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A comment on A Letter from Tim Cook on Maps. Parent comment

Re:A Letter from Tim Cook on Maps by recoiledsnake on Friday September 28, 2012 @12:36PM (#4586398)
What a specious argument. And in other stories, blogs and comments, we hear that Apple takes 80% of the mobile industry's profits and about the high margins on iProducts and the $100B+ cash hoard that they have. But now the tone is all about how poor Apple was forced into a corner by Google and others and had to subject its users to bad maps.

Guess what? Maps is hard. Why did Nokia buy Navteq in 2008 for a whopping $8B? Why do you think Amazon recently choose to license Navteq maps from Nokia for their Kindle tablets' Maps API?

Given that Amazon makes $7 million profit a quarter and Apple makes $4M profit an hour like Gruber sneeringly likes to remind us[1], is it wrong to expect better maps from a phone that costs much more than a run of the mill cheap Android phone? What excuse is there for driving directions that direct you to drive on train tracks? [2]

[1] http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit-corr...

[2] http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/image/32188632467

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Re:A Letter from Tim Cook on Maps by jarek on Friday September 28, 2012 @01:57PM (#4586894)
> What excuse is there for driving directions that direct you to drive on train tracks? [2]

Judging by all the cars parked on both sides of the track, there's probably a driveable surface there too. Not uncommon.

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