Google Maps for iOS
itunes.apple.com
itunes.apple.com
Navigation is great, so much better than Siri's dreadful voice, easy to navigate from A>B with a tap of your destination. Let's not even mention the street data.
Great 3D flyovers, but no satellite-3D flyovers (if you're worried about that you probably have too much time to waste during the day - this is a maps app, to take you places, not give you a tour of Los Angeles).
UI feels great - intuitive, fluid, multi-touch works fantastic. Heard someone mention that it "lacks polish" or feels "laggy" - not sure I agree with that - feels fast on an iPhone 5 and on a 4S side-by-side. UI is clean and not cluttered, that's a plus. Someone else mentioned that it's simply GMaps in a UIWebView - no chance for that.
Of course, the public transport data is second to none. The data in general - we won't discuss that.
Great release - welcome back
If you're into 3D satellite views, this is available in the Google Earth for iOS app. Google launched the 3D flyover stuff in that app a couple of months before Apple released iOS 6, so it's been around for a while.
If you have Google Earth already installed, then you can jump directly to that app in the swipe-left menu of the new Google Maps app (and it will even jump to where you were looking in the Google Maps app, so it's pretty seamless transition).
Hopefully they will enable an in-app mode in the next version.
I'd be surprised if they polished anything, considering you can't exactly reuse Java code when writing an Obj-C app. They just have a lot of very talented engineers and actually cared about making it nice.
Once you get past the onerous task of searching for your destination, i found Apple Maps to be much better
When it's not shoving down a Google account login down your throat, places where Google maps is better (exactly where you'd expect it be)
1 - In POI and searching. However in the limited searches i did (in the Bay area so i guess the Apple Maps critics immediately discount that) both did the same. Given the widely documented inaccuracies and just downright lack of data in the rest of the world, this is probably orders of magnitude better.
2 - Public transit - This is obviously a no-contest. Apple Maps just doesn't have it.
3 - map data - This is probably the same as POIs.
>Navigation is great, so much better than Siri's dreadful voice, easy to navigate from A>B with a tap of your destination.
Navigation isn't great on Apple maps because of Siri's "dreadful voice" ?
>Great release - welcome back
I agree but the whole annahilation bit a quite hyperbolic.
Isn't the purpose of maps to find your destination?
Can you elaborate on what you find much better in Apple Maps? It probably has better typography/layout design, but other than that?
I hope they'll integrate the local iOS address book with the next version.
True. Google has everyone beat in finding things. These advantages are apparent in the Google maps website itself. Once found though Apple Maps is smoother, more responsive and, in general pleasing to look at (although the last part is subjective and personal preference and many people will find the Google Maps better maybe).
Map data deficiences in Apple maps are well documented at this point and map data is the single most important thing about a map. Google Maps is superior ( and i'm guessing outside of the bay area/the US, orders of magnitude better ).
I did miss out on another big advantage of Google Maps - Street view (which i guess is part of the data but it is still unique to Google Maps)
The original comment waxed lyrical about how it "annahilates" Apple Maps in "every which way" which didn't gel with my experience. it's better in the parts it is expected to be. I wonder if anybody, let alone Apple, will ever be able to come even close to Google Maps for sheer data.
Some people do not notice the difference between 20fps and 60fps. But there's more to that than responsiveness. In comparing the two apps: How quickly do searches happen? When clicking on a result, how quickly does the info card come out? How long does it take to draw the map when you pan to a distant part of the map?
For searching. Google Maps has a much better autocomplete all round. Faster, more readable and elegant. Once you have selected an entry then Apple Maps jumps straight there. Google Maps does this pointless move animation making it about 2-3x slower.
For panning. Apple Maps is definitely smoother and has a higher frame rate. Especially if you have traffic/hybrid mode enable in which case even on my iPhone 5 Google Maps is lagging really badly. The biggest difference is that Apple Maps shows you a checkerboard for missing tiles whilst Google Maps has a blurred image. Apple Maps also has a fade in transition for loaded tiles which is a nice touch.
For POIs. Apple Maps is showing me lots of restaurants, bars etc. Google Maps is showing me nothing. This is in both Sydney and Melbourne.
For UI. Google Maps has a much better UI with info card. Apple Maps requires you to click on a small button which goes to a separate screen with more options. I really hate the sidebar that Google implemented. It is far too difficult to click with the tiny button especially one handed. And it isn't that intuitive that the street view picture is actually a button.
Overall. Google Maps has much better street data. Apple Maps had a much smoother UI, actually showed POIs here in Australia and the inbuilt 3D view is better implemented. The 2.0 versions of both apps should be real nice.
The road data is good buy very old. Roads that are listed have has buildings on them for years, dead ends aren't, just general mapping issues there. For some reason they've listed half the tram stops as train stations too, which doesn't really help.
I want to love them. The vector map tiles are silky smooth an very easy to navigate. The app is well thought out and easy to use. I just wish they'd used better sources for their data.
My findings: For searching. Google Maps has a much better autocomplete all round. Faster, more readable and elegant. Once you have selected an entry then Apple Maps jumps straight there. Google Maps does a handy move animation showing me the relative location, although it slows things down a litte. I LOVE this feature. For panning. Apple Maps is equivalent to Google Maps. Apple Maps has a fade in transition for loaded tiles which is a nice touch. For POIs. Apple Maps is showing me a few POIs - often in the wrong place. Google Maps is showing me all key POIs in exactly the right place. Google Maps is the first mapping product to get my home address correct (TomTom, Navigon, Garmin, Apple).
For UI. Google Maps has a nicer UI. Apple Maps requires you to click on a small button which goes to a separate screen with more options. I really like the sidebar that Google implemented.
Overall. Google Maps has much better street data and nicer UI. Apple Maps had a smooth UI, showed POIs in the wrong spot here in Australia.
I think the competition is great. Looking forward to seeing if Apple can lift their socks on the next incarnation of Maps - they have a LONG way to go.
And which POIs are inaccurate exactly ?
On the contrary, iOS 5 maps (Google bitmap tiles) and iOS 6 maps (Apple vectors), were generally comparable in Rome during the month of September. Neither was ideal, and cross referencing both helped.
For driving, Navigon Europe beat them both quite handily.
What's more, during my visit to Italy, the iOS 6 maps improved several times. As one example, in early September the areas between streets were a single background color, but by the time I left, they showed shaded buildings for every block.
By now, the historic center is rendered in astonishing "3D buildings" mode, making the hybrid view the easiest way to orient yourself among the maze of twisty streets and fantastic landmarks. Google Earth is cool, but doesn't look like the real city in miniature, and has severe memory problems showing Rome when zoomed close enough for rectangular instead of triangular buildings. I'm not going to say Apple's view "annihilates" Google Earth, but it feels like a completely new generation of technology by comparison.
Using the new Google Maps, asking for transit directions in Rome today says none are available for the region.
Doing the same in Apple maps offers to launch Navigon Europe on my phone which has "Urban Guidance" for Rome, but also gives me a list of local data specialist apps such as In Arrivo! HD (which claims to have real time bus positions).
All this said, when browsing Rome the new Google Maps app is significantly more speedy than the iOS 5 version, though it suffers from the early Apple Maps problem of having no data for roads (much less POIs) when zoomed out even a little, and when zoomed in a bit, is very challenging to read at a glance and still misses most points of interest.
> Google has everyone beat in finding things.
In the Trastevere restaurant neighborhood, Apple's data shows 10 restaurants for every 1 on Google Maps, any of which can be tapped to see a photo of the building and read reviews on Yelp. Google Maps, if zoomed in far enough, eventually shows you the POI, and can be tapped for a street view panorama rather than the actual storefront.
The wildly popular local seafood hangout "Fish Market"[1] shows up on Apple Maps with 3.5 stars and 5 reviews, but doesn't show up at all on Google Maps. Searching for it sends you to the other side of the Tiber, to an actual fish market.
1. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187791-d334907...
My point isn't that Apple Maps data is better, but that to a local who is looking for differences, either product can be shown to come up short. This suggests neither is "orders of magnitude" (presumably meaning at least 100x) better than the other, even when comparing this new offering rather than the iOS 5 version.
- Type Pub name, "Not Found"
- Type Postcode, It points to completely the wrong street
- Type street name/number, it thinks I mean some street in America (Map screen was focused on london)
I'm not sure people understood how much they took the original gmaps for granted until Apple released their own.
He means that the actual searching (ie the querying to find) is not well implemented.
Besides that, no, the purposes of a Map app is much more involved: show you turn by turn instructions, public transit routes, bookmarks, etc...
How is it shoving a Google account down your throat? It took me a minute to find where to log into my Google account so that I could retrieve my saved Maps places.
How do you contrast this with Apple Maps, which transparently uses an iCloud account on the backend?
Do you lay the blame on Google? Or Apple, for not having system-wide account services for Google (as they do with Facebook and Twitter).
Since Apple Maps works perfectly fine for my area ( yes, i'm aware there's a world outside the Bay Area where Apple Maps is horrible), the constant nag for a login is enough to for me to stop using it. It is an awesome app though.
> Wow. New GMaps totally annihilates Apple Maps in every
> which way.
It turns out that getting directions via transit works as expected. I'm not even sure what the transit link when you swipe left is supposed to show. So it's a weak ui in that respect, but the app gives me what I was missing.
My observation is that it (1) turns off some of the excessive highlighting of highways and other roads (which for some reason is done by default even in very transit-oriented cities), and (2) it turns on highlighting of "rapid transit" lines.
Unfortunately the definition of "rapid transit" used for this function is sometimes very poorly thought out.
For instance, Tokyo has a massive rail system that covers the entire metropolitan area with a fairly consistent level of service. However Google maps only considers the city-center subways—which form about 25% of the entire system—to be "rapid transit", although from a user's point of view there's very little difference between subways and most other rail lines in Tokyo (they generally use similar scheduling, rolling stock, stations, and even station spacing in many cases). So enabling the transit option in Tokyo highlights subways, but it actually de-emphasizes many other (essentially equivalent) rail lines!
The only thing I can think of is that the design of this feature was based on the particular city (e.g. NYC), and then sort of slapped onto other locations without a whole lot of actual thought... :(
Maybe they just roll a pair of dice...?
Personal experience report on an iPhone 4: the app is laggy as hell with one to two seconds of delay when dragging. You have to actively combat inertia to navigate around, and minimal movement occasionally sent me overshooting by multiple screenfuls. Also, it keeps wanting to turn north around on the slightest twist when zooming, which is even harder to handle due to lag.
> Someone else mentioned that it's simply GMaps in a UIWebView - no chance for that.
That's not how it looks, but that's exactly how it feels. Well, that's also how it looks on the login screen given the overflowing sign-in form. The drag lag on the map feels like the typical JS-overriden scrolling. I'd really not be surprised if it is a UIWebView and a properly designed web app (not web site backportedly shoved in as an app).
On this hardware, Apple Maps has a clear victory on the performance and interaction front.
I would agree that it gives the app an unpolished feel, that and the sign in nagging. Otherwise the functionality is great.
There are some places it's fine. Other places it's problematical. Other places it's a complete disaster.
The last two categories seem to outweigh the first for me. In the UK especially where basic things like searching for local train stations (we actually use public transport quite a bit here ;-) seem to fail completely in large chunks of the country.
Since my experience of Google Maps on the iPhone until the switch over was that - as long as I could get GPS and an internet connection - 100% fine the Apple maps app is a complete fail for me. I can understand that there might be reasons for it being necessary from the business perspective - but for me personally it now means I have had to have three map apps on my home screen to get around rather than just one.
I'm hoping I can switch back to Google Maps to have one thing that works.
I could rely on it totally.
I'm not going to say I can't see what the fuss has been about as I've seen enough examples to know that there are real and significant problems, but I can say where I live (west of Scotland) for my use cases (basic searching and navigation) I've not had anything to complain about.
Q: "Where's Dulles Airport?"
A: I couldn't find any places matching 'Dulles International Airport'.
Honestly, if anyone has a voice search that will find it, let me know.
I'm not the grand-parent poster, and no Apple fanboy ... but I am inclined to agree with his sentiment.
Also, the Google Maps app for iOS hadn't been out for more than an hour and already users were touting how it was flat out better without even having used the damn thing out in the real world. How is that being an Apple shill? If anything, I'm saying: reserve your judgement until after you've used it for a week in the meat space, and don't claim it "annihilates" Apple Maps at 1 am in your dinosaur pajamas after it has been out for only an hour.
* Rendering is faster on Apple Maps
* Apple Maps caches a much larger area offline, while Google Maps is basically useless without a network connection
* Apple Maps integration in iOS apps is better than embedding Google Maps, which is very obvious if you compare 3rd party public transit apps that use Apple Maps to Google transit directions.
Not saying Apple Maps is nearly as good as Google Maps (because it isn't), but 'totally annihilates Apple Maps in every way' is simply not true.
Google Maps for Android has the possibility of caching e.g. a whole city offline, which is great for travelling (since we haven't solved roaming yet). It might be a Labs feature. The iOS client has been lagging so bad, I figured they would have fixed a lot in the new version.
I've been getting around the "no network" issue by using the Garmin app anyways.
Unfortunately, the better integration of Apple's app is something I have not figured a work around. Other than getting an Android phone, I mean.
Why does it say "preview", when it actually means "start navigating"?
After playing with this app for 10 minutes I think this is far superior to the iOS5 Maps experience. It's an extremely refined and clean app that is extremely fast with lots of features. Start typing a street or location and it'll know what you mean within a few letters.
I'm still looking to see how the option to save Home and Work addresses helps me - it makes home and work function as search terms but there must be more to it?
It's quite amusing to see how excited people are about this when this has been available with Google Maps on Android since 2009 (IIRC). I remember I used my Galaxy Nexus to navigate NYC for a whole week with public transit without ever asking a person for directions.
edit: Opening the side menu, for its matter, visually seems to depend on hitting a tiny tap target; there is hidden space to the left of the target but not above it, which is the natural place I tried tapping. The menu itself is weirdly designed (giant spacing) and prone to accidental dismissal by someone trying to scroll it.
No bookmarks either.
I think for bookmarks, you have to sign in (with your Google account, or a dummy one) and save them in your account. Not sure though, haven't tried yet (and probably won't, as I don't need it).
And I agree about polish. You have a 4S. I have a 4. It barely makes 20 fps.
I'm not entirely surprised, admittedly - and depending on your use case (for me, anyway), it doesn't so much matter.
GMaps uses something else for the UI (the "slide from side" thing) and that's the problem.
Still, I'm not really complaining. As a developer I know it's hard to write something that both pleases you aesthetically, and is performant on all devices!
TL;DR You can't edit the name of your starred locations from the iOS Google Maps app.
There are several serious bugs in the saved locations functionality. I found that if you 'pin' a location (say a building) on the map (by pressing and holding) it will show the address. But when you 'save' it, the details of the address get 'lost' when looking at your search history. I ended up with multiple entries in my list titled 'Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan' (which is the equivalent of, say, 'Manhatten, New York, USA'. Clicking each one still takes you to the correct location on the map, but they are impossible to tell apart in the list. Also then when using the 'directions' widget on the map and picking the destination, these saved locations appeared as longitude/latitude! I wonder if these issues are specific to Japan? I submitted feedback about this.
That being said, overall the app is quite impressive, and I'm sure it will improve.
From a UI/UX perspective:
+ Fonts and text entry are great + Search speed and interface speed are fantastic
- The pull-out menu on the right (akin to a hamburger menu) feels a bit odd and it's not immediately clear as to what it does (they are layer toggles for traffic/transit routes/satellite) - I can't figure out how to bookmark my home or work addresses (whilst being logged in) - if there is a way it is not intuitive.
Although when I typed in a POI it actually found what I was looking for, so I say that makes up for being short maybe 1-2FPS (I used to say Apple Maps was reasonably decent until searching for "logan" in Boston and having to try about 15 different search terms before getting the Airport when I was two miles away; Google Maps got it right with "logan boston" while I'm sitting in Palo Alto)
And getting options took me 30 seconds to figure out. There is that stupid tab with 3 little dots.
Public transport data is available for Sydney on the web but curiously missing in the app.
And asking me to sign in on start up. Really? Get out of my face unless I explicitly ask to sign in through the standard iOS settings app.
Of course correct data and great search trumps all complaints.
That's what threw me off.
Lack of POI data? The mapping data appears equivalent to the web app. Maps has more POI data it seems, or at least shows it without have to zoom in too near.
Now, at the same time, it does seem to be locked at 30fps rather than 60 (as in Apple Maps). So it's not quite as silky smooth in that respect, I suppose, but it'll also drain battery more slowly.
Doesn't really work that way, especially in a triple-buffering system.
Otherwise I'd expect to see more fluctuation in the framerate of the app, especially when there isn't much detail on the screen (similar to Apple Maps, which is obviously not locked to 30fps).
Great release, you can swipe from the outside edge of the display to open the sidebar, not a big deal.
This release is fantastic and will only get better with time
Re: Side Menu - Unlike those stupid tiny x marks in the notification tray which I can never hit on my first try, I can't seem to miss opening the side menu. Are you swipe-in opening it? It's not a push, but a swipe.
Bookmarks are there - you just have to click "save" when you open the item. Then clicking on an empty search bar will bring them up.
Not terribly surprising though - Apple Maps would have access to all the private APIs that AppStore apps can't use.
It will be interesting to see if there is any server impact, as millions of people start using this Map Application tomorrow. (In both directions - it may be the case that the Apple Map servers will see a drop in use, and increase in performance)
You can also get there with a two-finger horizontal swipe.
Thus Apple has achieved its goal of upgrading the map experience on iOS!
Now that we have an apple maps program, and various competitors including and not limited to google; we also have a chrome (and other) iOS browsers to compete with safari (and yes, I understand it's really just skinned web kit) and a new default video player,
Is this situation not akin to the anti-trust wars that threatened to consume Microsoft a decade ago?
For instance, they (the apple defaults) are all installed by default, and they remain the default option: for example if you receive an address (either physical or web) in messenger or whatsapp or whatever, iOS will attempt to recognise it and make it a hyperlink, but it will then open in the apple default app - if you want it to open in say chrome or google maps you have to copy and paste it.
So- is this the same as the anti-trust case against Microsoft? Will apple ever change the default program? Or will my next phone be an android..
After all, the MS issue wasn't about IE being the only browser so it's not about the ability to change it, it was about it being the default browser and therefore what many unsophisticated users will use by default.
There is no "Android default". It varies according to carrier and OEM.
I'm certainly struggling to think of an Android phone I've seen that doesn't ship with a Google browser.
(Edit: I take that back. Obviously the Kindle's don't and nor do most of the Android phones sold in China - an estimated two thirds not running Google apps suggested recently).
This is probably why there was no drama with Google releasing maps: Apple knew they were beat, so they did nothing to stop it.
But I don't think that Apple ever considered to cause drama about the Google Maps release, just like they didn't cause a drama about YouTube, or Nokia Maps, or whatever. That seemed more like Google trying to take a cheap shot at Apple's approval process.
Yes, this is much like Microsoft a decade ago; in fact, it's worse, the iOS offers significantly less choice than Windows did back then; you could develop your own software for your own computer without joining a restrictive developer program from Microsoft.
If you don't like it, my recommendation is that you don't buy into it. Get an Android. I've been perfectly happy with mine.
If more people just bought what they liked, shut the hell about it, and didn't rage jihad against the opposite platform, the internet would be WAY better.
And comparing IP litigation to murder is just ridiculous, not that you didn't already know that. Among all the other problems, you can fix a bad call from a judge. Murder, not so much.
Again, I don't think the patent law is getting 'reformed' overnight. I have written to state officials to improve it, have signed petitions, and have written to Apple as well. But on top of that, if more and more people stop using their products for this reason, they will understand it much more quickly.
Uh, no. Hyperbole weakens your argument. If you want to be taken seriously in discussions among adults, I suggest you avoid it.
I would suggest avoiding doing so publicly. People can come to the same conclusions if they want to apply theory of extremes, but when you jump to that kind of thing in your initial comparison (especially without a disclaimer) it just makes you come off as a crazy person. Doubly so since the extreme didn't hold up.
It didn't help that some of the more rational points are easily countered (even if not wrong). Stating that my use of Apple harms you because of my "support" of their business and legal decisions may not be entirely false; however, it's a) unreasonable to expect consumers to know about the operational choices of every company they do business with and b) also helpful because it promotes competition in the market. Again, your points had merit, but so does the other side of the equation.
The unfortunate reality of being a publicly-traded US company is that you are more or less legally required to try to litigate your competition out of existence if the numbers support it. This instance is unfortunate because Apple was granted some patents that they should not have been, and there was inept jury in deciding to uphold them (never mind the fact that it was a jury-based trial at all). The Apple/Samsung thing should have been a trademark case which I think actually had some merit, but patent litigation has a higher potential upside so the finances said that was the way to go.
This isn't a case of Amazon suing every online shopping cart with a "click to buy" button.
(Fifthly, why does a game of multi-hundred-billion-dollar corporate chicken impact your life at all? They aren't going after a kid on the street corner -- they are going after themselves dressed in different clothing. This does not change anything in your world except an extreme branching narrative in your mind which you think the world cares about.)
I used the word Jihad as it best reflects how personal it becomes to some people. It's not a matter of taste, but a matter of "being".
My main point, which clearly wasn't well articulated, was STEP YELLING AT ME. I can't change it. Nor do I care.
Yell at Apple, or Google, or whoever can act on it. Boycott them all you want. Just don't vilify me simply because I happen to like the platform you happen to hate.
You do that, and I promise to not yell at you for the platform you like that I happen to hate (as an example, I honestly could give two shits about Apple or Android .... it's a god damn phone).
I'd love to have an iphone 5 running Android! :]
And yes, the Android port is well underway: http://www.idroidproject.org/
It's not quite like that, but essentially that's true (I think it's possible to run Android on iPhone 3G S and older, but that was a long time ago and I don't think you could use it as a phone).
Can't speak to the feel, but I do like the aluminum of the iphone 5 a lot.
The rendering engine is also much more than "just rendering". When I click two small links close to each other on Android Chrome, a small clickable popup containing a zoomed in portion of that part of the page will appear. Very useful for avoiding misclicks!
In the end the case kinda fizzled out as the times were changing so fast. Browsers kinda became an accepted "default" application to go along with an operating system.
I have to admit with all of the lawsuits in the software industry, I'm kinda surprised that Apple hasn't gotten more heat.
Apple are nowhere near close to this until they own 95% of the global cellphone market and start making credible threats to destroy HTC or Samsung if they dare to sell an Android phone, or an iPhone with Chrome preinstalled.
Nobody is going to suggest Apple has a Monopoly in the mobile phone, nor even the Smart Phone industry. In fact, I think Eric Schmidt publicly said that "Android had Won" today - so that kind of puts an end to that thread.
Today, the situation is different: if you as a customer don't like iOS you can go and easily buy a smartphone with Android or Windows OS.
This is an important distinction. Otherwise for example every car manufacturer could be accused with similar grounds because they use their propriety software or custom parts instead of providing totally configurability.
The transport directions are slightly better, it'll find actual options for me now but does still occasionally go "Nope, no public transport around you!" when I live near a bus stop. And a train station.
It's slightly laggy on my iPhone 5, I popped it up with a high view when I was on the train and it was very visibly jerky, Apple Maps was much, much smoother.
Hey guys, SIGN IN. You want your search history? SIGN IN. That's really annoying, and given when the whole Maps shift started it was rumoured that Google was demanding more and more information on the searches it points to Google really wanting that search history with your account.
POI stuff spanks Apple, easily. Apple sucks at that at the moment, the fact that Google can autocomplete a hell of a lot of it is much nicer.
I don't like some of the UX choices, the 'tutorial overlay' says the bottom right button is tappable but it's actually a slide over, tapping did nothing for me. Accessing Street View is non-intuitive. Occasionally it felt like there was a few too many taps to get me where I needed to be. This is all stuff they can work on though.
All in all, it's pretty good. I'll have it as a secondary Maps app, I'm going to try stick with Apple Maps though. Not because I'm a glutton for punishment but because it has genuinely started getting better for the use case I need it in. Choice is always nice though.
Yes Apple want to own maps on iOS but given how their own launch went the ship has sailed on that for a while at least. But given the position they found themselves in this goes a long way to undermining the criticisms of mapping on iOS because if you think Apple maps sucks you just go and get Google maps for free.
One of Apple's big gripes supposedly was that they couldn't get Google maps turn by turn navigation on the iPhone and here it is (and without them paying for it it seems) plus they get to work on Apple maps with some of the pressure off which protects them some if Google start messing around.
I'm not in any way saying that this was Apple's plan all along - that plan went badly wrong in the summer - but as of this morning iOS, for regular users at least, just got more attractive.
Yes it's a win for Google, but it's a win for Apple too.
I thought it was because when Apple asked for turn-by-turn, Google said "okay, but we want larger Google branding, and also want to hook it up to Google Latitude" and Apple said no way?
Now that Google Maps is back on iOS, I agree that it's a win for Apple as well. But someone please explain it to me how it could have been a win for Apple to drop Google Maps in the first place?
Remember Apple already give Samsung, another competitor, a shed load of each money for components. Why enrich someone you're competing with?
Two-finger slide from the right sometimes opens up a sidebar that apparently contains settings (not sure what the magic incantation is).
Zooming in works, but there's no street view, you just keep zooming waaaaay in.
No bike directions. :|
I might like the map drawing better, can't really say which is quicker on my relatively slow device, and it does work quite well. But so far I'm not impressed at all. The previous iOS 5- version was better, if less new-Google-aesthetic-y.
Maybe there's a better way, but I'm with you, I tried just zooming way in first.
Access to streetview would be quicker that way.
Yes, what is up with that? Android app had that for ages. I guess I am not supposed to have an iPhone if I bike.
There's a grippie in the bottom right corner indicating the settings pull-out sidebar.
Though now I discover I can only change one setting before it automatically closes it, which also sucks. And crashed when I tried to change two anyway.
--
So far I'm seeing it as a decent alternative that uses a better data-set, but not much else. Definitely not "now I can finally upgrade to iOS6" material.
I had Chrome installed on my iPhone for the first time since I have ever performed a restore like this. ( I was getting jumbled cover art on albums and a restore seems to have solved it ) During this process, I was asked to setup the phone, first I think I had to unlock it, then wait some time, then set my location, then some security questions, and then a new screen I had not seen before, where there was Safari and Chrome listed, and I needed to pick one.
The problem is I was rushing, waiting for a phone call and didn't want to miss it. While in this setup mode the 3G radio icon was not on so I wanted to get back up and running. I didn't read what this screen does, chose Safari, and moved on.
I remember thinking to myself, hmpf, odd, Apple asking what default browser I want to use, that's a first. But it was what first came to mind. I can't say for sure that is what it was, as I didn't take the time to read the screen.
It's such a painless process, I may restore my phone again to answer this question. If I do, I will report it back here.
One thing can do — a cheap trick that takes an extra step I feel we shouldn't have to take — make a Javascript bookmarklet. When selected it will fire that url open in Chrome.
The problem for me is it takes too many steps to get to bookmarklets. Not as simple to get to as in a desktop browser.
If you want to give it a try, add a bookmark/boomarklet withthe following:
javascript:location.href="googlechrome"+location.href.substring(4);
Was your restore of version 6? Mine was version 6 -> version 6. I was not doing a version 5 -> version 6.
Later tonight I will backup/restore and record the process to see what the Safari/Chrome selection screen was all about.
Sorry I could not be more of assistance.
Not in line with apples otherwise timeless designs at all.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/news/article/-/15610781/...
Now police in Colac, west of Melbourne, say faults with Google maps are putting people's lives at risk along the Great Ocean Road and in the southern Otways.
Sergeant Nick Buenen says trucks, buses and tourists are being directed down Wild Dog Road, which is a one-way track, not built for heavy traffic.
He says VicRoads has denied responsibility and Google Maps has not responded.
"Update, 12:41 p.m. PT A Google spokesperson said that Google Maps routes drivers onto Wild Dog Road only if the driver searches for a destination located on that road. For directions to other nearby locations, Google Maps routes drivers onto Forrest-Apollo Bay Road/Skenes Creek Road. "
First five results:"Google Earth", "My Places for Google Maps", "My Maps Editor", "Road Tripper", and then finally "Google Maps"
Seriously, how difficult is it to bump an exact string match to the top of the list?
Seems to me that iOS is just getting worse and worse.
When someone searches on the term "maps" do you want the "best" (highest rated, most popular, whatever) app to be the top hit (give it a week and that'll likely be Google Maps), or the one from the person who had done a bit of SEO and thought to call his app "maps" to hit the exact string match?
I contest that what's happening is actually a good thing and what you propose would be a field day for those who look to game the system.
I think it's clear that this is a transient issue, that the apps popularity will kick in shortly so I'm not sure it's a big deal regardless.
UK App Store at least it's up to fourth now so it's moving.
PS, Google Maps is now the third search result instead of the fifth. After how many days should search not suck?
And search doesn't suck - it's still easy to find, you just need to look a little bit more. Given that it's the number one free download discovery really doesn't seem to be an issue here.
OR
Does it have a few problems that, when compared with all the progress Google has made in that arena, makes its performance untenable?
I say this because I have used Apple Maps to navigate the rural southeastern U.S. with absolutely no problems. I even had my dedicated GPS to make sure Apple Maps wasn't leading me astray.
What I dont get is that people were/are willing to wait for google to get it together with the "next release," and crucify apple for doing the exact same.
Either way, we win because apple removing google maps from ios forced google to work hard on providing a good app and google's app will force apple to polish up their maps.
I've also had it direct me to locations that did not exist (but were in Yelp). But since no one uses Yelp to review bank branches, that data has never really been checked before.
And realistically, I don't think it says much. First, tech sites are obviously going to pick up on this release. It continues the narrative they've had going for months. Second, even if there had been no stories about Apple Maps, we'd be seeing tons of stories about this release. Very few people had issues with mobile Safari before Chrome came out, but the response to that was huge as well.
You can't just dismiss the criticism because it made for a good headline.
Even requests that are hitting the server seem to return almost instantly.
Is it just me?
Which is to say, simple text, simple lines, simple shadows - all of which, so long as you take the time and draw smartly using Core Graphics, is well within the capabilities of any iOS device. Combine with a few dashes of smart UI caching and the whole thing will scream.
iOS UI optimization is a topic I wish more devs knew about. So many relatively simplistic apps are dog slow because no one has bothered to do even the most modest amount of optimization.
tl;dr Use Instruments while running on the device (not the simulator) to pinpoint the highest avoidable CPU usage and then optimize the relevant code. Repeat until the scrolling is buttery smooth on a 3GS :)
I'm assuming the actual map and StreetView is implemented in openGL. Heck, maybe the whole thing is.
I like the overall look of Google maps more, having more detail and and the 3d buildings that pop-up are cute. Apple maps are right down bare looking in comparison.
I was sorely missing streetview, I was amazed myself how used to I was checking streeview of various places.
Can't offhand remember places Apple maps couldn't address-locate so I don't have any good comparison off the map data quality, but both have been mostly fine, with google having slightly better heuristics finding an address even if it doesn't know the exact street number.
I like the rotation with two fingers in google maps is less sensitive, I often rotate in apple maps accidentally. But then again, Google maps has this menu that comes up when sliding with two fingers (by placing two fingers and then dragging) and that came up accidentally few times.
In google maps, sometimes a quick tap tells you the address of that place, but sometimes it needs a tap-and-hold, feels erratic.
Google maps driving directions didn't say a word while staying still, so I can't say much about that. The finnish voice in apple maps is very understandable, but quite harsh. The US voice of course failed to read any finnish names in a comical way (but had to change phone language to get finnish voice, I usually prefer my electronics in english).
Public transport stuff has always been useless in finland, so nothing to say about that either..
Prior to the uproar around IOS 6 maps not having Transit direction, I wasn't even aware the IOS 5 Map had transit directions. In San Francisco, Tokyo, New York and other places this is a big deal. But, if you want to get Transit Direction from Redwood City, CA to Oakland, CA, IOS 6 Maps currently beats out Google Maps.
With that said, I'm blown away by how quickly the interface can guess what I'm looking for as I start typing into it. Apple has a long way to catch up in that department. I suspect for much map searching, Google Maps is going to become my "Goto" client on the iPhone.
[Edit - Love the speedy Swipe Left/Right interface. Also Offline Maps. Just Cached all of California, Switched to "Airplane Mode" - and all my mapping data is cached. Awesome.]
[Edit 2 - Wow - this map is fast. IOS 6 Maps wasn't particularly slow, but switching back and forth shows me Apple has a long way to go. Have to Love Competition]
[Edit 3 - Jumping into StreetView is silky smooth, and, they make use of the accelerometer so you can look around]
I think this is just "an exception that proves the rule" - It's pretty well accepted that Google Transit Direction are pretty good - just not well defined on their iOS App for my use case (yet)
Update: Following OP's advice I was able to get to the Google, Inc page where the Maps app is listed. Still no luck. This is gonna be a waiting game :(
This item is temporarily unavailable.
Try again later.Worked for me on a an AT&T 4S. (Maybe it hits a different CDN server?)
Also, app is only 6.7MB, pretty svelte!
* Open up App Store
* Search for Chrome
* Click on Chrome to bring up the app page
* Select Related tab
* On "More By Google" section, click see all
* On the list of Google Apps that appear, Google Maps is at the very bottom... Click on the "FREE" or "INSTALL" button to install. Alternatively, click on the item to bring up the app page for Google Maps
The one major drawback from the Original Google Maps app is that the original one did an excellent job showing every single street name on even a deep zoom level. The new Google Maps one does a poor job on this and you have to hunt back and forth to figure out what zoom level you need to get to in order to read the street name. Once they get this right, things will be back to normal.
I expect Apple to see a drastic increase in iOS5->iOS6 upgrade over the next few days. Hahah!
1. Google now gets stats from millions of iPhones. Which can be used to infer important sales information in different regions.
2. Maps improve as more people start using them. If more users are on Google Maps, Apple's own product improves at a slower pace.
Which is 1?
Hasn't it been stated already that the original Google-backed apps weren't being updated anymore and the contract expired?
It's the same situation as the YouTube app. Why would Apple not allow the Google Maps app?
If anything, this was actually good, now we have 2 map apps and Google is forced to make a good one, just riding on the superior mapping data won't cut it.
1) Search for "Google Maps" and it is the 5th result. The app is literally called Google Maps. The results before: Fine Maps, PD Maps Worldwide Edition, Google Earth(?!).
2) 300 comments and the topic of Apple anti-competitive behaviour with regard to App availability is hardly touched. In fact the top most comments are on UI and nitpicking over details such as Bookmarks and response speed.
I suspect that this is simply due to some part of the searching algorithm that takes things like number of downloads and publishing date into account. Over time the position will probably change.
And anti-competitive maybe a bit strong. But wasn't it Google Voice that has been stranded in review for a while now?
I think Apple's mono-culture is beginning to fail: using the App Store as a gateway to their devices (touched on briefly above), etc.
I suspect (And this is entirely speculation on my part) that if iOS Maps had not been under such a cloud of scrutiny since it launched, we might not have seen Google Maps.
With so many having major issues with iOS Maps, and Apple needing to do a lot of catch up, being seen to block a reasonable solution would be very, very bad. Especially the same week as the well publicized "Sending people into the middle of the Australian outback with no mobile reception instead of the city they put in" news on iOS Maps.
Not trying to sound conspiracy theorist here, but observing past behaviours and the likely influence of current demands.
1). It connects to my car stereo via the phone bluetooth profile so even though my car can't stream music by bluetooth, I can still get my turn-by-turn directions. My Navigon uses the whichever audio profile is used for music, so I only get the turn-by-turn over the car stereo if I'm plugged in by wire. Kudos Google, that's a really nice touch. Thank you.
2). I like the way it displays the streetview when you arrive at your destination so you can see where you should be. Another great touch.
And a couple of things I really don't like at all:
1). "In 300 metres...[pregnant pause]... turn left".
2). I don't like that it doesn't provide the street names in the audible turn by turn directions. So in cases where you have two streets in close proximity, unless you actually look at the screen, you're left guessing which is the correct one.
"Google Maps Navigation is in beta. Use caution.
Please keep your eyes on the road and obey applicable laws. Do not manipulate this application while in motion. Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.
Traffic data is not real-time, and location accuracy cannot be guaranteed
"
My guess is if Apple maps were introduced 5 years ago (or even earlier) people wouldn't complain as there wouldn't be any other better alternative that used to be available.
Now to see about offline access.
Some things that lack or incomplete in the meantime:
- iPad version, which is less critical, of course. - Access to contact addresses - Street view doesn't load high-resolution images when zoomed in.
The performance on iPhone 4S is good enough but zooming in and out is sometimes too fast and hard to do with precision.
Still, I already replaced Apple's Maps with this one of my iPhone's home screen.
Is this feature in any other app? Maybe I just haven't seen it yet.
EDIT: I take that back, as others have noticed, it's there... just unavailable from the sidebar. Not sure why.
Not to be sour or anything but I would have been fine with a stretched version for the iPad.
That was originally the main reason Apple stated why they developed they own maps data, didn't they?
Google Maps: 22 seconds Apple Maps: ??? It took me to Luxembourg
I think I know which map app I'll be using from now on.
But seriously, this is just great news for us folks outside the US and who use public transit. I can now get an iPhone 5 today! :D
It's great we are happy to have working maps, but let's just hope other companies can break the monopoly on our location data at some point.
Apple clearly wanted Google maps to be relegated to an also ran.
This works for both of them - the complaints about Apple maps are undermined by the existence of Google maps for iOS, Google get to retain their position as the best maps on any platform.
I see no evidence for an exchange of money in any direction.
"Try again later."
Unavailable for me still, I see in the App Store and within iTunes but no go on the D/L.
This strikes me as funny and suspicious.
Rest is nice, glad to have Google Maps back on my phone!!
It very much duplicates the core functionality of Safari, just as Google Voice does for the Phone and Messages apps. And GV was what both started and eventually ended that whole "duplicate functionality" debacle.
also if you watch the loading closely you can tell.
"Google Maps" in App Store showing nothing for both iPhone and iPad. (Canada?) Had to go though this link. I understand it is new but that seems a bit underhanded...
The more likely explanation is that Apple is caching the search index. Which given the traffic volumes, number of apps and the fact they are using Lucene makes sense.
Come save me from IOS 6 hell
So it's not just equal, but actually identical.
Cons: 1. No integration with the address book.
Pros >>>> Cons.