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iOS 6 |OT| New Maps? googy pls

numble

Member
Anyone running the beta know if the new iPad does Turn-by-Turn in the zoomed in 3D mode? On the iPad 2 it does Turn-By-Turn, but in the overhead mode. At least on the WiFi iPad 2.
 

numble

Member
Eltspl.jpg
Maps updated from yesterday.
vjGjHl.jpg


It looks like the maps have been updated. I tried really hard to duplicate the old screenshot from yesterday, but it's harder since these are vector maps (many more zoom levels than the standard couple zoom levels on old maps) and I had 3D mode on. Nevertheless, you can tell it was updated since they renamed the park. It looks like they're showing street names more often in this version, too.
 

rezuth

Member
Maps updated from yesterday.
vjGjHl.jpg


It looks like the maps have been updated. I tried really hard to duplicate the old screenshot from yesterday, but it's harder since these are vector maps (many more zoom levels than the standard couple zoom levels on old maps) and I had 3D mode on. Nevertheless, you can tell it was updated since they renamed the park. It looks like they're showing street names more often in this version, too.

So the park changed name? Like that they are showing street names though, just don't get it too cluttered. Add more locations for international. I could get to restaurants with google maps but not the new Apple Maps
 

LCfiner

Member
Good to see they’re already working on the street name tweaking. although in this example, Carmine st name is now gone. oops
 

numble

Member
One thing I noticed about these images is that for long streets/roads, the app doesn't repeat the road name. For example, look at my image below, if I'm zoomed in at this level, how will I know what the green/red/blue road name is?

ibfllScjBSa7a0.jpg
This view was also updated:

HJ9p7l.jpg

How are maps updated?
They just appear to be doing it on the server.

I swear it was updated as I was trying to get this map centered and zoomed right--there was Houston St (the horizontally east-west street going in a diagonal) and only one MacDougal, then the MacDougal on the bottom was replaced with a one-way arrow for a second. Maybe they're reading GAF!
 
Another neat thing with Maps I just realized is that you can single-finger tap and it will constantly zoom in on the map wherever you tapping. If you do a double-finger tap, the map will zoom out. I like the idea of just being able to tap to zoom in and out, so this is nice. If old, woops!
 
Another neat thing with Maps I just realized is that you can single-finger tap and it will constantly zoom in on the map wherever you tapping. If you do a double-finger tap, the map will zoom out. I like the idea of just being able to tap to zoom in and out, so this is nice. If old, woops!

I don't know if this was a feature before, but along these lines if you hold your finger on any one spot it'll drop a pin.
 

NekoFever

Member
Another neat thing with Maps I just realized is that you can single-finger tap and it will constantly zoom in on the map wherever you tapping. If you do a double-finger tap, the map will zoom out. I like the idea of just being able to tap to zoom in and out, so this is nice. If old, woops!
Yeah, that's been in there for as long as I can remember.
 

giga

Member
Alright, I think I see why there's variation. Sometimes I get location icons like restaurants or transit stations and sometimes I don't. I'm not sure what triggers one over the other, but you'll never see a location icon overlap a road name. Because these are all vector based, it'll show one or the other, but not both overlapping.

Zooming in of courses fixes this, but at zoomed out levels, I think they should make a priority to show road names over location icons unless the user specifies. Or make a toggle to hide location icons altogether or only show location icons at very zoomed in levels where you get more space.

Example of it not showing Carmine St. because Spunto and Do Hwa are blocking it:

y7ymc.png


But a little zooming…

bi80d.png
 

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
for those enjoying the geekiness of vector maps, i love how Google's implemented it in their web client - https://maps.google.com/?vector=1 (only works on WebGL-enabled browsers like Chrome and Firefox. can be enabled in Safari through the Develop menu).

go to, say, Stuy Town in NYC (http://goo.gl/kB7O8) and pan around - not only are buildings rendered and shaded in real-time, they've even approximated the shadow creep of the sun.

and DO Hwa is a good place for Korean BBQ if you want to avoid the bustle around K-Town, and don't want to head out to Northern Blvd in Queens.
 
No matter what I do, I can't get Maps to prioritize restaurants. The Maps I'm seeing aren't bad, but that still leaves the question of why the arrowed road has no name.

20120624-dje8xxnr9yn7w4fdt1pxnkybch.jpg
 
An Amazing Maps Experience Is Coming To iOS, Confirms Google SVP

In this competitive and often cut-throat industry, we wouldn’t really expect Google to take this lightly, but we perhaps didn’t expect a reaction so soon. In the aftermath of Apple’s WWDC mapping announcement, Google have already slashed the price of the Maps API to encourage more people to use and include it in their software, but they have also given an indication that they are busy concocting their own iOS app to directly rival Apple’s native Maps app. At this stage of proceedings, information is scarce with extremely little being known, but Google’s Senior Vice President of Commerce and Local has let the cat out of the bag. Replying to a question from an iOS fan on Google+, Jeff Huber had this to say:

"We look forward to providing an amazing Google Maps experience on iOS".

It isn’t exactly the most earth-shattering announcement, considering we all pretty much expected something of this nature from Google. The iOS audience is such a huge worldwide market that Google would be crazy to dismiss them in favor of other ventures. There will inevitably be a lot of users who have become so used to using the familiar Google Maps app that they will more than likely prefer familiarization over whatever Apple will bring with the final build of iOS 6, meaning a Google Maps app could be extremely successful. Whatever Google have up their sleeves, it will be extremely interesting to see how this one progresses.
 

numble

Member
That looks terrible. I'm getting worried that new maps suck.
The heartening thing is that everything labelled on that Google Map is also labelled in the Apple Map, except the Dog Run. The algorithms are currently very aggressive about hiding labels until you get to higher zoom levels. There's also an intentional design choice to be more minimalistic, so we're probably never going to get as busy as Google Maps at the same zoom level, but hopefully they'll go somewhere in-between.

The worst case scenario would be if they actually didn't have the data to label the streets correctly.
The new maps app is awful. Just wait for googy to save us.
I think there are some nice improvements. Being vector allows maps to download very fast--Maps is actually useful on an edge connection, whereas previously it was a pain to use. The Turn-By-Turn is nicer than Turn-By-Turn on Android 2.2 (my only experience), and being able to search for things along your route is nice.
 

hirokazu

Member
The new maps app is awful. Just wait for googy to save us.
It does. The aggressive hiding of information needs a lot of tweaking, but the larger problem is the data is completely sparse outside the US.

Compare Australia, Japan, China for example. It's a huge downgrade. It's completely barebones, many places don't even have streets named at all. Need to find a restaurant? You're fucked.

I know most people prefer something in between Google's level of clutter and Apple's sparseness, but given a choice between only the two, I'd definitely choose Google.
 
Mobile street view on iOS will live on. Good!

Ya, but the problem is Apple doesn't let you set default apps so Google Maps will no longer be integrated with the OS. It's one of my big annoyances with iOS because the integration was what attracted me to the iPhone when it was first announced.

The new maps app is awful. Just wait for googy to save us.

I think it's going to suck or be fairly bad out the gate and that there is going to be growing pains with this switch. I think eventually it'l be pretty decent if not good, but it won't be by the time iOS6 is released. It's a shame too because any iPhone user who uses maps will be in many ways be taking a step backward until Apple can get up to speed with Google.
 

LCfiner

Member
Ya, but the problem is Apple doesn't let you set default apps so Google Maps will no longer be integrated with the OS. It's one of my big annoyances with iOS because the integration was what attracted me to the iPhone when it was first announced.



I think it's going to suck or be fairly bad out the gate and that there is going to be growing pains with this switch. I think eventually it'l be pretty decent if not good, but it won't be by the time iOS6 is released. It's a shame too because any iPhone user who uses maps will be in many ways be taking a step backward until Apple can get up to speed with Google.

That doesn’t bother me too much. I mean, on a larger scale, it’d be nice if iOS could set default third party apps to handle things like internet, maps, mail, etc. but my actual daily usage of maps won’t be hindered by having a non default google maps third party app.

I’m confident that the actual data in the apple maps will be OK since they’re working with Tom Tom. the issue I have with it now is the way they’re choosing to show so few street names (which they’re already tweaking) and the lack of street view (which is google exclusive data.)

as a default maps app that works with siri and gives you turn by turn, the issues I have with the new maps app wouldn’t really show up.

I can launch the google app manually to go to street view. pretty much the same thing i do now.
 
That doesn’t bother me too much. I mean, on a larger scale, it’d be nice if iOS could set default third party apps to handle things like internet, maps, mail, etc. but my actual daily usage of maps won’t be hindered by having a non default google maps third party app.

I’m confident that the actual data in the apple maps will be OK since they’re working with Tom Tom. the issue I have with it now is the way they’re choosing to show so few street names (which they’re already tweaking) and the lack of street view (which is google exclusive data.)

as a default maps app that works with siri and gives you turn by turn, the issues I have with the new maps app wouldn’t really show up.

I can launch the google app manually to go to street view. pretty much the same thing i do now.

I often get addresses of places in e-mail, like a restaurant to go to and I like to click on the address which takes me to maps and I can check out street view. This change would hinder that flow. Or heck, I often click on an address in various apps or even iMessage, so ya, it all affects the flow for how I use maps in my case.
 

frico

Member
I understand all the hate at the current state of maps on iOS but I do not understand the predictions that it will suck. You do realize it's in private beta and they are continuing to tweak it. A lot can happen by the time iOS 6 launches. The reality is we just don't know if it will suck or not.
 

Sean

Banned
I understand all the hate at the current state of maps on iOS but I do not understand the predictions that it will suck. You do realize it's in private beta and they are continuing to tweak it. A lot can happen by the time iOS 6 launches. The reality is we just don't know if it will suck or not.

It might not outright "suck" but it'll definitely be a downgrade from Google Maps which has a seven year head start. I think they'll tweak it further and improve it a bunch, but the lack of street view will be a huge complaint.
 

numble

Member
It does. The aggressive hiding of information needs a lot of tweaking, but the larger problem is the data is completely sparse outside the US.

Compare Australia, Japan, China for example. It's a huge downgrade. It's completely barebones, many places don't even have streets named at all. Need to find a restaurant? You're fucked.

I know most people prefer something in between Google's level of clutter and Apple's sparseness, but given a choice between only the two, I'd definitely choose Google.
When I'm talking about in-between, I'm talking about a situation when the data is there, but selectively hidden, not when data is outright missing.

At least with China, I think they're adding info. I might be imagining, but I think they've added a lot more street data recently, at least in Beijing. I don't think there were subway stops there initially.
 

numble

Member
There is a rudimentary crowdsourcing feature. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in old maps, but I may be wrong. You can even add info to a random pin you create.

FYWU9l.jpg


csT6yl.jpg


j5Hqbl.jpg
 

hirokazu

Member
When I'm talking about in-between, I'm talking about a situation when the data is there, but selectively hidden, not when data is outright missing.

At least with China, I think they're adding info. I might be imagining, but I think they've added a lot more street data recently, at least in Beijing. I don't think there were subway stops there initially.
With Google, even a lot of towns and villages had not just street names and a whole ton of shops and this labelled. With Apple, I can't see the names of some streets in cities. I dunno about Beijing but I'd imagine it's better there.

EDIT: I just checked again and while street names are still a problem it seems there is a lot more information on the maps for China now compared to when the beta first started. Could've sworn the first time I checked there was practically nothing apart from some parks labelled.

I think Australia is getting a bit more populated with data now too, so let's hope that's a trend that will continue through the betas.
 

hirokazu

Member
There is a rudimentary crowdsourcing feature. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in old maps, but I may be wrong. You can even add info to a random pin you create.

FYWU9l.jpg


csT6yl.jpg


j5Hqbl.jpg
Pretty sure there was something like that before but I never used it so I don't know if it's the same as before.

That's nice, I think I'll help Apple populate their maps if this will help.
 

numble

Member
Pretty sure there was something like that before but I never used it so I don't know if it's the same as before.

That's nice, I think I'll help Apple populate their maps if this will help.
There's actually more options if you use the "report a problem" link "behind" the map.

Rf7awl.jpg
 
The Do Not Disturb schedule also works just fine on my iPhone 4. I set it to turn on at 11:00 PM, off at 8:00 AM. Works great. I also set it to not allow repeated calls, but allow anyone to call me that's on my contact list. Quite nice.
 
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