Apple competitors toss barbs over iOS 6 map troubles

Samsung and Nokia, two companies that have released or are preparing to release competitors to Apple's iPhone, are taking advantage of a rare misstep from the iPhone maker to tout the abilities of their handsets. Both companies have jabbed at Apple over the last few days about Apple's <a href="http://macnn.com/rd/268729==http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/09/20/google.replacement.said.to.be.ready.awaiting.appro val/" rel='nofollow'>ongoing woes in the mapping sector</a>. Samsung took to the company's <a href="http://macnn.com/rd/268730==https://plus.google.com/+SamsungMobileUSA/posts" rel='nofollow'>Google+ page</a> to take a dig at Apple, while Nokia benchmarked its own maps versus those of both Google and Apple in a <a href="http://macnn.com/rd/268731==http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/09/20/benchmarking-mobile-maps/" rel='nofollow'>post</a> on the company's blog.
<br><br><br>Samsung, no stranger to <a href="http://macnn.com/rd/268732==http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/09/15/ad.says.iphone.5.lags.in.features.compared.to.gala xy.s.iii/" rel='nofollow'>needling Apple's fans and products</a>, posted yesterday an image of a Galaxy S III running Google Maps. The accompanying text encouraged readers to "'+1' if you're about to be helping your friends find their way using Google Maps on your Galaxy phone," an unmistakeable jab at Apple's iOS 6 Maps app. Samsung's Android devices still have access to the Google Maps app Apple removed with the release of iOS 6.

Nokia, meanwhile, touts its mapping solution as the world's most advanced location platform. "Unlike our competitors," Nokia's blog post reads, "which are financing their location assets with advertising or licensing mapping content from third parties, we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps." Advertising is the main way Google makes its money, and Apple's new mapping solution is largely built on data licensed from TomTom. The blog post then goes on to lay out the advantages Nokia's maps have over the competition, including augmented reality, offline navigation, and turn-by-turn navigation for more than 110 countries.

Even as the iPhone 5 has gone on to <a href="http://macnn.com/rd/268733==http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/09/17/many.phones.only.set.to.ship.in.october/" rel='nofollow'>phenomenal sales</a>, the maps fiasco has proved a rare misstep, with users complaining about it, media outlets focusing on it, and now Apple's competitors seizing upon it. Apple has <a href="http://macnn.com/rd/268734==http://www.macnn.com/articles/12/09/20/reminds.customers.that.it.is.a.10.product.is.worki ng.hard.on.it/" rel='nofollow'>issued a statement</a> reminding customers that its Maps application is at version 1.0 and asking for patience. The company is said to have put its Maps team on "lockdown mode" in order to fix the more grievous errors in the program.

I can accept Apple Maps' 1.0 performance, if Apple wasn't intent on removing Google's MUCH more evolved performance.

They haven't.

maps.google.com works great (looks like shit, though). :p

You of electronics tea know full we'll by now that it is all FUD. You have tried it out yourselves and know it works. I dare you to post a search criteria you used that failed miserably in iMacs.

I tried NYC, Hoboken, Austin and Manila (in the PI) and it works superbly.

Off course shyster is as shyster does.

Works for me. I like having turn by turn voice navigation which we were never ever to get on iOS from Google. Nobody seems to fault Google maps for that omission. Just like antennagate, a hyped-up controversy.

Amazing how one app out of hundreds of thousands, in version 1.0, can bring out the jealousy. It seems that the world's fastest handset, which stomps the competition to a pulp, simply confounds Samsung and Nokia. Heck, Samsung seems more to be saying that we WISH everyone would be willing to queue up in huge numbers for our equipment.

]It will get worse, the jealous pseudo-gripes that is, even as the app's performance gets better and better.

The next phase in this odious campaign, mark my words, will be spiteful suggestions of rifts within the star-studded product development teams, all squarely aimed at (iOS software supremo) Scott Forstall and "said to involve" (hardware design VP) Jon Ives.

As fjose1929 commented earlier in this thread: "shyster is as shyster does".

Wait for it.

Here's hoping the high-flying young Apple execs, who are doing a fantastic synergistic job, can see through the vicious subterfuge to come, and rise above it.

Why would it have never been possible? That's what I would like to understand...

Jesus,
a bunch of fanboys can't understand that iphone users had a map app which was very detailed and simply did its job.
Not, let me quote Apple:

I did the bold. So, fanboys, this is what Apple writes on its web page. And it's clear false advertising. Please, shut up with your "this is a 1.0 version" bullshit. The "incredible detail" in a lot of cases all around the world appears to make whole cities to a dessert. I don't understand your mind where you have to defend every poop coming from Apple as the best thing that ever happened to the mankind. Praise Apple when they do their job, but don't defend something that is obviously a complete failure at this time.

Apple wasn't intent on removing it, the Apple-google contract wasn't renewed. Google was holding back key features, like turn-by-turn GPS (only for Android), so Apple went with an alternative company, OpenStreetMaps and TomTom (and Yelp for the business listings).

False advertising, or just usual Apple marketing hyperbole? This is nothing new.

But this doesn't make sense. The Google Maps API is documented, all of Google's APIs are well-documented. Unless you can claim that Google has been using undocumented parts of their API, I don't see why Apple couldn't have modified their app they distribute with iOS to support turn-by-turn.

I think this was more of a power grab, Apple felt it was a liability for Google to control this part of their business.

But this doesn't make sense. The Google Maps API is documented, all of Google's APIs are well-documented. Unless you can claim that Google has been using undocumented parts of their API, I don't see why Apple couldn't have modified their app they distribute with iOS to support turn-by-turn.[/quote]

Because they weren't licensed to do so under their contract?

I guess that's a reasonable theory, although a little weird that they would prevent Apple from writing their own code that would take advantage of these parts of Google's API. Besides, now that the contract has expired, why couldn't have Apple have went ahead with these additions if it were about contracts?

Besson, how does content licensing work on the planet where you live?

Are you drunk?

There is no need for this rudeness. Is this really subject matter worth getting emotional over?

Google doesn't seem to charge for their content, they charge for access to their API and the web services that their API interacts with:

https://developers.google.com/maps/licensing


If I'm wrong I'm wrong, but again, no need to be a dick about it. We're just having a conversation, or so I thought.

Google Maps Terms of Service


Also, this gem:

This is on a core feature of Apple's single most important device.

Terms dictated by a direct business competitor.

Hm.

Interesting find, I guess that answers this.

I wonder if this Google stipulation is a partial avoidance of liability issue for them? I mean, when you get into turn-by-turn you get into all of those in-car GPS devices, many of which I'd imagine don't have an uplink (or a reliable uplink) to update map data. If this is so, Google would not be able to provide QA.

Yes, the Google Maps API is well-documented and supports all features of the previous Google Maps app for iOS.

The problem is that it's only free for casual developers/users -- usage is capped (like geocode requests, which happens every time you "find" a location in the maps app) and there are restrictions on how you can use the API if you're using it for free.

To gain unlimited (or sufficiently high) API usage, one must pay for the "enterprise" Google Maps API license, which is not cheap -- for Apple, maybe, but it would be on a device-by-device basis, and I don't see Apple plopping down $2,000 to $20,000 per year for each iPhone it sells just to license Google Maps.

The new maps app isn't a complete disaster -- it gets the job done for the most part. It certainly isn't Google Maps, but in a year or two, with some tweaking, I can believe it may rival Google Maps. It's a step backward, but sometimes you must take one step back before going two steps forward (to flip the old adage around). Apple's involvement in this new maps app will benefit a lot of people, plus help to increase the accuracy of OpenStreetMaps overall, for all users -- not just iOS users.