Typing "21st and 6th" gives me an alert that says "no results found". I am about 500 feet from 21st and 6th. Other intersections have jumped me to Texas and South Carolina.

I can't believe this is something they're actually going to release. I hope that it might be better on release, but it seems like the backend should be continually upgraded.

Google has spent a long time pouring a ton of money and manpower into their geocoder and the data behind it. It's completely unsurprising that Apple is not able to match their quality. It will be an iterative process that improves as they get more usage data to leverage.

That said, your example is pretty shocking considering Apple's historically stringent quality standards.

I feel dirty playing the J card, but...

It this something that would have happened with Steve at the helm? I mean, the business case for moving off of your competitor's flagship map product is clear. You want to get them out of your product development cycle, you want to deny them revenue, you want to dilute their brand. I get that.

But still, Apple is ultimately achieving this by pushing what seems to be universally regarded as an inferior product out to its customers. It's basically a downgrade. When has Apple ever done that before?

"It this something that would have happened with Steve at the helm?"

Do you think Apple hasn't been working in this direction since before Steve left the helm?

Placebase acquisition: Jul 2009

Poly 9 acquisition: Jul 2010

C3 acquisition: Aug 2011

Yes, but when do you declare the quality high enough for release?

Ok we're ending random speculation territory but it was widely reported that the Google Maps agreement expired this year so there was no huge decision about when to release -- it was always going to go live with the 2012 phone.

I mean obviously if it was a disaster they would have to go back and cut another deal with Google (or Nokia/MS) but it now becomes obvious why they held back turn by turn from the old Maps app for so long. Because you can legitimately argue that 6.0 Maps with some weak spots that can be improved over time but with turn by turn plus possibly Google Maps in the App store is better then 5.0 Maps powered by Google's superior data but without turn by turn.

Wasn't the agreement renewed at the late-in-the-game last year? Is there any reason to think Google would have turned down a renewal (on the previous terms, we know there was friction over new features) this year?

I'll plead ignorance if it was up last year although just shifts the thinking above. So let's say Apple Maps was planned for 2011 but by wwdc they realized releasing in 2011 would be a huge disaster so they had to go back to google for another year.

As far as Google I'd guess they would have been fine to continue powering the default Maps app. Google's price might have gone up from 2007 but the quality increased by a similar amount.

Apple has done it a lot of times before (like most companies).

I think the maps feature that Apple believed they could produce, at the time they made the decision, was probably very different from the maps feature they were actually able to produce.

That's a fair point, software projects have schedule problems all the time, even for Apple. But if anything it's an even more serious indictment of the executive decision making: the product didn't work out the way they hoped, and they shipped it anyway. Again, would that have happened in the days of the reality distortion field?

As a non transit user, I see the addition of the turn by turn (especially with Siri integration) as a plus and don't miss the transit at all. So I wouldn't say it is universally inferior.

I agree. I'd add that on the iOS platform, there are significantly better transit apps than the maps app for the bigger European cities like London etc.

Mission Control

MobileMe

Ping?

To use ajross's term, Ping wasn't a "downgrade". Ping was more of a lead zeppelin.

Final Cut Pro X was panned by many professional users as being a downgrade.

iTunes

say what you will with iTunes but I don't really find it so bad as all the hate being written about it would seem to suggest. yeah it could be slimmer but it runs well and relatively flawlessly, and does a decent job of organizing. and I have to spend less time configuring it than foobar.

iPhoto however, I think, could use some rethinking...

iTunes may have become a bloated mess, but it's one of the key reasons for the success of the iPod and by extension the iPhone.

The same thing happened to me recently on Apple Maps on iOS 5 (Google data) in Chicago. ORD plotted a course to Ord, Nebraska, not O'Hare.

I'm in California, and typing "ord" (not even uppercase ORD, mind you) in the (Android) Maps search bar brings up Chicago O'Hare International Airport-Ord, Chicago, IL as the second suggestion. I'm going to say it's probably not (Google data)

Out of curiosity, what would you expect to show up? If someone said they're going to ORD (I live in California, too) then I'd ask if they have a connection in Chicago.

Probably Fort Ord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ord)

They're providing a counterpoint to the poster that said "google data" pointed them to Ord, Nebraska.

Worse for me was realizing that when you click a map direction on a website it no longer brings up The map app with directions to your destination from your current location.

Now your are taken to some dead end Google MaP in the browser that does nothing.

WTH Apple?

iOS badly needs something like Android's Intents.

Absent that, surely you see the problem with a maps.google.com link taking you to Apple's Maps app (no longer associated with Google in any way)?

No surprise that a Google Map link on a website doesn't open Apple's iMap app. More so for me who clicks map links on sites frequently being brought to a dead end in the browser Google Map is a terrible user experience, especially when for the last four years or more the experience has been very useful.

I have that happen with current iOS (Google) all the time.

Don't type: "21st and 6th", type "21st and 6th, CITY".

Hopefully Google releases a Google Maps app into the App Store, like they did with YouTube. Apple Maps looks like a major regression from Google Maps.

Google has promised this already, and it should be out relatively soon. It's not clear what all will be in it, though.

Apple Maps is a regression in certain areas (public transit, as noted above), and advances others (the turn-by-turn experience), so it's a mixed bag.

At the end of the day, most of these things are reconciled through the app ecosystem: if you are heavily dependent on public transit, Google and other app providers support you well. If you're a driver, Apple and TomTom provide worthy solutions. And so on with walking and biking directions. We, as consumer, get choices and it's relatively easy to switch between them.

Do you have a source for Google's promise of a new iOS maps app? I can't find anything.

That said, even if they do submit one immediately, I'm afraid Apple will tie it up in review for a month or two to allow their version to gain a userbase. I know if a Google version were available upon upgrade to iOS 6, I'd download it immediately. Transit directions are a must-have feature for me.

What is better about the iPhone's turn-by-turn? I've never used it, but I am really happy with Google's Navigation on my Galaxy Nexus. It's always been accurate and responsive, it starts up much quicker than the standalone GPS units I've seen (small sample size), and the voice sounds much more natural.

It's the first time they've had it. There isn't turn-by-turn on the iPhone currently. But if they have issues finding addresses in general how good can the turn-by-turn really be?

> advances others (the turn-by-turn experience)

I hope you're not talking about the "fly around" view when turning a corner, because that is the most useless feature I've ever heard of for turn-by-turn navigation. NO ONE should be looking at their phone while making a turn.

To me it would almost make sense for them to not add their google maps application so that it would make them, like mtalantikite consider switching to Android. I don't know why Google would have much of an incentive to improve iOS when it has it's own operating system to sell.

I think you are forgetting that Google doesn't sell its OS. The point of Android is to enable more eyeballs to their products since eyeballs = ad dollars. So Google will do whatever they can to get users on the Google platform (which is exactly why Google+ is great on iOS).

Maps has a huge local revenue opportunity for Google. It has user intent, most of the searches are commercial, you know the user's tastes and hangouts (through past searches), and the user is addressable (since they are close to the item of interest). This means high CPC rates (or equivalent) if you can deliver a real ad product. Thus, I'd bet pretty strongly that a maps product will be coming to iOS since Google would hate to risk losing those valuable eyeballs.

Because they'd still get advertisement money from sponsored listings vs. no advertising money.

youtube app just came out, and g+ has been pretty spiffy..

Would Apple even permit it? Last I'd heard they were pretty gung-ho on the "No apps that do the same thing as stock apps" thing.

I think they relaxed that restriction long ago, hence the variety of browsers, email clients etc available.

I was under the impression that things like browser apps are still just wrapping UIWebViews and such. I know this is the case for Chrome - the (heh) chrome is different, but the browser itself is the iOS stock. Is it a technical restriction rather than a philosophical one?

Both. Apple has a restriction on 'executing' downloaded code yourself (javascript).

After I played with the iOS 6 beta for a bit, and noticed the lack of transit and 100 other things, I got rid of my iPhone and bought an Android. Android maps are amazing, and I use it so much it makes up for the general lack of polish that you get with iOS. Though, to be fair, iOS maps have been getting better as it gets closer to release.

Yeah, I feel like this is one of those situations where companies go to war and consumers lose. Apple didn't create their own Maps to disrupt the space or because they have the same passion for wayfinding that they have for music; they did it as a power play against Google.

I disagree. Google had a monopoly on the maps market and was taking advantage of it. Apple's Maps app used vector images, brought 3d buildings to more cities, used higher quality textures, etc. They may have problems with it but I feel like the added enough innovation to force Google Maps to be better.

Google had vector maps before Apple, actually. It was on Android in 2010.

Mapping is a growing part of the iOS SDK, I can understand Apple not wanting to be dependent on Google for that, particularly after Google started demanding significantly increased fees for Google Maps API usage:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/technology/many-sites-char...

Google walked back some of the worst effects of the changes:

http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.ca/2012/06/lower-pricing...

but by then the damage had been done in terms of Apple's (and developers') perception of the Google API.

That's the Javascript Maps API, first, and it only applies if you don't have an enterprise agreement anyways. You don't think Apple had a contract for mapping data independent of Google's pricing of their web API?

(for developers, AFAIK there has been no cost for using Map Kit in iOS or a MapView in Android)

So let me get this straight. A single app on iOS, which doesn't live up to expectations or desires AND is still in BETA (re: unfinished, unready) and this makes you consider buying an entirely new phone?

You sound like those soccer moms I make house calls for who just think it's easier to throw away a working system and buy something else.

Yes, that's correct. Out of curiosity, do you live in NYC? The subway is part of the life blood of this city, and not being able to navigate from A -> B using maps is a major loss.

Normal situational example: I'm in a neighborhood, say Fort Greene, and I'm meeting a friend for dinner at a restaurant I've never heard of in the East Village. First, I need to be able to find that restaurant by searching for it in Maps -- this largely doesn't work anymore. I often get results that are totally incorrect.

But say I do find the location, I then need to figure out how to get there from a neighborhood I don't actively live in. Do I take the A train and transfer to the F and walk from the lower east side? Maybe it's faster to walk to the Q and get off at Union Square. Or maybe the manhattan bridge is under construction, and it actually would be faster to take the G to north Brooklyn and transfer to the L. This subway system is so massive that even native New Yorkers get turned around and need directions.

If you don't actively live in NYC I think it might be hard to realize how significant losing transit directions is, not to mention useful location search.

It's a little easier in Chicago due to our more boring grid layout (Lincoln Park? I'll take the Red north and transfer to the Brown. Logan Square? I'll take a westbound bus and get on the Blue), but iOS 6 has still given me exactly the same thought of switching to Android for the transit navigation.

Totally, I was in Chicago for work earlier this summer and Apple Maps was completely useless. Luckily I still remember the transit from when I lived in Chicago a while back, but had I not had that prior knowledge I would have gotten myself lost many times.

Yup, and on top of everything you said, Google maps integrates directions from different transit agencies really well. In Los Angeles, for example, there are often routes on three different systems. All the agencies already have trip planners, but none of them will suggest using a neighboring agency's bus or train, even if it would be more convenient.

That's pretty dysfunctional. In Chicago, Metra, CTA, and Pace are three separate agencies, but they do have a common trip planner. (OK, they all fold up into the RTA, but their fights with each other for funding was pretty amusing. The MTA in NYC is much more sane.)

Yeah I used to live in NYC and if you don't know the subways by heart, you really don't live there or haven't for very long. Not to detract from the fact the app isn't ready yet, but you don't need an app to get where you're going if you can read a placard that's literally at every subway. Anyone with any visual sense and literacy can figure it out.

i might be behind the times, but it was easier to use kickmap if I had subway questions...

Think of it like VHS vs. Betamax. "Everyone" says Betamax was technically superior, but often forget that it debuted with only a ~1 hour recording time, making it completely unsuitable for movie watching. However most users wanted to be able to watch movies. So even though it was only technically inferior in one aspect, that aspect was so important to the majority of users as to make VHS a significantly better system.

The same thing is happening here. A lot of people who live in big cities now depend on their phones for directions, and a lot of them need transit directions in addition to driving directions. A phone that can't do that has greatly diminished value. Not everyone wants a phone as a status symbol: some want it to actually do useful things.

I'm on the fence myself. And yeah, when the most used app is the maps for transit directions it does leave a bad taste to go from something that worked great (most of the time) to something that doesn't work for your needs at all. Am I still able to take phone calls? Sure, as long as I'm not at the office though I blame that more on AT&T and working right near the river walk in San Antonio, but the local bus company has said their maps addon won't be out until October at the earliest, March of 2013 at the latest.

And how many people have switched to Mac due to an inferior product feeling? Sure you can still use the computer but if one of the main purposes of having it doesn't work for your needs, why keep using it?

Given it's getting released 7 days from now (and the version that comes with the GM, released today, is equally terrible), I'm, not sure it's gonna change that much before the release...

(irrelevant fact: Maps is the MOST important app on the iPhone for me - after the browser, of course. I've put my life on its "hands" an infinite number of times...)

I never ever use transit stuff in Maps, but for the average person in a major metro are, they're using their phone for this multiple times a day. This is their lifeblood. By the way, why do we still call them phones?

All the map comparisons so far are between Apple and Android. Anybody has experience using Nokia maps and how that fares against Google or Apple map product?

On Anandtech's live blog it was said that the maps demoed did not match the maps in beta. I think they specifically said he checked and there was no Big Ben 2 days earlier on beta.

Agreed, the final version is likely to be better than the beta, but adding 3D flyovers of landmarks really doesn't help me in my day to day life living in NYC. I need in app transit directions, otherwise maps are largely useless.

I also need correct search results. For example, searching for "Flatbush Farm" -- a bar/restaurant near my apartment in Brooklyn -- yields the correct establishment on Flatbush and 6th, as evidenced by the Yelp reviews, but drops a pin in Queens. I've reported many incorrect listings over the past couple of months and none of them have changed.

You should check out iTrans NYC on the App Store. I have no relationship to the developer(s), but it's probably my favorite transit app, and I've used a lot of them. Unfortunately I only get to use it during visits to New York, since I live in the Bay Area.

I had iOS 6 and brought my phone to China. It just swapped to another provider (AutoNav) that's essentially like MapQuest 10 years ago.

I'm really looking forward to Google rolling out their own already-announced maps app on iOS for this reason (although I have to imagine your city has dedicated apps that do public transit already, as mine does). And as far as I know the maps app already used Apple's locations database, which was noticeably worse than Google's. I keep hoping that Apple will simply realize that location is not their strength, but so far this seems unlikely.

I agree with you in principle, but in practice, when I was visiting New York in July, I got much better results by using an external app rather than Google Maps. ("NYC Subway", I think it was called.) Specifically, Google's directions often had multiple transfers and didn't mention any alternate routes, whereas the app gave me the route with fewest transfers and showed all the other lines going there, in case you missed the first train.

I think this is why Apple's plan to relegate public transport directions to external apps might be a good idea: there's no way a single company -- even one the size of even Google! -- can keep track of all the minutiae involved in planning routes for every public transport system around the world, whereas app makers can. Even today, every public transit system that I've been on has one or more apps, so I doubt uptake will be a problem. And with the new APIs in iOS6, it should be much easier to get directions via external apps, since they show up in a list right in the Maps app.

Oh, and the app worked offline, which as you might know is mighty helpful in large parts of the subway. :)

Wow. Being a new resident to the Bay Area, this is a potential deal breaker for me, and I had no idea the public transit was stripped out.

Granted most excursions don't necessitate the public transit directions in the Bay Area, it was amazing to have while traveling to new cities.

HopStop is the app you're looking for. I just moved to Brooklyn and was recommended the app by someone who's been here only a few months. It gives ridiculously thorough directions, and has an offline transit map you can use while you're on the subway.

In London and probably many other places around the World Google has only fairly recently started offering public transport directions (if they offer them at all) so I'm not sure the loss is that great. There are plenty of apps available that offer this.

The people for whom this is a big issue are a fairly small proportion of the global population. Basically those in the US who live in major cities and are users of the transit system. In San Diego and New York this is a big issue and those are centres of the HN readership and probably also the tech media which might be important but the practical impact of this limitation may be limited.

I have used Google Maps for public transport very actively in multiple cities around the world, and I can't imagine living without it. Stockholm, Singapore, London, Tokyo all have it with Google. And I'd bet that a majority of smartphone users in the world use public transport, not cars, as primary method of getting around.

As I understand it, other apps will be able to register with the maps service and add data to maps, like transit directions. In theory sounds great, it'll take a while to see how it shakes out which is a setback no matter how you slice it.

Hopefully projects like this will fill the void. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/228865951/transit-app-fo...

Maps on my phone are crucial to me. The single most important feature is offline use - I often sit on the Underground (no Internet) going in the general direction of my meeting, but needing to know if/where I need to change lines, and then how to get from the tube station to the meeting location.

So while this looks like it will fill a gap on iOS, it's something I'm unwilling to wait for.

To be fair, I was recently a little north of Atlanta and Google Maps had no idea about the bus system there. It knew the metro one, but not the one I needed to use to get to the metro one. Had to ask people advice to find a spot and then hang out half an hour because I hadn't known the schedule like I would with good maps support. So some people will have equal service.

Atlanta has an abysmal public transit system, but Google Maps does know about the major bus system in town. It may not be complete, but I regularly see info for nearby bus stops in Google Now, for example.

Traffic is one of the main things I use Google Maps for on my iPhone. How does the traffic in Apple Maps compare? I'd hate to lose that.

I can't say that I've used it much, but the traffic data doesn't seem to be as full in terms of coverage as Google Maps. I just did a side by side comparison of traffic in both Google and Apple Maps:

Apple is reporting heavy traffic only on Flatbush, Atlantic, and the BQE (major traffic arteries for those not familiar with Brooklyn).

Google is reporting what Apple has, plus traffic patterns on a lot of other local avenues (3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, Vanderbilt, Fulton, Union St, etc).

I believe they get their updates from TomTom. The routing around traffic was actually a bit better than Google's in San Francisco the few times I used it side-by-side.

Well, looks like I won't be upgrading to iOS 6 any time soon. I rely heavily on Google's transit directions when I'm visiting new cities.

Google maps in the browser works great for me, even in areas remote like Englewood, TN. No app needed IMHO.

Remember: When Steve Jobs was first defending the 30% app store cut he said something to the effect that it wouldn't matter in the long run because everybody was using web apps anyway.

Try iTrans NYC. It's incredible. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itrans-nyc-subway/id283492923...

Just as a counter: I have also been using it for a few months, but I am not a transit user. I feel the routes have been great and it has been a big addition to my phone.

Apple has a Transit API which may help reduce the gap.

apple has a strategy here, which is to allow regional 'providers' of directions to have apps on the phone. Google could be one such provider, if they want to be.