New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

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.

the thing about apple is ppl have ALWAYS... at least in the modern osx era... complained about how the software looks... pinstripes brushed aluminum etc

its how easy it is to interact with that ppl love, not the look so much

imo

also the alternative to skeumorphic design has always seemed to be like... look at our different-coloured squares... i think we are still pretty early on in an evolution of an "anything goes" (ie we have the power/resolution to display anything we want) design language for digital stuff

i still prefer the system 7 window theme, tbh. even more than platinum. but tbf those complaints all have really similar roots: stop trying to make software ape real-world objects. That's only become more obviously the problem as the quality of the mimicry improves.

xp there are also two levels to skeumorphism: there's the leather and the stitching, but there's also the "pretend this is an actual calendar", which leads to daft limitations like you can't see the next three weeks on the last week of a month.

Designers need to learn (or relearn) how to break out of both those mindsets to advance.

xp there are also two levels to skeumorphism: there's the leather and the stitching, but there's also the "pretend this is an actual calendar", which leads to daft limitations like you can't see the next three weeks on the last week of a month.

I've always thought that skeumorphism is a result of generational differences - at the management level there's still guys who still believe that there's a significant population of people who haven't used a computer and still need ridiculous visual cues for familiarity. I noticed this at the keynote for the original iPad when so much time was wasted on showing off the same b.s. word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation dog-and-pony shows when there was so much more greater potential to highlight.

My favorite interface is still the original NeXTStep interface.

Gotta admit that the thing that I'm most cheesed about re: Apple Maps is simple -- pedestrian/transit directions require an extra app. Thanks dudes. Until that's resolved I will be sticking with Google.

i don't think i ever once used google maps for public transport direx, but that's probably only because Transport for London has such a comprehensive dealie for it, a public database that any app can tap into

So OTM re nextstep. Except the mail app and its jumbo buttons

There's free maps apps for iphone that are better than google maps, don't get why that's so terrible.

so uh what are they

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410009,00.asp

(not all mentioned are free, and hilariously one of the namechecked apps is from Tom Tom)

"not all mentioned are free" = half are 49.99 !!!!!!

hopstop sounds pretty cool though

really, I'm going to use bing on an iphone? *gives up*

in a waikiki starbucks at about 9:00 this morning, i saw a man in his late 40s/early 50s, sitting by himself in a leather armchair. moustachioed and casually dressed (faded ballcap, t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops) he wore sunglasses while reading the Wall Street Journal. almost as soon as i took note of him, i watched as he turned the page to a full-page ad for the iPhone 5. despite this ad having hardly any text, he held it up and seemed to be closely studying it for a good ten or fifteen seconds, until finally making a silent mock-"well aren't we special!" head wobble, folding the paper in half, setting it down, and taking a sip of coffee.

casually dressed (faded ballcap, black turtleneck, jeans, new balances)

"well aren't we special!"

:D

i mean aa recommending android to others then getting an iphone himself is p illustrative of the nature of peoples complaints

― lag∞n, Saturday, 22 September 2012 00:09 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sadly this is otm. my reason is specific (i.e. good luck to learners of chinese on an android handset) but millions of people probably have equally specific ios requirements.

btw apple's 'maps will improve as people use it' is wishful thinking imo.

well i bet it actually will, it just may not ever catch up with gmaps

theyll improve because apple works on them, people using them just provides useful data

Pretty pissed that my iPad 1 is essentially obsolete already.