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Apple Maps Connect

100 points by Aqua_Geek 12y ago

TranquilMarmot 12y ago
What is it? I don't have an Apple ID and have no interest in creating one.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jastanton 12y ago
  There are 2 links after you sign in. 1) A link that will let you add your business to Apple Maps. "Your updates will be used to improve Apple Maps for our users and partners." 2) A link for a signup called "Indoor". The copy for that page is: Thank you for your interest in Apple's new indoor positioning technology. We have received an overwhelming response on this service and we are prioritizing our efforts to focus on venues with the following attributes: * Accessible to the general public * Annual visitors in excess of 1 million per year * Availability of complete, accurate, and scaled reference maps * Enabled with Wi-Fi throughout * Associated app is authorized by venue owner
- gabrielhn 12y ago
  Screenshots here: http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self-service-local-listings-portal-206349 http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self...
denzil_correa 12y ago
Basically, it is intended for business to add themselves on Apple Maps aka crowd sourcing. There is also an indoor positioning for businesses that qualify certain criteria. SearchEngineLand has some screenshots of the process to add your business on Apple Maps. http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self-service-local-listings-portal-206349 http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self...
jonnynezbo 12y ago
This is half-baked. I started the process to add a business, and halfway through I accidentally clicked off of the 'Add Business' popup. It lost all of my info (I thought), so I started over with the 'Add Business' wizard. Once I submitted for approval, I could then see the old entry that I started. But, you can't even delete businesses yet - so now there is a half-filled-out business just sitting there.
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  This is a necessary facility but I can't see how it will solve Apple's quality problems. Just spot-checking my personal pet peeve, they're still showing a hotel in the middle of Oakland that was torn down several years ago, even though their aerial image, which is also very outdated, shows the site as a vacant lot. Nobody has incentive to remove their defunct business from Apple's maps using this tool. Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public or their own internal quality people prowling around.
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    Or even, now that I think about, just some kind of internal cross-checking tool that would fix up problems like this. If they've got a 3-d box model of the alleged thing, and they've got imagery, and there's no way to reconcile the image with the model, someone should look into that.
  - cmelbye 12y ago
    I have to imagine the smart folks at Apple are aware that businesses close and that they need a way to keep track of that. It's obviously not this particular tool, but there is surely someone working on that problem within Apple.
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public Doesn't this already exist? There's a pretty big option after selecting any venue in Apple's Maps app that allows users to report it closed, update the data, that sort of thing. I reported loads of these in my local area shortly after it was release, and they certainly appear to have been updated.
SG- 12y ago
Seems to be US only for adding addresses.
- nanoman 12y ago
  That's correct - I have just tried to add my german small business. No chance. Why would they limit it to the US? Google's doing the exact same thing without restrictions. For a while I hoped Apple would let go of their US-centric thinking, but it seems I was wrong. Edit: I just remembered that with Google Maps, they sent me a postal letter with a code to confirm the address. Maybe they haven't set that up yet, but my point still stands. Can anyone confirm if the confirmation process involves a postal letter?
borland 12y ago
BEWARE. When I try log in it says my apple account has been locked out for security reasons. I went and reset the password and successfully logged into a bunch of other apple stuff, but when I tried to log into maps connect it said I was locked out again.
- jayrhynas 12y ago
  I was able to log in with no issues. YMMV
- vitd 12y ago
  This usually happens if some other user who has a similar name accidentally enters your address but their own password 3 or more times. If your username is also borland there, it wouldn't surprise me if someone else has something similar.
SAS24 12y ago
I would bet that this is directly related to Apple's 2013 acquisition Locationary -http://allthingsd.com/20130719/apple-acquires-local-data-outfit-locationary http://allthingsd.com/20130719/apple-acquires-local-data-out... This is exactly what Dan and Grant built Locationary for, to crowdsource and manage (validation, collisions, conflicts) massive location based datasets. Locationary's Saturn platform was worldwide, with hundreds of thousands of locations outside the US, so I'm guessing its only a matter of time before Apple opens it up.
koenigdavidmj 12y ago
Still not going to be interested in Apple Maps until they start to update their data. Mercer St in Seattle is one of the main east-west routes between the highway and surface streets, and they still haven't figured out that it is a two-way street (which happened close to a year ago), and that most of Broad St no longer exists. This makes it useless for quite a lot of people here: basically anyone in the Belltown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia neighborhoods.
- bmnick 12y ago
  Report a problem - they take them quite seriously in my experience.
  - scoofy 12y ago
    His point is that he shouldn't have to report it. It's a major city. If they are going to make a product that competes at the highest level, they ought to have something in place that looks for, while rare, street changes in major cities.
    - jamesaguilar 12y ago
      It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Calculate the percentage of traffic that uses a street in each direction. If more than 10% of it is going in the opposite direction on a one-way street, flag that street for human review.
  - silencio 12y ago
    In my experience, data issues aren't taken seriously at all, before you want to talk about where the responsibility of having accurate data lies. It took 3-4 months to maybe fix an issue I repeatedly reported about Maps thinking that a location was in the middle of a highway. Yesterday I checked that the suggested route was correct but Maps decided to reroute to the "shortcut" when I was nearing the destination. Depending on how you enter the destination (direct address vs search bar result) it's iffy. The address is a 6 month old hospital and ER. The first time I routed there to go to the ER my eyes almost popped out of my head at the suggestion of a 2-3 mile detour by getting back on the freeway. Later on I looked at Yelp and saw a reviewer talking about how they took that detour by accident on their way to the ER too. I hope this stupidity didn't end up hurting anyone seriously.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I didn't like the part where it asked me to move the pin to the location but didn't have map tiles for the location!
chrisabrams 12y ago
How come this doesn't work on an iPhone?
- mwfunk 12y ago
  If the main purpose of this system is to allow small business owners to register their businesses, I just can't imagine that it would be worth anyone's time to either make an app for it or make a mobile web UI. It's something that some people use once and most people use never.
fernly 12y ago
Bizarre design. Pretty tourist pics and an Apple sign-in. Which Lastpass fills in anyway, so heck, I sign in. And then I am looking at "frosted glass" rectangle (Yosemite desktop effect I assume) that covers the pretty pics and asks if I have a small business. No, I do not. But there is no way to say that. Nothing to explain what this page would do for me if I did, and nothing to tell me what use it is (or isn't) since I don't. No back-story at all. Why did I sign in?
- Kaihuang724 12y ago
  That was exactly my thought process. After getting to the small business section -> close tab.
- eridius 12y ago
  You signed in because this was posted on Hacker News. Apple didn't market this page to you. You're obviously not their target audience.
rubyn00bie 12y ago
I'm sort of at a loss why this is being upvoted-- am I missing something? I feel like other people are excited about this but I can't for the life of me see why... This is something that every mapping product should have, no? Really not trying to troll just trying to figure out what I missed...
- pix64 12y ago
  Apple
- jvm 12y ago
  It's being upvoted because it's relevant for people in the tech industry to be aware of it, not because it's surprising or technically superior to alternatives.
Polarity 12y ago
next up: Apple Search (spotlight for the browser)
Walkman 12y ago
1. Request limit exceeded. You have exceeded your page request limit. Please try again later. 2. What is your business address? United States (with no input option, static text)
philfreo 12y ago
Built using Bootstrap and Angular
wtbob 12y ago
Whatever this is doesn't work in Firefox on Android.

Apple Maps Connect

100 points by Aqua_Geek 12y ago

TranquilMarmot 12y ago

What is it? I don't have an Apple ID and have no interest in creating one.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jastanton 12y ago
There are 2 links after you sign in. 1) A link that will let you add your business to Apple Maps. "Your updates will be used to improve Apple Maps for our users and partners." 2) A link for a signup called "Indoor". The copy for that page is: Thank you for your interest in Apple's new indoor positioning technology. We have received an overwhelming response on this service and we are prioritizing our efforts to focus on venues with the following attributes: * Accessible to the general public * Annual visitors in excess of 1 million per year * Availability of complete, accurate, and scaled reference maps * Enabled with Wi-Fi throughout * Associated app is authorized by venue owner
gabrielhn 12y ago
Screenshots here: http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self-service-local-listings-portal-206349 http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self...

denzil_correa 12y ago

Basically, it is intended for business to add themselves on Apple Maps aka crowd sourcing. There is also an indoor positioning for businesses that qualify certain criteria. SearchEngineLand has some screenshots of the process to add your business on Apple Maps. http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self-service-local-listings-portal-206349 http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self...

jonnynezbo 12y ago

This is half-baked. I started the process to add a business, and halfway through I accidentally clicked off of the 'Add Business' popup. It lost all of my info (I thought), so I started over with the 'Add Business' wizard. Once I submitted for approval, I could then see the old entry that I started. But, you can't even delete businesses yet - so now there is a half-filled-out business just sitting there.

thrownaway2424 12y ago
This is a necessary facility but I can't see how it will solve Apple's quality problems. Just spot-checking my personal pet peeve, they're still showing a hotel in the middle of Oakland that was torn down several years ago, even though their aerial image, which is also very outdated, shows the site as a vacant lot. Nobody has incentive to remove their defunct business from Apple's maps using this tool. Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public or their own internal quality people prowling around.
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  Or even, now that I think about, just some kind of internal cross-checking tool that would fix up problems like this. If they've got a 3-d box model of the alleged thing, and they've got imagery, and there's no way to reconcile the image with the model, someone should look into that.
- cmelbye 12y ago
  I have to imagine the smart folks at Apple are aware that businesses close and that they need a way to keep track of that. It's obviously not this particular tool, but there is surely someone working on that problem within Apple.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public Doesn't this already exist? There's a pretty big option after selecting any venue in Apple's Maps app that allows users to report it closed, update the data, that sort of thing. I reported loads of these in my local area shortly after it was release, and they certainly appear to have been updated.

SG- 12y ago

Seems to be US only for adding addresses.

nanoman 12y ago
That's correct - I have just tried to add my german small business. No chance. Why would they limit it to the US? Google's doing the exact same thing without restrictions. For a while I hoped Apple would let go of their US-centric thinking, but it seems I was wrong. Edit: I just remembered that with Google Maps, they sent me a postal letter with a code to confirm the address. Maybe they haven't set that up yet, but my point still stands. Can anyone confirm if the confirmation process involves a postal letter?

borland 12y ago

BEWARE. When I try log in it says my apple account has been locked out for security reasons. I went and reset the password and successfully logged into a bunch of other apple stuff, but when I tried to log into maps connect it said I was locked out again.

jayrhynas 12y ago
I was able to log in with no issues. YMMV
vitd 12y ago
This usually happens if some other user who has a similar name accidentally enters your address but their own password 3 or more times. If your username is also borland there, it wouldn't surprise me if someone else has something similar.

SAS24 12y ago

I would bet that this is directly related to Apple's 2013 acquisition Locationary -http://allthingsd.com/20130719/apple-acquires-local-data-outfit-locationary http://allthingsd.com/20130719/apple-acquires-local-data-out... This is exactly what Dan and Grant built Locationary for, to crowdsource and manage (validation, collisions, conflicts) massive location based datasets. Locationary's Saturn platform was worldwide, with hundreds of thousands of locations outside the US, so I'm guessing its only a matter of time before Apple opens it up.

koenigdavidmj 12y ago

Still not going to be interested in Apple Maps until they start to update their data. Mercer St in Seattle is one of the main east-west routes between the highway and surface streets, and they still haven't figured out that it is a two-way street (which happened close to a year ago), and that most of Broad St no longer exists. This makes it useless for quite a lot of people here: basically anyone in the Belltown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia neighborhoods.

bmnick 12y ago
Report a problem - they take them quite seriously in my experience.
- scoofy 12y ago
  His point is that he shouldn't have to report it. It's a major city. If they are going to make a product that competes at the highest level, they ought to have something in place that looks for, while rare, street changes in major cities.
  - jamesaguilar 12y ago
    It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Calculate the percentage of traffic that uses a street in each direction. If more than 10% of it is going in the opposite direction on a one-way street, flag that street for human review.
- silencio 12y ago
  In my experience, data issues aren't taken seriously at all, before you want to talk about where the responsibility of having accurate data lies. It took 3-4 months to maybe fix an issue I repeatedly reported about Maps thinking that a location was in the middle of a highway. Yesterday I checked that the suggested route was correct but Maps decided to reroute to the "shortcut" when I was nearing the destination. Depending on how you enter the destination (direct address vs search bar result) it's iffy. The address is a 6 month old hospital and ER. The first time I routed there to go to the ER my eyes almost popped out of my head at the suggestion of a 2-3 mile detour by getting back on the freeway. Later on I looked at Yelp and saw a reviewer talking about how they took that detour by accident on their way to the ER too. I hope this stupidity didn't end up hurting anyone seriously.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I didn't like the part where it asked me to move the pin to the location but didn't have map tiles for the location!

chrisabrams 12y ago

How come this doesn't work on an iPhone?

mwfunk 12y ago
If the main purpose of this system is to allow small business owners to register their businesses, I just can't imagine that it would be worth anyone's time to either make an app for it or make a mobile web UI. It's something that some people use once and most people use never.

fernly 12y ago

Bizarre design. Pretty tourist pics and an Apple sign-in. Which Lastpass fills in anyway, so heck, I sign in. And then I am looking at "frosted glass" rectangle (Yosemite desktop effect I assume) that covers the pretty pics and asks if I have a small business. No, I do not. But there is no way to say that. Nothing to explain what this page would do for me if I did, and nothing to tell me what use it is (or isn't) since I don't. No back-story at all. Why did I sign in?

Kaihuang724 12y ago
That was exactly my thought process. After getting to the small business section -> close tab.
eridius 12y ago
You signed in because this was posted on Hacker News. Apple didn't market this page to you. You're obviously not their target audience.

rubyn00bie 12y ago

I'm sort of at a loss why this is being upvoted-- am I missing something? I feel like other people are excited about this but I can't for the life of me see why... This is something that every mapping product should have, no? Really not trying to troll just trying to figure out what I missed...

pix64 12y ago
Apple
jvm 12y ago
It's being upvoted because it's relevant for people in the tech industry to be aware of it, not because it's surprising or technically superior to alternatives.

Polarity 12y ago

next up: Apple Search (spotlight for the browser)

Walkman 12y ago

1. Request limit exceeded. You have exceeded your page request limit. Please try again later. 2. What is your business address? United States (with no input option, static text)

philfreo 12y ago

Built using Bootstrap and Angular

wtbob 12y ago

Whatever this is doesn't work in Firefox on Android.