on earth didn't Apple give special approval to GMaps and push the existing ver

Have iOS6 users been waiting this long to get GMaps back?? Given the blowout, why on earth didn't Apple give special approval to GMaps and push the existing version back into the App Store?

cleverjake 14y ago
The existing version was an Apple app, that used google technology. They would have to relicense the data to use the past maps app. I'm sure they'd rather spend that money to improve the new one.
- g0atbutt 14y ago
  They actually had about a year left on their license. Source -> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57520590-501465/apple-google-maps-contract-had-one-year-left-report-claims/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57520590-501465/apple...
  - panacea 14y ago
    Having a few months up your sleeve on current licensing terms doesn't mean you could sit back and wait for the expiry date before acting.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      Really? Jeez the doublethink in this thread is strong. Why is the alternative to "keep what works until you can't", "ditch it with months on the license to push an inferior, downgraded experience"? Why couldn't they have spent that time getting data partnerships that apparently is going to solve all of their problems?
      - cleverjake 14y ago
        I would imagine they were working from a standpoint of "this is the last major launch before the license is up.". Could you imagine if the google maps app was shut down? people would go bannanas. >>Why couldn't they have spent that time getting data partnerships that apparently is going to solve all of their problems? I would imagine they have been spending years on this already. Google has just been spending nearly a decade doing the same thing. When you are both world class development companies, a several year lead is insurmountable for a very long time.
        drivebyacct2 14y ago
        So, now Apple, Godly Apple, is rushing incomplete, knowingly broken products out just to fit with their hardware release schedule? I don't have a dog in the race, but maybe I'm realizing why Scott was fired.
    - fpgeek 14y ago
      True, but releasing a beta of your potential replacement (for example), is another way of acting.
ghshephard 14y ago
The IOS6 Map is actually significantly better than the IOS5 maps (Vector, Voice Turn by Turn, Offline Access, Fast) - And, for popular urban locations in the United States - it's a significant improvement. The people who want in-situ transit directions, want Google's much superior search experience, and those who got screwed over by Apple not covering their geographic area particularly well - will be happy about this upgrade though.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Your answer doesn't preclude it, but the features you list of iOS6 Maps are standard fair in Android and I presume would be present in a Google Maps for iOS. (That's of course not to say that the iOS6 maps isn't an improvement. I think the nav UI is quite pretty.)
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "And, for popular urban locations in the United States - it's a significant improvement." Disagreed completely. Pretty much the only people who have had a net positive from iOS6 Maps are the people who drive, and thus are able to take advantage of turn-by-turn. Here in NYC iOS6 Maps is nearly completely useless. Searching for locations by address frequently takes you hundreds of miles away - "24 Orchard" takes you to another state, for example, even if you are standing less than half a mile from the address. Searching for places by name has a worse than 50/50 chance of finding it, and frequently completely unrelated results come up instead. Even when Apple can get the addresses of places correct, it frequently has trouble getting them in the correct locations - I've seen many instances of correct addresses dropping the pin in wrong locations - usually a block or two away. The disaster of iOS6 Maps goes well beyond the loss of transit directions - the data and search components are atrocious. The problem with bad mapping is that it has a thresholding effect. The utility of your mapping service does not scale linearly with the quality of your data - once your data is wrong above a certain threshold of all usage, people stop trusting your maps entirely. I do not trust iOS6 Maps because I have no way of knowing if it got anything right, and its failure rate is high enough that I have to second guess everything it tells me. Which is to say, it has become useless. iOS6 Maps is a disaster for major urban locations in the United States. I for one am waiting for the Google Maps app to drop like a kid on Christmas eve.
pooriaazimi 14y ago
It wasn't an approval problem. I bet Apple would include Google maps in a heartbeat if it was free (and ad-free), but they had to pay for the privilege of having Google Maps. The old app was Apple's maps app, that just happened to use Google APIs. And of course, to use Google maps data without letting Google show any ads, you have to pay Google. And if you have 400M iDevices, the number you have to pay Google is probably in order of >$50-100M per year (or something like that - I have no idea; just wanted to say that it's a lot). And even after paying that much money, Apple still didn't have turn-by-turn navigation or vector maps (the rumor is that Google wanted more user data and Apple refused). So, Apple decided that instead of giving Google $500M in the next few years, to spend that money on developing their own mapping technology and be masters of their own destiny. Sadly, the result is laughably worse than Google's data, and probably will be comparable to Google's 2011 sometime in 2014.
- taligent 14y ago
  > Sadly, the result is laughably worse than Google's data, and probably will be comparable to Google's 2011 sometime in 2014. It will improve sooner than that. Apple has been rapidly making deals with data providers in each country. They never had those in place at launch which was why it was so bad.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    As someone who likes Apple and its platform(s) and has invested heavily in them, I'd like to believe that, but something tells me it won't. I'm quoting John Siracusa, because I think what he said makes a lot of sense: Google does brute force (i.e., driving cars all over the world and having thousands of real people auditing the maps data), but Apple wants to get its data using "clever" algorithms. Clever algorithms is what caused [1], and countless other issues. What I said above is debatable, but the next statement is (I think) absolutely non-negotiable: Until we see Apple Maps (or one of its partners') cars driving around the world (the whole world, mind you - not just US and EU), its data will be demonstrably worse than Google's. It might be good and usable, but still will be worse than Google's :) [1]: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/11/apple-fixes-australian-map-error-that-caused-police-warning-issue-traced-to-official-gazetteer/ http://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/11/apple-fixes-australian-m...
taligent 14y ago
The only people complaining about Google Maps seem to be non-iOS users. Because the mobile version has been available and was about 80% as good as the app. Which really showed just how lacking the original maps was.
- woebtz 14y ago
  The actual "complaining" may be attributed to a few people (non-iOS or not), but from its reliability alone, Apple's iOS6 Maps is certainly not my first choice when I need directions to a new location that I have little familiarity with. An early usage of iOS6 Maps led me to the wrong address (a confusion of North/South streets) and it's not like I live in a particularly exotic region (South Bay/Los Angeles). I'll give it another chance when iOS7 Maps is out.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Really? I know to expect this from you, but you're really going to make this absolute statement: "The only people complaining about Google Maps seem to be non-iOS users." and stand by it? Besides, somehow I have no doubt that you're a fan of native apps and would happily espouse how important they are.
  - taligent 14y ago
    It's not an absolute statement. I said SEEM to be. Because the fact is that the mobile site IS about 80% as good as the native app. Especially given the native app has poor caching and no offline capability.
- whatusername 14y ago
  And the Mildura Police force. Honestly -- the directions are fine. Turn by Turn seems useful (only had it a short while in AU). The key issue for me is crappy information display. Most of the time -- major roads aren't shown while zoomed out. So If I want to glance at the maps to try an alternate route -- I can't.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I use my 3rd gen ipad all the time, in the bay area, and the Apple maps suck. Sorry but they do. My wife's iPad, being Gen 1, has been spared being upgraded to IOS6 and so we look up map things on hers. On numerous occasions we've compared what the 'old' Maps app brought up and what the 'current' Map app brought up and merely shook our head. I am surprised that Google would even consider putting their maps back on iOS at this point given the publicity but they have never been a very scrutable organization.
cracell 14y ago
Personally I'm still on iOS5, I've been waiting for this to upgrade to iOS6.
- munger 14y ago
  Yep, me too. I have an iphone 4/iOS5 and have also delayed upgrading to iOS6 due to the bad press and my need of transit directions. I have a car too, but I frequently ride the bus to the airport for longer trips. And I still might wait for some google maps app reviews before I upgrade...
cbs 14y ago
Have iOS6 users been waiting this long to get GMaps back?? Yes. Very much so. I was frustrated with the app for a few weeks, then one day driving back from out of state I ran into a closed section of interstate. After half an hour of fighting the app in a convenience store parking lot, I gave up and went inside to buy a road atlas. I could really rely on google maps to give me good directions and actually show me all the roads sensibly. With my android phone, when I needed to deviate from the calculated route I'd just let my sense of direction lead me around for 15 minutes then look back at my phone, thats how much I trusted it.
- matwood 14y ago
  Does maps.google.com not work on iOS 6?
notatoad 14y ago
No, iOS6 users who want google maps have been using the google maps website. It actually works incredibly well.

Have iOS6 users been waiting this long to get GMaps back?? Given the blowout, why on earth didn't Apple give special approval to GMaps and push the existing version back into the App Store?

cleverjake 14y ago

The existing version was an Apple app, that used google technology. They would have to relicense the data to use the past maps app. I'm sure they'd rather spend that money to improve the new one.

g0atbutt 14y ago
They actually had about a year left on their license. Source -> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57520590-501465/apple-google-maps-contract-had-one-year-left-report-claims/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57520590-501465/apple...
- panacea 14y ago
  Having a few months up your sleeve on current licensing terms doesn't mean you could sit back and wait for the expiry date before acting.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    Really? Jeez the doublethink in this thread is strong. Why is the alternative to "keep what works until you can't", "ditch it with months on the license to push an inferior, downgraded experience"? Why couldn't they have spent that time getting data partnerships that apparently is going to solve all of their problems?
    - cleverjake 14y ago
      I would imagine they were working from a standpoint of "this is the last major launch before the license is up.". Could you imagine if the google maps app was shut down? people would go bannanas. >>Why couldn't they have spent that time getting data partnerships that apparently is going to solve all of their problems? I would imagine they have been spending years on this already. Google has just been spending nearly a decade doing the same thing. When you are both world class development companies, a several year lead is insurmountable for a very long time.
      - drivebyacct2 14y ago
        So, now Apple, Godly Apple, is rushing incomplete, knowingly broken products out just to fit with their hardware release schedule? I don't have a dog in the race, but maybe I'm realizing why Scott was fired.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    True, but releasing a beta of your potential replacement (for example), is another way of acting.

ghshephard 14y ago

The IOS6 Map is actually significantly better than the IOS5 maps (Vector, Voice Turn by Turn, Offline Access, Fast) - And, for popular urban locations in the United States - it's a significant improvement. The people who want in-situ transit directions, want Google's much superior search experience, and those who got screwed over by Apple not covering their geographic area particularly well - will be happy about this upgrade though.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
Your answer doesn't preclude it, but the features you list of iOS6 Maps are standard fair in Android and I presume would be present in a Google Maps for iOS. (That's of course not to say that the iOS6 maps isn't an improvement. I think the nav UI is quite pretty.)
potatolicious 14y ago
> "And, for popular urban locations in the United States - it's a significant improvement." Disagreed completely. Pretty much the only people who have had a net positive from iOS6 Maps are the people who drive, and thus are able to take advantage of turn-by-turn. Here in NYC iOS6 Maps is nearly completely useless. Searching for locations by address frequently takes you hundreds of miles away - "24 Orchard" takes you to another state, for example, even if you are standing less than half a mile from the address. Searching for places by name has a worse than 50/50 chance of finding it, and frequently completely unrelated results come up instead. Even when Apple can get the addresses of places correct, it frequently has trouble getting them in the correct locations - I've seen many instances of correct addresses dropping the pin in wrong locations - usually a block or two away. The disaster of iOS6 Maps goes well beyond the loss of transit directions - the data and search components are atrocious. The problem with bad mapping is that it has a thresholding effect. The utility of your mapping service does not scale linearly with the quality of your data - once your data is wrong above a certain threshold of all usage, people stop trusting your maps entirely. I do not trust iOS6 Maps because I have no way of knowing if it got anything right, and its failure rate is high enough that I have to second guess everything it tells me. Which is to say, it has become useless. iOS6 Maps is a disaster for major urban locations in the United States. I for one am waiting for the Google Maps app to drop like a kid on Christmas eve.

pooriaazimi 14y ago

It wasn't an approval problem. I bet Apple would include Google maps in a heartbeat if it was free (and ad-free), but they had to pay for the privilege of having Google Maps. The old app was Apple's maps app, that just happened to use Google APIs. And of course, to use Google maps data without letting Google show any ads, you have to pay Google. And if you have 400M iDevices, the number you have to pay Google is probably in order of >$50-100M per year (or something like that - I have no idea; just wanted to say that it's a lot). And even after paying that much money, Apple still didn't have turn-by-turn navigation or vector maps (the rumor is that Google wanted more user data and Apple refused). So, Apple decided that instead of giving Google $500M in the next few years, to spend that money on developing their own mapping technology and be masters of their own destiny. Sadly, the result is laughably worse than Google's data, and probably will be comparable to Google's 2011 sometime in 2014.

taligent 14y ago
> Sadly, the result is laughably worse than Google's data, and probably will be comparable to Google's 2011 sometime in 2014. It will improve sooner than that. Apple has been rapidly making deals with data providers in each country. They never had those in place at launch which was why it was so bad.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  As someone who likes Apple and its platform(s) and has invested heavily in them, I'd like to believe that, but something tells me it won't. I'm quoting John Siracusa, because I think what he said makes a lot of sense: Google does brute force (i.e., driving cars all over the world and having thousands of real people auditing the maps data), but Apple wants to get its data using "clever" algorithms. Clever algorithms is what caused [1], and countless other issues. What I said above is debatable, but the next statement is (I think) absolutely non-negotiable: Until we see Apple Maps (or one of its partners') cars driving around the world (the whole world, mind you - not just US and EU), its data will be demonstrably worse than Google's. It might be good and usable, but still will be worse than Google's :) [1]: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/11/apple-fixes-australian-map-error-that-caused-police-warning-issue-traced-to-official-gazetteer/ http://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/11/apple-fixes-australian-m...

taligent 14y ago

The only people complaining about Google Maps seem to be non-iOS users. Because the mobile version has been available and was about 80% as good as the app. Which really showed just how lacking the original maps was.

woebtz 14y ago
The actual "complaining" may be attributed to a few people (non-iOS or not), but from its reliability alone, Apple's iOS6 Maps is certainly not my first choice when I need directions to a new location that I have little familiarity with. An early usage of iOS6 Maps led me to the wrong address (a confusion of North/South streets) and it's not like I live in a particularly exotic region (South Bay/Los Angeles). I'll give it another chance when iOS7 Maps is out.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Really? I know to expect this from you, but you're really going to make this absolute statement: "The only people complaining about Google Maps seem to be non-iOS users." and stand by it? Besides, somehow I have no doubt that you're a fan of native apps and would happily espouse how important they are.
- taligent 14y ago
  It's not an absolute statement. I said SEEM to be. Because the fact is that the mobile site IS about 80% as good as the native app. Especially given the native app has poor caching and no offline capability.
whatusername 14y ago
And the Mildura Police force. Honestly -- the directions are fine. Turn by Turn seems useful (only had it a short while in AU). The key issue for me is crappy information display. Most of the time -- major roads aren't shown while zoomed out. So If I want to glance at the maps to try an alternate route -- I can't.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I use my 3rd gen ipad all the time, in the bay area, and the Apple maps suck. Sorry but they do. My wife's iPad, being Gen 1, has been spared being upgraded to IOS6 and so we look up map things on hers. On numerous occasions we've compared what the 'old' Maps app brought up and what the 'current' Map app brought up and merely shook our head. I am surprised that Google would even consider putting their maps back on iOS at this point given the publicity but they have never been a very scrutable organization.

cracell 14y ago

Personally I'm still on iOS5, I've been waiting for this to upgrade to iOS6.

munger 14y ago
Yep, me too. I have an iphone 4/iOS5 and have also delayed upgrading to iOS6 due to the bad press and my need of transit directions. I have a car too, but I frequently ride the bus to the airport for longer trips. And I still might wait for some google maps app reviews before I upgrade...

cbs 14y ago

Have iOS6 users been waiting this long to get GMaps back?? Yes. Very much so. I was frustrated with the app for a few weeks, then one day driving back from out of state I ran into a closed section of interstate. After half an hour of fighting the app in a convenience store parking lot, I gave up and went inside to buy a road atlas. I could really rely on google maps to give me good directions and actually show me all the roads sensibly. With my android phone, when I needed to deviate from the calculated route I'd just let my sense of direction lead me around for 15 minutes then look back at my phone, thats how much I trusted it.

matwood 14y ago
Does maps.google.com not work on iOS 6?

notatoad 14y ago

No, iOS6 users who want google maps have been using the google maps website. It actually works incredibly well.