It reminds me of some advice given to me by a heavily successful industrialist friend — never dismiss your competition, for the world is not static.
I'm sure the contract company siphons most of the contract value from Apple and the dedicated workers doing all the GIS work, the turn-by-turn descriptions, business identifications, etc. updating all the things that made the original Apple Maps such a delicious joke are left with an income that barely meets expenses in a town where those expenses are steadily rising. This job for them is just a resume filler though they aren't even allowed, due to NDA, to specify exactly what they do (what software or skills they use) or who they do it for when they update their resumes so that before the end of their one year contracts they can find a real career-type job.
It is a great update to a product that did originally suck though. It isn't Apple employees who are doing the actual work. They're the supervisors.
If it's just a data entry or "look at this picture and type down the name of the restaurant" job, then I'd say $20 is pretty good. If it's actual software engineering then yeah it's pretty terrible pay.
They had no place to go but up. That first version was absolutely embarrassing. I'm honestly surprised they were allowed to make it this far. To this day, I still do not use Apple Maps. As much as they try to get me to use it with all of the iOS embedding they've done, I still won't use it.
Look at the previous coverage on this blog - https://www.justinobeirne.com/
"Apple completed the rollout of this new Maps experience in the United States and will begin rolling it out across Europe in the coming months."
In the old days of Macromedia Freehand and Adobe Illustrator, each version would add features and updates that would make it slightly better than the other. I would use it until the other came out with their new version. It was a constant ping pong/leapfrog of competing products trying to win until Adobe ultimately won outright. In my testing, not once has Apple Maps leapfrogged to be the leading app.
Apple Maps is a lot cleaner but the only thing missing was the quality of the actual maps. Hopefully that has changed now.
It's true that Google gets to see them, but Apple is no better in that regard: they store your collections on their servers too (where else would they store them?).
End-to-end encryption
Maps keeps your personal data in sync across all your devices using end-to-end encryption. Your Significant Locations and collections are encrypted end-to-end so Apple cannot read them. And when you share your ETA with other Maps users, Apple can’t see your location.
Other useful sections on that page worth reading: "Location Fuzzing", "Random Identifiers", and "(on-device) Personalization"
Don't spread misinformation on privacy, it'll mislead people into sharing too much data.
I would have assumed that shared collections with a group of iCloud accounts would be e2e encrypted like iMessage groups are e2e encrypted. Glad to revisit that assumption.
Disc: Googler but nowhere close to Maps.
Regarding the prompt, it's always on in the search screen but starting a search makes it go away.
Apple maps may not be quite as good (the lack of cycling in my neck of the woods is annoying) but at least it's not trying to crash my car.
"We've found you a faster route. Switching in 10 seconds if you don't press 'no thanks'..."
Come on, Google, there's a semi truck braking in front of me and I'm trying to make sure it's safe to change lanes, can this wait?
But the "is [reported hazard] still here?" bubbles don't bother me as much, since they go away after a few seconds. I think all of the cues are intended for passengers who are navigating for someone else, but the developers should keep in mind that some people use their phones as a standalone GPS navigator.
Of course, it's much easier to copy features than innovate, the latter takes years of UX research, while the former can simply just take all the lessons learned and implement the final iteration. That being said, it sounds like Apple has invested big time on their Maps team, doing so much is so little time is truly impressive.
As if the quality of the town they got sent to is somehow relevant?
You enter 1234 East Main Street and it sends you to 1234 West Main Street.
I've had this happen to me multiple times in both Minneapolis and Albuquerque. Strangely, it only seems to happen while in foot, not while driving.