Posts tagged with "Apple Maps"

Apple Maps vs. Google Maps vs. Transit→

Concise, well-illustrated comparison of transit maps from the developers of Transit for iOS:

Transit maps are hard. Really hard. Even for Apple and Google. Piecing a transit map together, city by city, agency by agency, stop by stop, without it turning into a hairy mess is INCREDIBLY difficult. So far, no one (not even Apple or Google) have been able to create a transit map that is both automatically generated and well designed. Why is that?

As Apple outlined at WWDC, their approach to transit takes a long time because it involves manually curated details (things like signs, directions, and cultural conventions that match the real world), which wouldn’t be possible with an algorithm alone.

That said, I can vouch for Transit in Rome. The app is excellent. Well designed, with some clever interactions (such as an “arrive by” option to plan a trip on a timeline), and a joy to use. It’s also the only decent transit app that combines public transit with local car sharing services on the same map.

I wish Apple Maps transit data was a) available in Rome and b) as flexible as Transit.

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Google Maps & Apple Maps: Cartography Comparison→

When I linked to Justin O’Beirne’s analysis of Google Maps in May, I asked:

It’d be interesting to see the same comparisons between Apple and Google, as well as between old Apple Maps and Apple Maps today.

Not only did Justin deliver (for context, he designed and led the development of Apple Maps’ cartography), he’s started an entire series detailing the cartography of Google Maps and Apple Maps.

At its heart, this series of essays is a comparison of the current state of Google’s and Apple’s cartography. But it’s also something more: an exploration into all of the tradeoffs that go into designing and making maps such as these.

These tradeoffs are the joy of modern cartography — the thousands of tiny, seemingly isolated decisions that coalesce into a larger, greater whole.

Our purpose here is not to crown a winner, but to observe the paths taken — and not taken.

(Can you tell he left Apple in 2015?)

I couldn’t stop reading the first post in the series, in which Justin compares the choices Google and Apple have made for displaying cities, roads, and points of interests on their maps. Utterly fascinating and amazingly detailed.

I’ve always preferred Apple’s overall design and balance of their maps (which Justin’s data confirms), but, in my experience, their data (POIs and roads) was either old or inaccurate. My area in Rome seems to have improved in the past year, and maybe I should try Apple Maps again.

I’m looking forward to Justin’s next entries in the series.

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What Happened to Google Maps?→

Fascinating study by Justin O’Beirne on how Google Maps changed from 2010 to 2016 – fewer cities, more roads, and not a lot of balance between them on a map at the same zoom level.

He writes:

Unfortunately, these “optimizations” only served to exacerbate the longstanding imbalances already in the maps. As is often the case with cartography: less isn’t more. Less is just less. And that’s certainly the case here.

As O’Beirne also notes, the changes were likely made to provide a more pleasant viewing experience on mobile devices.

I understand his point of view – the included examples really make a solid case – but I can also see why Google may consider the average user (looking up points of interest nearby, starting navigation on their phone) and think that most users don’t want that kind of cartographic detail anymore.

It’d be interesting to see the same comparisons between Apple and Google, as well as between old Apple Maps and Apple Maps today.

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Apple Maps Used “Three Times As Often As Its Next Leading Competitor”→

In an article from Associated Press, Anick Jesdanun gets a comment from Apple regarding the popularity of Apple Maps:

Apple says its mapping service is now used more than three times as often as its next leading competitor on iPhones and iPads, with more than 5 billion map-related requests each week. Research firm comScore says Apple has a modest lead over Google on iPhones in the U.S., though comScore measures how many people use a service in a given month rather than how often.

…

“We are fast learners and we are fast at fixing things,” said Greg “Joz” Joswiak, an Apple vice president who oversees product marketing for iPhones and related services. “We learned the maps business incredibly fast.”

It’s abundantly clear that Apple Maps has improved significantly in just three years, but at least in my experience, it still has a way to go before it is up to the standard of Google Maps, globally.

Which is why I thought it was odd that Apple would publicly reveal, in an almost boastful manner, that Apple Maps is used “more than three times as often as its next leading competitor” (read: Google Maps). At first glance that sounds impressive, but Apple Maps has been automatically installed on every single iOS device since 2012. If someone wants to use Google Maps they need to actively take steps to find it, install it, and avoid using Apple Maps when tapping address links or using Siri.

I wonder what the statistics are for some of Apple’s other default, automatically installed, apps? How many people use Safari, or Apple Mail or Apple Calendars rather than the “next leading competitor”? I would put money on those other default apps being way more than just three times as popular as the third party alternatives.

https://twitter.com/zkahn94/status/674081643141988353

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