6 ms·

No, you're wrong. It's not with the data. It's with Apple's ability to search. Like I said below, look up "Pier 39 San Francisco". This is a dead simple que

by kjackson2012 14y ago

No, you're wrong. It's not with the data. It's with Apple's ability to search. Like I said below, look up "Pier 39 San Francisco". This is a dead simple query, extremely specific, and they point you to a really bad area of SF. This isn't Tom Tom data, it's how Apple resolves this query to something useful. Search is Google's domain expertise. Apple needs to basically start from scratch and figure out how to create a search engine that will return relevant data based on queries. It's the same thing with Apple's App store search, it's also terrible. But because we have no choice, we are forced to use it, and hopefully it will improve. But because Google's is so nearly perfect and getting better all the time, why would someone go ahead and use Apple's terrible search engine to help them improve their search?

sharth 14y ago
Apple Maps also doesn't handle small spelling mistakes (transposed letters) well. That's been one of the most annoying things.
- sudont 14y ago
  Having played with a toy geolocation feature detector for text, I can safely say it's extremely hard to do well. My first attempt is inspired by Peter Norvig's spelling corrector using a corpus built from the places2k.txt file, but it gets confused when the words are transposed. My guess is that Google is using some sort of n-gram based approach for maps and search, where as their little sidebar map is similar to what I built. (Or only applied to the most clear-cut n-gram—a little while ago there was a search for the movie "The end of the world" that would return a definitive date, which went slightly viral.) Try searching in Google for "San Francisco" versus "Francisco San." Maps is fine, the search is fine, but only the first version brings up the little related info sidebar on the search page. I'm surprised that Apple had such a hard time dealing with search, since they have some experience with Siri. I should have trusted this guy's opinion more: http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2011/10/siri-technology.html http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2011/10/siri-techn...
  - bad_user 14y ago
    > Try searching in Google for "San Francisco" versus "Francisco San." On the other hand, that's not a mistake you can make, because "San Francisco" in the minds of people really is "Sanfrancisco", a single word. Why would anybody spell "San Francisco" as "Francisco San"? In fact Google should differentiate heavily between these 2 terms, as they aren't similar at all. Google also does a lot of other neat things, like translations for city names. Searching on google.com for "Bucuresti" (my town) brings up the sidebar for "Bucharest". And on GMaps, I'm never afraid of using "str", "strada", "soseaua", "sos" which are different Romanian words and abbreviations for "street". The results aren't the same in these cases (nor they should be actually) but because Google also searches within the addresses of businesses it's usually able to give me an accurate answer to what I mean.
    - jdeibele 14y ago
      That's true about San Francisco versus Francisco San but I wonder how well Apple Maps does with "4485 Belmont Portland" versus "Portland 4485 Belmont" and the like. It gets more complicated when you realize "oh, yeah I need to add 'NE' because it's in the Northeast part of the city". So now it's "Portland 4485 Belmont NE". If you were to think about it before you started typing, it'd be "4485 NE Belmont Portland" but correcting on a phone is so painful that you want to just keep typing. I'm using a Galaxy Nexus and have been very happy with the standard Maps app. Last weekend the family was walking on trails and it got us back to the trailhead using walking directions. Neat. I've been less than thrilled with how poorly the phone seems to do with finding and keeping a GPS signal, particularly in a car on the freeway in areas I don't know.
      - clauretano 14y ago
        Ah, Portland is lucky. Here in Seattle, we have roads that are 1235 NE 40th St (for E-W streets) as well as 12345 University Way NE (for N-S avenues). The latter, as you would suspect, totally breaks Apple Maps. That is on top of the issue of searching for something like "1st and University", which takes me to some L'ecole in Paris, France rather than the intersection that is a block from me. It's as if they don't factor in your current location at all. I know on the desktop I frequently look at maps of faraway places, but I'd suspect that people tend to look for things near them while on mobile devices.
- jonknee 14y ago
  Apple Maps doesn't know what you mean when everything is spelled perfectly, they have a lot to do before worrying about typos.
brianpan 14y ago
Surely you agree that your example is a non-standard address. The things are more important to get right: postal addresses, searches for company names, airports, schools, searches for intersections. Of course you want to get the other things right like, parks (what's the pinpoint location of a park?) and things like pier 39. But those errors don't make Apple Maps a non-starter. I've been using it in the Bay Area with 99% success. This isn't a pass for Apple Maps- the last 1% is the most difficult and it's the difference between so-so and great. Apple has in the past been known to make things with the ultimate attention to detail and things that "just work" so if anything you could argue that they shouldn't have launched something that was below this bar, but apparently there were other business considerations. BTW: From the Pier 39 website, "If you are using a GPS Navigation System, input: 2 Beach Street, San Francisco, CA 94133" http://www.pier39.com/Information/index.htm http://www.pier39.com/Information/index.htm
- HelloMcFly 14y ago
  If you need the user to visit the website of their intended destination to figure out how to search for it then you need to hit the drawing board.
  - brianpan 14y ago
    Well, that's the point I'm trying to make. It's not a hit the drawing board problem, it's a refine the algorithm problem. How many "if you google this string, you can't find the right site" problems have there been in the life of Google search? They continue to refine pageranking don't they?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- leephillips 14y ago
  'Apple has in the past been known to make things with the ultimate attention to detail and things that "just work"' I don't know why people continue to believe this. Apple has released versions of the Finder with amateurish bugs that delete files[1] and versions of Mail that randomly delete messages[2]. Several versions of Mail on iPhone send hundreds of copies of a message when emailing a link from Safari[3]. The Maps fiasco is not a departure from software excellence on the part of Apple, but just more of what we should expect by now: shiny stuff that doesn't work. [1]http://tomkarpik.com/articles/massive-data-loss-bug-in-leopard/ http://tomkarpik.com/articles/massive-data-loss-bug-in-leopa... [2]http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12758081&tstart=0 http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12758081&... [3]http://lee-phillips.org/iphoneUpgradeWarning-4-2-1/ http://lee-phillips.org/iphoneUpgradeWarning-4-2-1/
wjamesg 14y ago
Is there any particular reason for the dickish tone? Are we in grade school?
vvhn 14y ago
funnily enough when typed pier 39, the first auto suggestion was "pier 39" ( the right one) - the second one was "pier 39 san francisco" which i what i thought was the correct one and tapped on , but turned out to a restaurant named 39 pier.
BryantD 14y ago
"why would someone go ahead and use Apple's terrible search engine to help them improve their search?" Because at the end of the day I want to make choices that result in more flexibility down the line. I do not want to live in a world where Apple is the only OS provider for mobile devices. Likewise, I don't want to live in a world in which Google is the only reasonable choice for map searches.
- tolmasky 14y ago
  So is your strategy to always use the worse of two services to ensure competition for the future?
  - chucknelson 14y ago
    This. Arguing to use an inferior product so that better products don't succeed "too much" isn't how things work. Markets work this stuff out, you don't necessarily have to balance market share and consequences in your head (not that you as an individual really matter that much in the end anyway!). Just enjoy the products you like.
  - BryantD 14y ago
    Nope. Apple Maps isn't particularly worse for me. The directions have been fine, and I like turn-by-turn. I miss transit directions quite a bit. I thought about what I was missing and I thought about how dominant Google is in search, and I decided the tradeoff was worth it for me. I wouldn't make fun of someone for making the other choice either.
hmahncke 14y ago
That Pier 39 San Francisco search is an Australia-desert-type disaster waiting to happen to tourists.
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  Speaking of tourist disasters in SF; when I was there back in May, there were a few blocks somewhere around (IIRC) Post/Van Ness where the GPS in my Galaxy Nexus would actually pick up a mile or so off from where I actually was. Realized what was happening right away and still know how to read maps[0]; but could easily be a problem for anyone who isn't paying attention to everything. [0] Semi-related: whoever decided to stamp street names into SF sidewalks: thank you.
stordoff 14y ago
> No, you're wrong. It's not with the data. It seems to be both. I tried two locations in the Apple store, and the data for both was incorrect: * One gave a location about 10-15 miles away (with a pop-up showing details of the correct venue). I checked the correct location, and nothing was marked on the map. (Image: http://i.imgur.com/FHVax.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FHVax.jpg - the proper location is just above the 'd' in Cambridge) * One was found correctly, but the listed information (phone, website etc.) was mostly incorrect. * Satellite images are of a much lower resolution than Google Maps in some areas (e.g. my house!)

sharth 14y ago

Apple Maps also doesn't handle small spelling mistakes (transposed letters) well. That's been one of the most annoying things.

sudont 14y ago
Having played with a toy geolocation feature detector for text, I can safely say it's extremely hard to do well. My first attempt is inspired by Peter Norvig's spelling corrector using a corpus built from the places2k.txt file, but it gets confused when the words are transposed. My guess is that Google is using some sort of n-gram based approach for maps and search, where as their little sidebar map is similar to what I built. (Or only applied to the most clear-cut n-gram—a little while ago there was a search for the movie "The end of the world" that would return a definitive date, which went slightly viral.) Try searching in Google for "San Francisco" versus "Francisco San." Maps is fine, the search is fine, but only the first version brings up the little related info sidebar on the search page. I'm surprised that Apple had such a hard time dealing with search, since they have some experience with Siri. I should have trusted this guy's opinion more: http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2011/10/siri-technology.html http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2011/10/siri-techn...
- bad_user 14y ago
  > Try searching in Google for "San Francisco" versus "Francisco San." On the other hand, that's not a mistake you can make, because "San Francisco" in the minds of people really is "Sanfrancisco", a single word. Why would anybody spell "San Francisco" as "Francisco San"? In fact Google should differentiate heavily between these 2 terms, as they aren't similar at all. Google also does a lot of other neat things, like translations for city names. Searching on google.com for "Bucuresti" (my town) brings up the sidebar for "Bucharest". And on GMaps, I'm never afraid of using "str", "strada", "soseaua", "sos" which are different Romanian words and abbreviations for "street". The results aren't the same in these cases (nor they should be actually) but because Google also searches within the addresses of businesses it's usually able to give me an accurate answer to what I mean.
  - jdeibele 14y ago
    That's true about San Francisco versus Francisco San but I wonder how well Apple Maps does with "4485 Belmont Portland" versus "Portland 4485 Belmont" and the like. It gets more complicated when you realize "oh, yeah I need to add 'NE' because it's in the Northeast part of the city". So now it's "Portland 4485 Belmont NE". If you were to think about it before you started typing, it'd be "4485 NE Belmont Portland" but correcting on a phone is so painful that you want to just keep typing. I'm using a Galaxy Nexus and have been very happy with the standard Maps app. Last weekend the family was walking on trails and it got us back to the trailhead using walking directions. Neat. I've been less than thrilled with how poorly the phone seems to do with finding and keeping a GPS signal, particularly in a car on the freeway in areas I don't know.
    - clauretano 14y ago
      Ah, Portland is lucky. Here in Seattle, we have roads that are 1235 NE 40th St (for E-W streets) as well as 12345 University Way NE (for N-S avenues). The latter, as you would suspect, totally breaks Apple Maps. That is on top of the issue of searching for something like "1st and University", which takes me to some L'ecole in Paris, France rather than the intersection that is a block from me. It's as if they don't factor in your current location at all. I know on the desktop I frequently look at maps of faraway places, but I'd suspect that people tend to look for things near them while on mobile devices.
jonknee 14y ago
Apple Maps doesn't know what you mean when everything is spelled perfectly, they have a lot to do before worrying about typos.

brianpan 14y ago

Surely you agree that your example is a non-standard address. The things are more important to get right: postal addresses, searches for company names, airports, schools, searches for intersections. Of course you want to get the other things right like, parks (what's the pinpoint location of a park?) and things like pier 39. But those errors don't make Apple Maps a non-starter. I've been using it in the Bay Area with 99% success. This isn't a pass for Apple Maps- the last 1% is the most difficult and it's the difference between so-so and great. Apple has in the past been known to make things with the ultimate attention to detail and things that "just work" so if anything you could argue that they shouldn't have launched something that was below this bar, but apparently there were other business considerations. BTW: From the Pier 39 website, "If you are using a GPS Navigation System, input: 2 Beach Street, San Francisco, CA 94133" http://www.pier39.com/Information/index.htm http://www.pier39.com/Information/index.htm

HelloMcFly 14y ago
If you need the user to visit the website of their intended destination to figure out how to search for it then you need to hit the drawing board.
- brianpan 14y ago
  Well, that's the point I'm trying to make. It's not a hit the drawing board problem, it's a refine the algorithm problem. How many "if you google this string, you can't find the right site" problems have there been in the life of Google search? They continue to refine pageranking don't they?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
leephillips 14y ago
'Apple has in the past been known to make things with the ultimate attention to detail and things that "just work"' I don't know why people continue to believe this. Apple has released versions of the Finder with amateurish bugs that delete files[1] and versions of Mail that randomly delete messages[2]. Several versions of Mail on iPhone send hundreds of copies of a message when emailing a link from Safari[3]. The Maps fiasco is not a departure from software excellence on the part of Apple, but just more of what we should expect by now: shiny stuff that doesn't work. [1]http://tomkarpik.com/articles/massive-data-loss-bug-in-leopard/ http://tomkarpik.com/articles/massive-data-loss-bug-in-leopa... [2]http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12758081&tstart=0 http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12758081&... [3]http://lee-phillips.org/iphoneUpgradeWarning-4-2-1/ http://lee-phillips.org/iphoneUpgradeWarning-4-2-1/

wjamesg 14y ago

Is there any particular reason for the dickish tone? Are we in grade school?

vvhn 14y ago

funnily enough when typed pier 39, the first auto suggestion was "pier 39" ( the right one) - the second one was "pier 39 san francisco" which i what i thought was the correct one and tapped on , but turned out to a restaurant named 39 pier.

BryantD 14y ago

"why would someone go ahead and use Apple's terrible search engine to help them improve their search?" Because at the end of the day I want to make choices that result in more flexibility down the line. I do not want to live in a world where Apple is the only OS provider for mobile devices. Likewise, I don't want to live in a world in which Google is the only reasonable choice for map searches.

tolmasky 14y ago
So is your strategy to always use the worse of two services to ensure competition for the future?
- chucknelson 14y ago
  This. Arguing to use an inferior product so that better products don't succeed "too much" isn't how things work. Markets work this stuff out, you don't necessarily have to balance market share and consequences in your head (not that you as an individual really matter that much in the end anyway!). Just enjoy the products you like.
- BryantD 14y ago
  Nope. Apple Maps isn't particularly worse for me. The directions have been fine, and I like turn-by-turn. I miss transit directions quite a bit. I thought about what I was missing and I thought about how dominant Google is in search, and I decided the tradeoff was worth it for me. I wouldn't make fun of someone for making the other choice either.

hmahncke 14y ago

That Pier 39 San Francisco search is an Australia-desert-type disaster waiting to happen to tourists.

ConstantineXVI 14y ago
Speaking of tourist disasters in SF; when I was there back in May, there were a few blocks somewhere around (IIRC) Post/Van Ness where the GPS in my Galaxy Nexus would actually pick up a mile or so off from where I actually was. Realized what was happening right away and still know how to read maps[0]; but could easily be a problem for anyone who isn't paying attention to everything. [0] Semi-related: whoever decided to stamp street names into SF sidewalks: thank you.

stordoff 14y ago

> No, you're wrong. It's not with the data. It seems to be both. I tried two locations in the Apple store, and the data for both was incorrect: * One gave a location about 10-15 miles away (with a pop-up showing details of the correct venue). I checked the correct location, and nothing was marked on the map. (Image: http://i.imgur.com/FHVax.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FHVax.jpg - the proper location is just above the 'd' in Cambridge) * One was found correctly, but the listed information (phone, website etc.) was mostly incorrect. * Satellite images are of a much lower resolution than Google Maps in some areas (e.g. my house!)