I’ve not had great results when using Apple’s iOS 6 Maps app, in fact, my fiancee has banned me from using it completely after Siri tried to send us over a cliff. Clearly we didn’t follow the directions, which quickly recalculated. → Read More
Crystal ball-gazing time from Gartner… The analysts, which last night published some stats on how PCs continue to reign as the woolly mammoth of the tech world, today followed up with a list of predictions for one of the areas still on a big upswing: mobile services, and specifically on smartphones and tablets (AKA the devices that are causing all that doom and gloom for PCs). Gartner predicts… → Read More
Google is continuing to gain points on the mapping front, today launching yet more features for the product at a time when Apple’s offering continues to appear weak by comparison. Today it announced that it has given Street View, which lets users see photographic images of particular locations, its biggest update yet, covering 250,000 miles of roads across more than 17 countries.
The news… → Read More
Editor’s note: Scott Rafer is CEO of Lumatic, a company that believes Cities are Humanity’s Future so they must be easier to love.
Maps are really hard, but the industry aspects are even rougher than the technology. That’s why it’s time for mapping people to quit apologizing and go for the throat. → Read More
Google has yet to publish a native Google Maps app for Apple’s iOS devices (although we hear it’s coming soon), but in the meantime it continues to beef up the experience on its iOS-focused web app, today adding its popular Street View functionality, which allows users to see actual images of a location or route. → Read More
As the fallout from Apple’s decision to launch its own mapping app for iOS continues, Google is clearly trying to turn Apple’s problems into an opportunity for itself. Without a native Google Maps for iOS app, however, Google’s only way onto the iPhone is as a web app. For the most part, the mobile version of Google Maps can easily rival the old Apple Maps app, but the one missing feature is … → Read More
In a new piece today that cites multiple current and former Apple employees as sources, Bloomberg Businessweek asks the question of whether Apple’s maps fiasco would’ve happened under Steve Jobs. The report reveals that Jobs had “come to loathe” Google, not only for copying iOS, but also for “withholding” turn-by-turn voice-guided navigation from Google Maps on Apple’s mobile platform. → Read More
Editor’s note: Grant Ritchie is the CEO and founder of Locationary, which created the Saturn management and exchange platform for local business profiles and POI data. Follow Locationary here.
The Apple iPhone 5 has been quite a story for a while with many “firsts”: the fastest hardware, the most first-week sales, and so on. The device is also now famous for what it doesn’t have: Google… → Read More
Now that Apple has told the world that it didn’t come with its best offering for Maps, the company is now featuring other map applications heavily within the App Store. → Read More
This crazy game of poker continues between Apple and Google in what has been dubbed by some people as #mapsgate. Today, Apple CEO Tim Cook stepped out and apologized for the poor experience that its 100 million iOS 6 users were experiencing trying to navigate the world using their new offering.
Well played, Mr. Cook. → Read More
If I’m a company that makes a third-party mapping app for iOS, I am putting up billboards, tackling people in the streets, emailing every tech blog known to man and potentially stalking some of them to get the word out about my offerings. → Read More
According to Reuters, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told a crowd of reporters that the company has not submitted a native Google Maps app to Apple as of yet. → Read More
I know, I know. You’re tired of hearing about Apple Maps in iOS 6, but it’s a hot topic. Because of it, Google is being discussed in the news more and more. The fruits of that labor is now reflected in its stock price, which has surged to an all-time high of $747.90. → Read More
Everywhere you turned last week, there was another story about iOS 6 Maps. Some feel like it’s a great new direction for Apple, but people like me feel like we’re left with an ugly experience that shouldn’t have been introduced to the public in its current state. → Read More
Ok, I’m not a fan of Maps in iOS 6 as you might have read. Seems like the folks over at Google aren’t either. By way of Motorola Mobility’s Google+ page (the company that is now owned by Google) a post just popped up with a fun hashtag. → Read More
While Apple continues to weather very bad press (and embarrassing photographic evidence) over its fumble on Maps in iOS 6, here’s another development in the mapping world, also related to an Apple service. MapBox, which contributes to the open-source OpenStreetMap, used in Apple’s iPhoto service, is getting an injection of cash. Today MapBox announced a grant of $575,000 from the Knight… → Read More
Apple has finally broken silence on the customer reaction to Maps in iOS 6, which spawned Tumblrs, fake twitter accounts and generally a lot of mockery and confusion. The statement, provided to AllThingsD from Apple spokeswoman Trudy Miller, essentially says this is a first try, and Apple knows there’s lots to do to make it better. → Read More
Since the iOS 6 update, there’s been a lot of negative reaction from users, around issues of accuracy (this Tumblr says it all) and the lack of built-in transit directions. In particular, as a car-less city-dweller myself, I wanted to talk to developers who are filling the gap when it comes to public transit navigation, to find out what they thought about the way it’s been implemented, what’s… → Read More
Over the past day or so the vituperation against the iOS 6 Maps app, AKA the Maps app that makes you wish you were running Android, has been rising on the blogosphere. Why? Well the app is kind of wonky, it doesn’t have StreetView, and it looks and feels like a twee designer’s vision of a ratty road atlas – hard to read yet surprisingly calming.
A new Twitter account @iOS6maps is offering a bit… → Read More
As you know, Apple has released iOS 6 widely, and I’m not too stoked about the new Maps application. I’ve been using it for a few months thanks to the developer version, and my experience has been maddening. Why? Because I take public transportation. A lot. → Read More
So, iOS 6 is upon us and people are going to start getting their new iPhones this week as well. What they’ll soon (maybe) realize is that Maps for iOS is no longer powered by Google. And it sucks something fierce.
I’m not going to go into tons of technical detail as to why this is, but let me just say that when consumers are used to an experience for, oh, five years, and you all of a sudden… → Read More
Apple’s iOS 6 will be available for users to download and install on September 19, two days before the iPhone 5 is set to hit shelves. As per usual, the update brings a lot of new stuff to the table. Good stuff that will significantly improve user experience. But in a rare move for Apple, it also ticks the needle back a few notches in at least one big way: Google Maps is leaving as the platform’s… → Read More
One of the pieces of functionality that Google+ provides is the ability to share your location with your circles. It’s pretty handy when you’re using Google+ from a mobile device. The way that the location is displayed isn’t anything to write home about, so a former Google intern took it upon himself to write a Chrome extension that brings locations to life in Google+. → Read More
Native app usage has been edging just ahead of mobile web usage among U.S. smartphone owners in the last few months, but when it comes to the category of travel, mobile web use all but disappears from the map. According to figures out today from Nielsen, 95% of all mobile traffic for travel-related content comes from native mobile apps — specifically on iOS and Android platforms. Mobile web … → Read More
Starting today, the Venetian-Palazzo Casino and Hotel (owned by The Las Vegas Sands Corp.) is beginning to employ an app technology by Meridian as their indoor navigation service of choice in order to help you get around their casino more efficiently. This new “wayfinding” technology will reside in the resort’s new app called VP Pocket Concierge.
While we wait for the full-throttle effect of Apple Maps in iOS6, a new app has launched today that is raising the game for what we should be expecting out of the world of social-mobile-local services. Recce — pronounced “wreckie”, British slang for “reconnaissance” (only English people would make slang out of a word like that) — presents a 3D, animated birds-eye view of a city, and what is… → Read More
Following the debut of indoor maps in Google Maps back in November, Google announced today that it’s adding the indoor maps for over twenty U.S. museums to its Maps app on Android. The museums added include the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cincinnati Museum Center, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and 17 Smithsonian… → Read More
With Google and Apple making back-to-back announcements about their new mapping efforts in the last few weeks, Microsoft obviously felt a bit left out. Today, however, the company is launching its largest imagery release in its history: Bing Maps today features a full 165 terabytes worth of new data that spans about 1 million square miles. What’s maybe even more interesting, though, is that the… → Read More
News that Apple’s brand-spankin’ new Maps app wouldn’t have full functionality across all of their iOS 6-capable devices struck many as a major blow this week. Apple’s known to keep flagship features on flagship devices, so relegating turn-by-turn navigation and the 3D “Flyover” mode to the iPhone 4S and new iPad only fits with that strategy.
But it turns out that a Russian website called … → Read More
CityMaps, the social mapping company fresh off its $2.5 million Series A, is rolling out a big update today which not only brings the service to a fourth city (Boston), but also introduces a recommendations feature it calls “Featured Maps.” This option allows users to quickly see recommended places to eat, drink, shop and play as a new layer on the map.
The update is live now in the iTunes App… → Read More
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