New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

the annoying thing about cases is that you have to take them off to put your phone in the cradle in your car

hey i bought this expensive thing and a big part of its cost has to do w/how small it is, i think ill make it bigger

no one buys iPhones because they're small

uh

what

I have a case because I'm an amazing klutz. I have repeatedly dropped my phone when taking it out of my pocket and the case has saved it from damage every time.

otoh I have also dropped my iphone 3gs like 100s of times and the back is cracked but it still works great

http://i.imgur.com/o44nv.jpg

been there done that

What I can't quite grasp is: if the maps data is TomTom's, why aren't there more complaints about their satnav devices?

I think partly because this is a search problem, not a map problem. In the car the device forces you to put in a very specific address format or postcode, which is easier to find. And even if the precise location it finds is a bit out, so long as it gets you to the nearest road you're fine.

On the phone it has to deal with searches like "Jack's pub" and needs street-level accuracy.

Can't find it now but I read a statement from TomTom saying that even some of Google's map data is based on TomTom, it's all about how it is presented and used rather than the basemap itself.

tomtom is p buggy in my limited experience tho

Still kind of wondering if apple really wanted to do maps or if they just wanted a weak upper hand in negotiations with google about services

http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/joel-hodgson-a-taste-of-hell-from-on-high/siri-vs-mr-freeze

lol at iphone cases, they are belt phone holsters for the 2000s

Kind of moving around to that, since the new AppleCare lets you replace the whole phone for $50 and a good case is probably 25?

"but apple is going to pay some price for underestimating its importance."

this is a big assumption, but anyone who reviewed ios6 and didn't mention how useless maps was should be ashamed of themselves and should feel bad.

― caek, Friday, September 21, 2012 10:04 AM (52 minutes ago)

well they already paid the price of iphone 5 not being an option for employees at my company, I'm sure other folks are making the same types of decisions. plus the frustration of folks who take the plunge with trust and end up getting burned. hopefully they'll get it sorted out but

yeah if they allow a google maps app, who cares

this is a big assumption tho. rumor is google's developed one but there's no guarantee apple will release it to the app store. especially if apple believes a) utilization is the best way to improve their own maps, b) google is their mortal enemy, c) admitting fault is to be avoided at all costs.

I would imagine they'll allow it as long as it lacks turn-by-turn directions?

i have an iphone case so it doesn't slip out of my pocket/out of my hands/off the table/etc

deal with it

obv google knew native youtube was getting deprecated from ios6, since their standalone app was ready prior to launch. they've had to have known for quite some time that maps was going too.

Just tried the new Maps app on a colleague's phone. Didn't get as far as looking for inaccuracies as the thing doesn't even have pedestrian directions (which is all I ever want). I think I'd forgotten that feature was being scrapped. That makes it next to useless for me.

well they already paid the price of iphone 5 not being an option for employees at my company, I'm sure other folks are making the same types of decisions. plus the frustration of folks who take the plunge with trust and end up getting burned. hopefully they'll get it sorted out but

no i mean the assumption the reason that they got rid of google maps or that their own maps sucks is just that they didn't think maps was that important. i think both are pretty unlikely.

http://www.fumedivision.com//wp-content/uploads/2007/08/60084-525-393.jpghttp://d.yimg.com/ec/image/v1/release/33908525;encoding=jpg;size=300;fallback=defaultImage

xp i do agree that this is going to "hurt the brand", although i'm skeptical about how many new sales it's going to cost

they likely think maps are super important and want to grab marketshare for themselves rather than sharing it with Google, glossing over the fact that Google has a multiyear head start on them in the space on iOS and that the thing that makes Google Maps the most valuable is the searching capability

as I said earlier, this is classic big software hubris

no biking and no pedestrian instructions is so stupid

ah ok caek

seems like they can't figure out how to work jobs' reality distortion raygun, "we're just getting started" is not some shit the world's largest company should be saying, but yeah hubris

http://mashable.com/2012/09/20/apple-maps-respons/

once in rural France my gps took me onto a dirt road alongside a river, & the road kept getting smaller & smaller until it ended in a creek

in that creek I saw an iphone floating

Ok just completely lost my shit in a coffeehouse

yeah that is short fiction prize material

they likely think maps are super important and want to grab marketshare for themselves rather than sharing it with Google, glossing over the fact that Google has a multiyear head start on them in the space on iOS and that the thing that makes Google Maps the most valuable is the searching capability

as I said earlier, this is classic big software hubris

― cake-like Lady Gaga (DJP), Friday, September 21, 2012 11:37 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i doubt they glossed over how far ahead google was, its just they need their own maps cause a. the data it generates is super valuable b. they dont want to be beholden to their biggest competitor for key functionality - i doubt they realized how bad the product would be at launch but im sure they knew going in there would be serious growing pains and just figured itd be worth it, and theyre prob right

there is always the possibility that google was like no

if Apple works in a matter remotely similar to my company, they also glossed over how far ahead of them Google was on this

also, thanks to the weird way large companies can bend consumers to their will with horrible software, you are likely right that this will not matter in the long run

i will meet you half way, they were prob naive abt how far google was ahead of them, but they likely knew it was very far

i do think it will hurt apple long term if the maps cant get to p good usability, they maybe dont have to be as good as googles, but they have to be good

i do think the era of being able to shove terrible software down peoples throats is nearing its end fwiw, it may have some legs in enterprise but theres so much choice for consumers, particularly in mobile

very good point, I'm definitely enterprise-centric in my views on this

well apple prob needs to position their maps as being the best and most usable app for basic mobile usage (where am i, is there a thing nearby, how do i get there), and can let google go on and be the ppl that are just mapping fucking everything

i am only mildly knowledgeable at GIS, but feel pretty strongly that it is a woefully underused technology; as google continues its project of "uniting all the datasets", i think they'll move into more industrial/enterprise level stuff. i would be surprised if there isn't an open-source program from them very soon that has basic consumer-grade GIS capabilities, and an enterprise-level version that competes with ESRI products

its kinda shocking how much consumer software has changed since the introduction of the iphone

the age of design has dawned, hallelujah

yeah, and hopefully the faux leather shit is just the same effect as when the Chicago and San Francisco fonts were in every late 80s design

its weird because those skeuomorphic thingies run contrary to the general shift in software design which has figured out that the design is the usablity

why slap some silly shit on top

xps now

dunno if yr kidding, but yeah: computers are powerful enough, and our ability to program them good enough, that merely having an app that does something novel isn't impressive enough for the jaded consumer. if it doesnt have big easy buttons and an intuitive way of going about it, ppl aren't gonna buy it. otoh---apps are cheap enough to both buy and develop, that some consumers (me at least) are willing to buy an app, see that it isn't ~quite there yet~, delete it, and wait for something better, cuz it'll happen soon enough.

prob talking out my ass here but surely "versioning rates," for lack of a better term, have got to be way higher for a given piece of iOS software than any desktop program? maybe apple is guessing that ppl are used to this? and that they can reasonably expect to wait a little bit---but not too long---for their app to get up to speed

its weird because those skeuomorphic thingies run contrary to the general shift in software design which has figured out that the design is the usablity

― lag∞n, Friday, September 21, 2012 11:32 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's really, really weird to me. esp since iOS itself seems predicated on a streamlined interface that has no "literal" counterpart, aside from one of those calculators for babies/old people

a. the data it generates is super valuable

this is the weirdest thing though - apple is not a search company. they're not going to make a lot of money off people searching for stuff, so they're always going to have less of an organizational imperative to have awesome maps, it'll always be harder for them than it will be for google.

but yeah, point b for sure

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Steve_Jobs_Headshot_2010-CROP.jpg/250px-Steve_Jobs_Headshot_2010-CROP.jpg

we call it the iCalculator for babies/old people

god damn it

this is the weirdest thing though - apple is not a search company. they're not going to make a lot of money off people searching for stuff

― hot slag (lukas), Friday, September 21, 2012 12:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this data can inform siri, which is a search engine, itll be key to the internet of things, digital payments, etc blah blah blah, ie most of the stuff it relates to hasnt surfaced yet, this is all abt positioning, knowing where a person is and whats around them is super important in mobile, its all tied together maaaan

no i mean the assumption the reason that they got rid of google maps or that their own maps sucks is just that they didn't think maps was that important. i think both are pretty unlikely.

There's actually a bit more history behind all of this. I do remember early on in the iOS 1.0 era that both AT&T and Apple were surprised by just how popular Maps became (go figure!), and that the overall bandwidth that Maps uses could be relatively high... 60-70MB/month if you were getting directions 10 times a day. The TomTom maps are actually vectorized rather than raster tiles, so the new system will display faster and use less bandwidth.

Then there's the whole question about Google's own mapping API. Back when iOS 3 was released, Core Location was opened up so you could finally get GPS coordinates into your application, however because of Google's terms of use, you would have to license your own maps - otherwise you had to punt over to the old Apple Maps. Google's Terms Of Service for the Maps API is actually somewhat complex: http://developers.google.com/maps/faq - mapping isn't exactly a core part of their revenue (search and advertising is), so there's less motivation for Google to offer these other services as stand-alone apps. The old Maps app was written by Apple, not Google, and wasn't exactly the greatest thing out there either - there was more constant criticism about Apple not providing turn-by-turn navigation over the years than complaints about the new Maps now.

To add further complexity, Google is most definitely in the data collection business so if you allow turn-by-turn navigation then who gets to keep that search data? Does keeping a record violate Apple's own terms-of-service with the consumer? I understand why Apple did what it did, but I think it could have been handled better. At the very least a preference setting that would allow you to choose a map provider similar to how you can switch between Google searching and Yahoo or Bing. Want turn-by-turn? Auto-switch to Apple.

The whole "removing functionality and then covering it up with a dubious feature" (the 3D city stuff) is an old Apple m.o. that annoys the hell out of me.

I can't wait to see what they've ripped out of iTunes in exactly that MO

apple's map motivations seem pretty clear - apart from the basic importance of location to mobile, they don't want to be beholden to google, and from what I understand google wouldn't license turn-by-turn to apple, reserving it for android. so yeah apple got backed into a corner but instead of figuring out the best way to the door they've smashed a hole in the wall and called it a window.