What to say? The fact that such a public letter had to be issued means that there's a lot of push-back. Apple just doesn't do that. In fact, I don't remember any software company doing this. I could be wrong. This feels unprecedented.
Not one person posting on HN and the many blogs really knows what happened behind the scenes. Apple engineers are not known for being dumb. Someone had to know that Maps was a bad idea. A huge step backwards. They had to know.
So the question might very well be: Why did they do it?
This couldn't have been out of spite. Just to kick Google off the platform. One just doesn't do that. Maintaining a complex code-base such as iOS is difficult enough. Adding to that the friction of delivering a substandard product is not something one does without very good reasons.
Conjecture is all we have from the outside. My humble guess is that it had to come down to a business deal they did not want to make. The details of the deal are not important. Who was right and who was wrong isn't important. What is important is that whatever they had in front of them convinced Apple management that it they had no choice but to, effectively, downgrade the next release with Maps.
I already know of a lot of non-tech people, particularly outside the US, who are livid about Maps. After dutifully upgrading their devices to iOS 6 they discover that Maps are, in their words, "crap", "useless", "unreliable", "a joke", "not accurate", "una mierda" (shit), etc. The reason for the strong feelings is that, let's face it, if a good tool such as Google Maps is available to you, you might tend to use it.
And a lot of people would use it all the time. My own wife relies on Google Maps all the time. Thankfully she was wise enough to marry a geek who promptly told her not to upgrade her iPhone 4S to iOS 6 and not to swap it out for an iPhone 5. In fact, not one person in my family will do either of those things. And that is the case --that has to be the case-- for millions of people at this point.
This is the data we are not getting and that Apple will probably never release. I own eight iOS devices. Not one of them will be upgraded to iOS 6. In fact, the upgrades stop here until either Maps starts to get really good marks. And, of course, we probably would have purchased at least three iPhone 5's. Not happening. I'll get one for development but it will not be activated.
How many millions are in this boat? If someone is a heavy Google Maps user it makes no sense to get an iPhone 5. What's wrong with a 4S? Nothing. Use their website you say? Not the same, most would say.
As a developer there's a lesson that needs reinforcing every-so-often. What better way to reinforce it than to see a tech giant make some of the mistakes lesser companies make: If you can at all help it, don't base your product on someone else's technology. Don't make someone else's technology such an important part of your offering that not having them will hurt you. Of course, sometimes you have no choice.
As a user and a developer I view iOS 6 as a significant, if not huge, step backwards. Between Maps and the eviscerated app store one has to ask that cliche-ish question: What were they thinking?
When people say Maps is a "huge step backwards", are they actually using the product? I mostly use my phone for driving directions, and the addition of turn-by-turn navigation has been a huge step forward. Maybe I'm the one iPhone user in the world who thinks Maps is awesome, but that seems unlikely. It seems more likely that this is just another case of the "vocal minority" being amplified by uncritical journalists. Remember what happened when Facebook first released the News Feed? :-)
When people say Maps is a "huge step backwards", are they actually using the product?
Where do you live? If you live in the Valley, I'm sure it's fine, in fact I'm sure it's great, but elsewhere in the world the map data is pretty bad, much worse than Google Maps. People aren't all complaining about turn by turn directions in the US, they're complaining about basic flaws in map data around the world. So yes, they are using it, and it is not great.
Both the satellite data and the map data is woeful in some areas, some of it is so bad that I'm surprised they included it at all. Here are some examples which don't compare favourably with OSM or Google:
"Brighton, UK", Satellite - a big UK city is so blurry you can't see streets.
"Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands" - ends up in the middle of the sea, and no roads on the islands at all.
"Colchester" - satellite shows clouds, in B&W over a UK city
"Senkaku Islands" - compare satellite with standard to see actual duplicates of these disputed islands in the vector map data.
"Puno,Peru"- in lake Titicaca
"Central St Martins" - a major London college which relocated last year is still shown at its old address. The new address, which has been a warehouse for many years, is shown as a park named 'King's Cross Central' which doesn't exist. If their data on major cities is this bad, consider how bad the rural areas will be.
This is a really hard problem, and frankly I'm surprised Apple tried to without an extensive beta and data collection period in order to bring their data up to scratch. Just to give you an example of the sort of advantage this hands Google - Last weekend I tried to find a postcode in central London, and it wasn't found (N1C 4AA, a relatively new postcode for a major new development, but visible in Google and OSM with lots of detail). A colleague with an SIII found it no problem. That kind of comparison is a big problem for Apple.
I think this is their "extensive beta and data collection period". Just using the entire iOS 6 customer base as the experimental set.
I think it would be kinda cool if they'd push the new maps as an app available for iOS 5, and if Google had their native iOS maps app ready, and the transition weren't so abrupt. I realize the mapping subsystem is baked in more deeply, with various APIs and libraries available to all apps on the system, not just a standalone app, but it would still be helpful to have the standalone apps. (If Apple Maps were available as a standalone app, that would facilitiate the "extensive beta period" you suggested without all the ire that they've attracted this way; and I really hope that Google Maps is coming back to iOS at some point real soon now.)
I think this is their "extensive beta and data collection period". Just using the entire iOS 6 customer base as the experimental set.
If so that's an unfortunate abuse of their customers' trust, and will hand a big advantage to Google.
As you say there were many options like releasing a standalone test first to run in parallel with the google app, but perhaps because of hubris they were not explored, and so customers have had an unexpected downgrade on an app which is widely used.
It is obvious that they have better data for certain parts of the world.
The problem with maps is that if your data is, say, 10% bad or inaccurate (whatever that means) and you are serving two billion searches per week you have to contend with tens of millions of unhappy users. Bad problem to have.
Will they fix it? Probably. How long? Someone far more knowledgeable of the challenges in mapping will have to answer that one.
For me and those close to me it is about the potential to break something that works very well right now. That alone is keeping us from upgrading software and hardware. It's the old "if it ain't broke don't fix it" saying.
As for turn-by-turn. I live in SoCal. I rarely need it. When I do, I throw an old GPS I keep in the car on the dashboard and it works just fine. Most of the time (99% ?) I use Google Maps on my 4S.
I've talked to people who have IOS6, and the consensus is that the maps are fine in California, and completely useless everywhere else.
In Finland, a guy I know got directions that told him to go through a road that hasn't existed for 6 years.
Also, most of the market for iPhone users are city-dwellers, and most of those don't own cars. Having good timetable/route planner for public transit is very important. As I understand, Maps doesn't work for that at all.
I have had no issues in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I think you're overblowing things with your statement of "completely useless everywhere else". I've even compared the directions against a friends s3 with google maps and Apple maps did better at some local routing than google maps did for what its worth.
It places my house 150m out to sea, and puts a rehabilitation centre that doesn't exist at the actual location of my house. In my town, a suburb of Melbourne AU, the Apple product is completely useless.
I saw a news story in, I think, the Star Tribune with a picture of the new Maps app locating the Guthrie Theatre at its old location at the Walker. It hasn't been there for 3 years.
Admittedly, I haven't used the new Maps app, but only because I've avoided upgrading my phone to iOS6 solely because I've heard the new Maps is so terrible.
> maps are fine in California, and completely useless everywhere else
Our personal, relatively microscopic sample sizes are the problem with the sentiment on this. I've used them in Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and they worked fine for restaurants, turn-by-turn, etc.
As others have said, a combination of the vocal minority and the human race's love for drama is what's keeping this discussion alive.
I just got back from a 2 week vacation to Ireland. I planned and executed most of the trip on the fly using Google Maps on my iPhone 4S (3G data is cheap in Europe, even for nonresidents on prepaid SIMs!) running iOS 5.
Just out of curiosity, after I got back, I upgraded my iPad to iOS 6 to see whether all the complaints I'd read about Apple's maps were legit. Then I went and looked up a bunch of the places we'd traveled or stayed in Ireland, to see if the new maps would have gotten the job done. Short story, it would have been a lot harder. In the spot checks I did, the roads are there, and in one case the driving directions are better than what Google recommended, but it mostly didn't know what I was talking about when I searched for businesses, like hotels we stayed at.
Google has amassed a huge amount of really high quality data, not just roads but also businesses and places, which nobody else has. I don't know if there's widespread appreciation for how hard this is and how hard Google's been working on it (one example, and I'm sure this article is slightly politicized and the timing of it appearing now is no coincidence, but still, it's mostly fact: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-go...). Hopefully Apple has the staying power to go amass the same data, but it's an uphill battle.
The point here isn't whether or not you had a problem. There might be 100s of people reading that post and not replying because they did not have a problem. Without quizzing a representative sample of users, we can't figure out the size and scope of the problem.
They do that on a regular basis, they did that last year after their pre-order page committed seppuku. They do that based on the scale of the public outrage, not really on the internal/technical merit.
People conveniently forget how Google Map, Nokia Drive, and all others let you down on a regular basis, and how much room there is for competition in that market.
Street layout is mostly right in all apps. POI however is a joke in all of them. In the city of London, Google Map only has a fraction of the shops and there is no logic which one it has and has not. I does not have the Starbuck(!) in front of my job, but it has the clothes shop next to it and nothing else in the street. Nokia Drive keep sending me on farm/field trail when I'm in Spain. At the same place Google Map has random missing road or missing portion of road (those road have been there for 200+ years like the house built on it). I briefly tries IOS Map at the Apple Store and it has the correct layout but only label some of the road, making it equally useless IMO.
We are planning a trip to Japan with Google Maps right now. It is convenient only because of its interface - but really kinrin (something like that) is incredibly better at showing stuff that matters.
When you ask for transit directions, you get presented a selection of 3rd party apps from the app store to give you directions, and those directions are then integrated with Apple Maps.
The app I used, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/transit-directions-public/id5... was pretty bad on iOS 6 launch day (with instructions like "take a bus", without mentioning the line), but a week later improved to be perfectly usable here in Switzerland.
> the consensus is that the maps are fine in California, and completely useless everywhere else.
I've had no issues since I started using the beta around the Southeast US. I've used it from Tennessee to Florida, with turn-by-turn directions around the Atlanta area, to Orlando, all over Disney World, and more.
Let's not contribute consensus where consensus isn't due.
I recently had a family member (who doesn't use a smartphone) call me up to ask if I could recommend a brand of print map to her. After just one instance of getting lost due to a mislabeled road in her atlas, she was ready to jump ship on a brand that she had probably been loyal to for decades. All over an error that was probably insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But to her it meant an hour's worth of lost time, confusion and wasted gasoline, and it was very significant.
That may have just been because they want to emphasize a native mobile app rather than HTML5-based mobile experiences, and Google has not yet released their own native maps app for iOS.
Actually, the open letter also recommends Google and Nokia maps, via their websites (because native apps don't exist).
BTW: Am I the only one that thinks it's fishy that Google's claiming (a) they only had 3 months notice of this change and (b) 3 months isn't enough to produce their own iOS maps app? I don't believe either of those claims.
> the consensus is that the maps are fine in California
I'm in So. Cal., we happened to be visiting friends in Valencia. We were going to meet at Valencia Mall. I searched for "Valencia Mall". I sent us a mile or two away from the true location.
Google Maps got it right.
Based on this single data point I would venture to guess that, no, things are not fine in California. If it can't find the major shopping mall in a city like Valencia I don't even want to know what else it might screw up.
One of the issues with maps is that people have come to rely on them for all sorts of things, even emergencies. Nobody uses the yellow pages or print maps any more (well, some do). Imagine searching for the local hospital in an emergency and being sent to the wrong spot. This stuff is important. It's not a toy any more.
When it works, it's better. However, it does not work as often.
I was stranded at O'Hare earlier this week, and United put me up at the "Crown Plaza", according to my hotel voucher. I searched for "Crown Plaza" in iOS6 maps, and was suddenly transported to Vancouver. In Google Maps, it correctly surmised I was actually looking for the nearby "Crowne Plaza".
iOS6 maps is 95% as good as google maps, but the missing 5% really hurts.
Your experience also represents the bulk of the problems I've had. I'm in the Chicagoland area, and the POI data and roads have been pretty good. But the search doesn't seem to prioritize nearby locations. If your search string exactly matches the name of some town, anywhere in the world, it tends to give you that result.
Echoes my experience as well. I searched for a nearby street and ended up getting the same street further away. It directed me away from Manhattan and into another borough.
As an aside, that is one of the coolest functional tests I've ever seen. It's thorough, well-documented, and includes nice visualizations (the table at the bottom, not the pie chart up top).
The title is wrong. Québec is Canada's largest province, bigger than Ontario by about 500K km^2. Nunavut is the biggest land mass of the country, considering territories and provinces.
In Germany you pretty much have no data as soon as you leave the streets for cars. While driving directions might actually be okay, as soon as you walk around and leave the city roads it's getting bad. And even if they have the data, it's displayed in a horrible color palette, a lack of contrast and a very low information desitity:
http://i.imgur.com/Dktjo.jpg - This is the view of a nearby wood in Apple Maps. Take a look at those thin grey lines in the big green area. I'm not sure if I could see them on the map walking there in bright sunlight. If you zoom out just a little more, the trails vanish completely from the map and the whole screen is just a big green area. To actually see a trail well enough you have to zoom in so much that you lose the overview and don't know where you're actually looking.
http://i.imgur.com/DDx7R.png - This is the same are in Google Maps. Great contrast, good color palette and you can distinguish the larger from the smaller trails and roads. There's also a lot more information.
I can't speak for others, but switching to Apple Maps would be more than a huge step backwards for me, it's pretty much 90% of the way to useless.
My primary use of maps is public transit directions. Not having turn-by-turn is an inconvenience that is fixed, but losing public transit isn't just an inconvenience; there is no work around to get the directions I need at all.
For any feature there is going to be some subset of users that pretty much only use that one feature, so I can't really say how common of a user I am in that regard.
Lack of public transit map information is what's keeping me on iOS 5. Not upgrading until I have confidence I can use iOS 6, as public transportation is all I use.
It seems like in Europe and especially UK, it's truly bad. In the SF Bay Area, it's reasonably functional for me, but there are enough mistakes (from my own usage, not looking for problems) that I don't fully trust it.
And that's the problem - if I don't fully trust it, it loses a lot of its utility. I downloaded the Bing app as a backup. I still like the new UI and the turn-by-turn.
I'm in the UK. It's also useless for finding things - it has petrol stations in places they don't exist near my house, and restaurants that closed down years ago. It also sucks for anything but driving - I don't have a car so I walk everywhere and its coverage of pedestrian zones in my city is woeful (unlike google maps). Also, public transport options are nonexistent (unlike google maps). Pretty useless for me really.
In the UK the address database and driving directions seem fine. The search and the POI database are awful (although better than last week). The satellite data is great in major city centres with the 3D view working well. Have similar resolution to Google for much of the country but many areas have very low resolution.
The satellite resolution isn't much of a problem because I can use the Google Earth app for that. In most cases where I don't have an address Google search can provide that and then the maps work fine. Overall it is quite usable but as the data improves it should become pretty good.
Walking directions locally aren't great but neither are Google's. Neither know about a bridge across a motorway.
Last week when searching for hospital it didn't have any POI for my closest hospital and the thing it did come up with was a local business called 'PC Hospital'. Now with the same search in the same location the appropriate hospital is shown.
The Maps.app itself is a lot better. The sad thing is that Google has the best mapping data out there, they have been investing, collecting and tweaking it for years. Now everything that isn't Google Maps is substandard by default.
Nokia has also very good maps, some claim they are even better. Amazon switched recently from Google to Nokia for their Kindle maps. Perhaps Apple could have made a better deal with Microsoft/Nokia.
I live in a remote rural area in the UK, I just tried it again and the routing and postcode information that was wrong the day it came out is now corrected. Google maps had the same problems 2-3 years ago. I remember because they once directed me the wrong way and I missed a ferry.
As for business listings, its not like this is a solved problem. Everyone knows that google maps is not perfect for that. It's not as bad as apple maps but it's wrong enough of the time that I don't trust it, every now and then I forget it doesn't work and find myself standing outside a delivery bay, late for an appointment... I suspect most people google for a store/company/whatever, check the website to see if it offers what they want then copy paste the zip/postcode from the contact page into the maps app to get them close enough.
Apple's biggest problem is that they botched the PR, even if they fix the zip/postcode data quickly, no one will believe its fixed for a long time now.
Well I am, upgraded my iPad to iOS 6 and that leaves me with Apple Maps in the maps app. A number of places around San Carlos California aren't in their maps "by default", if you search for them it can find the Yelp reviews and then put down a push pin. So before when I was 'searching' for a place to eat I could look at the map and see all the restaurants and find what I wanted, now I see some but not nearly a representative batch. Actually searching for something like Pizza or Mexican food will drop down a dozen pins and more than half of them land on what is drawn as blank space on the map.
So perhaps Google was just better at guessing the kinds of queries I might be making when I opened maps.
I feel the same way. However I also live in California. I feel like its extremely accurate here, but it is also where it was essentially born. So it is not surprising it needs more work in other places. For everyone I know that lives here and uses it with normal habits, it seems to work just as good.
In time, and I suspect shorter than people estimate, the data quality will vastly improve. No software is perfect on the first release, and apples software is no exception. iTunes used to be glitchy in its early days, me.com was terrible when it first came out, but these issues have been rectified for the most part.
Google maps once led me 18 miles into the middle of nowhere for a dentist appointment. Sure, this error is fixed now, but the dentist office shows up correctly on maps. So It seems like here (in California) the data is better than it was when google maps was new.
I suspect by end of year, the majority of use-cases will work fine in many more places than california. Who knows, but if I were betting.. :)
I would just like to point out that the lack of turn by turn nav in Google Maps on iOS was an Apple decision, not a Google one. Nav has been available in Google maps on Android for a long time now. Hell, they have decent biking turn by turn.
No, the existing license Apple had for Google's map data specifically forbade turn by turn. According to the Verge, Google wanted a few more things before giving Apple turn by turn:
"For its part, Apple apparently felt that the older Google Maps-powered Maps in iOS were falling behind Android — particularly since they didn't have access to turn-by-turn navigation, which Google has shipped on Android phones for several years. The Wall Street Journal reported in June that Google also wanted more prominent branding and the ability to add features like Latitude, and executives at the search giant were unhappy with Apple's renewal terms. But the existing deal between the two companies was still valid and didn't have any additional requirements, according to our sources — Apple decided to simply end it and ship the new maps with turn-by-turn."
I don't see how that disagrees with my point. Apple deciding not to allow Google to add in turn by turn in exchange for Latitude is an Apple decision and not a Google one. Google isn't just going to give them more for free.
At the risk of making a poorly drawn simile, it would be like if I wanted an In N Out animal style burger, but didn't want the calories. So I decide to make my own inferior turkey burger. The decision to not have an awesome animal style burger that also comes with additional calories is my own, not that of In N Outs. The obvious problem with this simile is that In N Out doesn't have a ton of choice about the caloric content of its burgers, nor does it profit from the additional caloric content, but you get my point. If Google had not given Apple a choice, then yes, it would have been Google's decision. But ultimately, it was Apple who decided against giving Google more. As the article says
>The reports were validated earlier today by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who was quoted by Reuters saying "what were we going to do, force them not to change their mind? It's their call."
> "Apple deciding not to allow Google to add in turn by turn"
I find this wording confusing.
It is more fair and more clearer to break the two sides up: The old "Maps" application and any new feature was done by Apple. It was Google who decided to explicitly disallow the usage of their back-end data for turn-by-turn. Which they are of course free to do. And it was Apple who decided not to allow Google control (and user data collection) in a key app. Which is also understandable.
Your point was worded as if Apple had a free choice, buffet style, of which features to have or not. Say Apple wants A but not B, and Google will only sell A+B. Your wording suggests that Apple turned down A, when really they turned down B, so had no option to get A.
Using Maps in NYC is a joke. Aside from no public trans (not a big deal; that's easy enough to work around), it's totally wrong with POIs. It even places the Met about, oh, 100 blocks south of where it actually is. Absolutely worthless.
Durring launch week I updated my iPad to iOS6 and used to drive from NYC to Washington DC and back. Addition of turn by turn navigation is a big step forward. So I'm pretty happy.
And as a side note I recently switched back to an iPhone after the latest Google Maps update caused my phone to hard lock and reboot. Take a look here: http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4703 It affected my previous HTC Sensational device. Basically maps, or mapping services (which is a lot of apps including background ones) randomly caused your phone to reboot.
I'm in London, and I'd say it's a small step backwards. The points of interest from Yelp appear to be consistently off by about 10 metres, and many points of interest are missing altogether. I do like the way you can click on a point of interest, which is something you couldn't do in the old Maps app.
So far, all the addresses I've tried are correct, and the driving directions and speech recognition are a step forward. The tube/bus directions from Google were always inaccurate, so I was already using a dedicated app.
Yelp's points of interest are frequently at the wrong location. I've noticed this using Yelp's native app, which displays things on Google maps, ironically (ironically because Google knows the correct location if you search for the same place by name; I heard that Yelp stores lat/long for each place instead of letting Google look it up by name).
In my experience, this problem with Yelp's data is worse in Europe than the USA.
It entirely depends on your usage. My coworker uses them for turn by turn and that works great for him. I use it for transit, and it's not so great.
I get that they wanted to open up transit for other apps (or couldn't build it in for some reason) but I really do hate the amount of times I have to tap to get bus info now. I would much rather the integration.
For this, Google Maps works great, except when the bus site isn't working properly, which tends to be once a year when we have a massive influx of people come to town.
I've been using WAZE for months and before that GPS Drive. Better turn by turn has been available on iPhone for a while. There's no excuse for Apple's poor offering
So, "worksforme", for a car-driving lifestyle in California?
One of the main critiques has been the removal of transit directions. It was missing Shibuya station. For heaven's sake, that's like missing Grand Central Station. People in NYC would be shorting APPL...
Well, it's a FUBAR on that scale. It's just not visible if you drive a car, especially in California.
I also like the new maps - I can see it turning into a great product. My main issue is the missing public transport information... I still use the mobile web Google Maps for that which is unfortunately slower than the old native app.
Yes I'm using the new IOS maps, and yes it's pretty bad. Searched for a bar I wanted to go to in my city and it wanted to send me to Italy (other end of the earth).
"Someone had to know that Maps was a bad idea. A huge step backwards. They had to know.
So the question might very well be: Why did they do it?"
A theory:
Maybe they did it because Apple has an unhealthy, top-down corporate culture that doesn't encourage dissent or whistle-blowing? Nobody said stop because it isn't the Apple way?
To me (not an Apple user or Apple employee) their corporate culture, their values, are defined by secrecy, leader-worship, and a particular kind arrogance. Not necessarily at the level of individual employees, but throughout the organisation as a whole. In such environments, especially when the company is highly successful and seems to be able to do no wrong, it becomes difficult for individuals and even groups to say stop. And even bad ideas and technologies gain momentum.
Apple is a great company, make great products, and deserve their success. I just hope that Tim Cook is trying to get rid of the leader worship that surrounded Steve Jobs.
You're assuming Apple had other choice other than make a Maps.app from the ground up. I don't think it's the case. All the apps that used Google's data (YouTube, Maps) just stopped getting updates after Android. It's obvious their contract with Google ended and they had to ship something. I'm sure everybody acknowledged the solution was subpar, just saying "it sucks, don't ship it" isn't a solution.
Perhaps I am being too judgmental. I have know special knowledge of Apple's corporate culture. I'm just saying how it seems to me.
I agree that Apple had to cut loose from Google and develop their own mapping. And they needed new features for the iPhone 6 launch, which gave them a hard schedule limit.
Maybe "everybody" did decide that the mapping sucked but they had to ship it. That seems rather un-Apple to me: they are obsessive about user experience and have cut features in the past when the tech didn't work. So I'm not convinced by that argument.
If they felt they were forced by circumstances to ship the maps application now -- which there's at least some evidence of, if John Gruber's information about the way the Apple/Google contracts were timed is true -- then they'd kind of be in a Catch-22. What features could they have actually cut from the Maps app? The mistakes in 3D meshes and fuzzy terrain tiles make for the biggest point-and-laugh screen caps, and perhaps they could have cut that, but that would have caused just as much screaming. And the biggest issues really seem to be with the POI database, which you can't launch without. (And which, it should be noted, isn't something that Apple built on their own; at least in part, what Apple Maps is revealing is how bad a lot of other third-party geographic databases are compared to Google's.)
As for Apple's culture, well. I don't have special knowledge of it but I live in Silicon Valley and know a few people who've worked there or continue to work there, and your description about it doesn't seem to me to be accurate. There was a great deal of respect for Steve Jobs but there was no perception that he was always right. People did in fact push back against him, and he'd often listen. (And in cases where he didn't, there's still some controversy going on.) I think you're correct to surmise that there's a lot of arrogance in Apple's culture, mind you -- but I can assure you that Google's matches Apple's ego for ego. If anything, Google's corporate culture is more smug than Apple's, not less.
The app works fine. The user experience is better than the previous with the new features (navigation, voice). It's not a tech problem.
The whole problem revolves around business strategy. Mapping data. Google monopolizes this area, and the other providers are all tied to Apple's competitors (Microsoft, Nokia).
So either they come up with their own, or stay on the hands of competitors (since mapping is such a core feature).
I wish they adopt Open Street Maps, or contribute back to it. Mapping is one area where all good solutions are proprietary and in the hand of a few, it completely sucks.
Adopting/Contributing to the project as their number one mapping foundation would be nice and would have provided them tons of goodwill. But I guess Apple also wants to use OSM together with data from other commercial sources (tomtom).
That applies to the strange, pre–iOS 6 iPhoto-specific map tiles. OSM is acknowledged in the new app's acknowledgements, but so far there are places where the Maps.app is less detailed than the basic OSM database – but no doubt this can and will get better.
At the same time, Google has a much more transparent culture and it still ended up with the Nexus Q, which was swiftly put on hold just a few weeks after it was announced.
The difference being that the nexus Q was a whole new product with absolutely no expectations set for it, not an existing products with millions of users. The Q was obviously a failed experiment, but experimentation in that way is healthy. obviously not every product is going to be a success, but when you're trying crazy new things with a high probility of failure, it's best not to do it on your flagship product and with no escape strategy.
The Nexus Q wikipedia page [1] says that its launch was postponed due to "feedback from users that the device had too few features for its price", not due to quality defects. It seems to me that Google made an honest effort to develop a product, and decided not to ship it for equally good reasons.
Someone had to know that Maps was a bad idea. A huge step backwards. They had to know.
They know exactly that. Luckily, it's a server driven service, so over time everything can magically get better. They are going to aggressively harvest user data throughout the getting better process. Their options were: launch bad and get better as fast as possible (using millions of devices for feedback) or spend a few years doing things by hand then still releasing something subpar. Rip the bandaid off now.
In every other case HN screams "more data > clever algorithms!" -- this is their way of more data. It'll be painful at first, but it will get better quickly. It has only been a week since public public release. It has been sucking in betas for months too. None of this is new, exciting, or newsworthy. Release your burdens and get back to work.
People keep saying "this is their way of more data". Can someone explain exactly how this data is acquired? If I enter an address, and it gives me the wrong location, how does it know that it was wrong? How does it get better data?
If one query matches multiple results, you can observe which result users tap and sort that one to the top. Or, if the user types in a query, gets no results, then types in a similar query and selects a result, you know that the first is likely to have been a misspelling/alternate spelling. If lots of users type in a query and don't get results, then that query can be flagged for further investigation. And so on.
All of this in addition to users reporting erroneous results.
And just entering the address/location queries (whether they succeed or not, and whether the user's own satisfaction is implicit or explicit) gives Apple bulk who-queries-what-from-where data that can be manually reviewed or automated-tested in followup processes.
For example, they know how dense their geo-data is; where does the volume of queries most exceed the existing density of data? Which queries actually result in someone following instructions to their terminus, and then not requerying again for a while?
Also: while Apple doesn't have a toolbar reporting every query and click into Google Maps -- as with the Google-Bing search results dustup of February 2011 -- they could be using their own automated process to trickle queries into Google Maps APIs and highlight major discrepancies with their own answers, for engineer/data-entry attention.
I'm not in this domain, but they do have the location of millions of phones as they move around during the time the Maps app is open. This could solve problems like adjustment of roadway locations, finding one-way streets, identifying highly-used locations. If people take a different route than the one recommended, this is also a clue.
The location information would also provide a focus-of-attention mechanism (concentrate manual effort along oft-driven routes).
I'm not familiar enough with their privacy rules to understand what portion of this data was already available to Apple versus stuff that is only available on the server side.
And what even smaller percentage of people go through the trouble of reporting an error event if they do see the curl? It feels weird to pay for a service, and then have to actively work to make it better.. (by paying, I mean buying an ios device..).
Then I understand the release and iterate strategy, and I'm sure it applies in many situations. But when you are Apple and have painfully built a reputation of releasing only great products, you may want to think more than twice before crippling your star product, even if it's just a little.
As these threads have demonstrated, I think a segment of the population is actually highly interested in accurate maps.
Weird as it sounds (not being sarcastic), I think people will actually report problems, especially in their own neighborhoods or places where they travel and know well.
The problem for Apple is, they'll get a bug report something like:
Your maps is rubbish, I couldn't find the park, where is streetview too!
They will then have to have someone look at that data, try to find the area, a park nearby, compare with whatever licensed satellite data they have, and try to redraw that section, or they have to request new data from tomtom, wait a year, and hope it is fixed. That is a huge task, and not one I'm confident Apple will ever manage to pull off. The satellite data they have put into the app is appalling so if they try to use that as a reference...
And that's for the 0.5% of people who bother to report a problem - the rest will just lower their opinion of Apple and look at other solutions next time they're shopping for a device.
There's a button in the app to report inaccurate data on all POIs. If something is wrong, use it.
They would do well to make that more prominent especially in the short-term to better handle their growing pains here, but it is a quite solvable problem. Unfortunately for Apple, Google has invested nearly a decade and who knows how much money into Maps (they were straight-up paying cash for business listings at one point, and may still do so) - so the standard with which they're competing is extremely high.
Seems exactly wrong to me - Google uses its free customers as beta testers, whereas its paying customers (Google Apps users) don't get to see the products until a year later.
You don't think Android 1.0, 1.6, 2.1, and 2.2 weren't a beta test of sorts? There wasn't even a software keyboard for a year after Android showed up.
iOS maps is in the same position that AndroidOS was in a year or two after the iPhone appeared. Substandard in comparison, largely functional with big gaps, but an expectation of quick improvement.
You are right they don't "sell" Android to you they enter commercial agreements with manufacturers to provide them with Android enabled with Google Services imposing significant conditions on them.
"Release early, release often" is good advice, and in that sense there's nothing wrong with using customers as "beta testers". No matter how good your QA department is, there're always unanticipated issues when you release at massive scale and push something to dozens of millions of users.
But you don't just rip out something millions of people depend upon for a function as critical as safe navigation in unfamiliar areas and replace it with something that has constant, pervasive issues performing its basic operations. A custom Maps application and dataset is a good business move, but you have to make sure it's at least a minimum viable product before you do the kind of rollout that Apple has done.
When Google replaces Gmail with the shinier "Googmail" and 25%+ of mail to the new service comes back undeliverable, and there's no reasonable method to revert to plain old Gmail, you'll have a comparable quagmire. The fact is that while Apple's Maps may occasionally work sort of well, the failure rates are unacceptably high; too high for anyone to trust the program any more.
It will take years to undo the damage from this, and I fully expect a good portion of people to swap iPhone for Android as a result.
It is a minimum viable product. If Apple maps shipped on the first version of the iphone no one would be complaining about it. As it is it now it takes away features that people are were used to using.
It's not a minimum viable product. If it were, Apple wouldn't be writing this letter. Maybe it would have been viable in the past (also more widely considered viable in the past: paper atlases), but it's not viable today in this context (perhaps it could have been viable as an optional beta, instead of an irrevocable feature regression) as demonstrated by this apology letter. You don't have to write apology letters for viable stuff.
Google's 'beta' is equivalent to spiderman's broadway 'previews'. When they open to the public, start amassing huge amounts of user data, using the public for R&D, call it what you want, the public is paying.
How many people would buy an iPhone without iOS, or even with a poorly implemented iOS? Far fewer.
Apple sells an experience — the whole package. They always have. That's why Antennagate, a hardware issue, and Maps, a software issue, are equally frustrating and newsworthy. Apple proposes to remove the hardware/software distinction and deliver a magical device that just works.
Maps no longer just work for many people. And that's the problem with magic. It's very brittle. The clock strikes midnight and everyone turns back into a pumpkin, the ball is over. And so many people are frustrated, because they pay a premium for this abstraction, this magic, and it has disappeared, and that annoys them, and it scares them, because if Maps can stop working when it used to work, then so can my Phone, and my Email, and all my kids' baby pictures, and overnight, Apple's customers no longer feel in control.
I like the new maps (I live in Austin, the data seems pretty solid.) But this letter is a big deal. For the first time that I'm aware of, Apple has publicly admitted that there is no Wizard of Oz, and they're just a man behind the curtain, and would you please bear with us while we iron out the glitches?
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]
Completely agree. Perhaps I don't rely on the app as much as others, but I do find myself using it at least once a week. I personally haven't had any real problems since launch. But expected there to be quite a few hurdles at first. I'm an iOS user, but don't consider myself a fanboy. But I expect them to really push this and create something beautiful and useful over time, hopefully sooner than later. I'm anxiously awaiting.
Just want to point out that back-end improvements alone aren't sufficient to have Apple's Maps be on par with Google Maps. Adding something like Street View to Maps will require non-trivial updates to the iOS app (not to mention the colossal task of gathering and processing the street view data).
There's no indication they'll ever have something like Street View -- or rather, what's "like" it is the 3D flyover mode.
In practice the back end is really the main thing that they need to worry about. I'd argue, in fact, that the first order of business is straightening out the point of interest database, which seems to be where the majority of genuine problems are coming from. The second order of business is ensuring cartographic completeness and correctness, i.e., making sure that roads (and even the occasional town) are actually present and in the right place. Things like fuzzy terrain tiles or bad 3D meshes may be the most fun to take screen captures of for point-and-laugh purposes, but it's far more important to me that the maps application can tell me how to get to the Brooklyn Bridge than whether it can render a pretty 3D model of it.
>this is their way of more data. It'll be painful at first, but it will get better quickly
Reporting mapping errors on a small device is painful and cumbersome, especially if you're outdoors or trying to get somewhere. Like Google, Bing or Nokia maps, can you access and report errors in the maps from a laptop or desktop? If not, this process is going to be way slower.
> What to say? The fact that such a public letter had to be issued means that there's a lot of push-back. Apple just doesn't do that. In fact, I don't remember any software company doing this. I could be wrong. This feels unprecedented.
That is so awesome. I've never seen it until now.
They start off with a terrible random YouTube video crying over "GizModo propaganda". They then spend a minute on how they are not perfect, matched only by the following 9 minutes for showing how others are not perfect.
Then they tell everyone "you're just holding it wrong" and insult people with "X marks the spot" and "look at this beautiful line here".
I couldn't stand much more after that. That is not an apology, it's a display of arrogance. And some might very well claim that this whole Map thing is a result of the dysfunctional work environment people are under at Apple.
But it worked. Before that the hyperbolic tech media was "How the iPhone 4 sucks because of the Death grip". And after that the tech bloggers were "Why Apples comparison with other phones is a bit unfair, because HTC XYZ does need x seconds longer to be death gripped", which isn't that quite catchy and sexy. Steve Jobs changed the conversation. And even if you dislike his not quite suppressed snarkyness (which I loved, because the issue was blown out of proportion), it is interesting to note how successful Apples reaction turned out to be. Case in point: They still sell the iPhone 4 physically unchanged (I think?) and the issue just doesn't matter today anymore.
My brother and I both got iPhone 4's around the same time and we both have AT&T. He had death grip issues and I did not, simply because he is left handed.
He also decried most of the controversy as confusion and press hype. "We're not perfect, phones aren't perfect."
This letter says "We are extremely sorry." Extremely! Imagine Steve Jobs saying, "I am extremely sorry" is tough to imagine. Possible, but tough to imagine.
Soon after the original iPhone launch Apple posted a letter apologizing for the price drop so soon after the initial launch.
"We apologize for disappointing some of you..."
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/
Like Cook's letter, it was reactionary and came after the price drop was poorly received. They've used this medium quite a few times for specific things (letter against Flash and against DRM). Generally, to clarify their current position or to apologies.
Loved the ending about "behind the scenes" and "take care of everyone". Mafia reading of this was that overseas distributors of cases got unhappy and put out the videos. Apple says so solly, and now "everybody" is happy again.
Apple has used the P.T. Barnum strategy of even bad press is beneficial.
By releasing a crap version of Maps:
1. Everyone now knows that Apple has their own version of Maps.
2. The story has become, "Look how hard Apple is working to make it better."
One can see this in the Tech press already, e.g. Apple posting jobs, hiring ex-Googler's and Cooke's letter have supplanted criticism.
It is inevitable that the next release of maps will be covered with great fanfare and that the bulk of the stories will praise Apple for how much improvement they have made. Cooke's sincerity and the key hiring strategy will be mentioned. In other words, no matter how far behind their competition the next release of maps is, the standard narrative will reflect positively on Apple.
All of this is based on the fact that the quality of Maps is not a critical component of the decision tree within the market segment which buys iOS devices. Yes, there is perhaps a meaningful minority of people for whom Maps is a deal breaker when it comes to an iPhone. The same doesn't hold true when it comes to iPads or iPods. "Nobody" buys an iPod as a GPS [scare quotes because there is someone hacker who has].
> We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.
Didn't Netflix issues an apology for their attempted split?
Regarding knowing maps wasn't up to snuff... I think people knew but it's a funny thing. I worked on satellite receivers in a different life and TV has become such a ubiquitous and reliable enough service, you'd be amazed at how people just freak the hell out when their complex HD dual tuner PVR does something that's not as expected; just freak the hell out and scream at support folks. Little old ladies watching re-runs that they've seen before would melt down, it was interesting, almost like drug withdrawal or something. (Enough so that for certain events: the SuperBowl, the Academy Awards, sweeps season) they wouldn't do system updates. Maps is maybe a little less like that but it's much more personal, I've used the new maps with no problems but I just did a couple basic searches to check it out. However when you're counting on it to get you somewhere and it fails and you're late for whatever it is or you can't make a purchase because you're not at the store and it impacts you directly it's probably pretty upsetting. Gauging that personal rage is more difficult and I expect there are areas where the new maps really kills it, I bet the guys in Cupertino don't have problems with it doing their day to day stuff.. Don't forget, we didn't have these maps not that long ago, hard as it seems now pre-iPhone next to nobody was using this stuff, now it's substantial navigational aid.
As a society, we sort of like it when #1 has some trouble. Sort of like Toyota's problems a couple years back. The real question is is this going to raise the benchmark? Say Apple takes it to heart completely, it's hard to compete with them now, what's it look like if they step it up more? It certainly says something to google maps' quality, maybe some more competition is a good thing.
Maps is just one item in the iPhone launch that doesn't look to good for Apple. Sure, they are going to sell millions of iPhone 5s but it's the little things that have just never happened:
1. Maps is in beta, when Apple never let anyone see anything without polish.
2. There were no cases or accessories in the Apple store. Best Buy has third party stuff as do other stores. But that is money left on the table for someone else to pick up.
3. No adapters. The local Apple store didn't get any and doesn't expect them for weeks.
I half-joked to my wife that this post-Jobs era is already starting to unravel. Only half because I worry I am right and I don't want to be.
Jobs was well known for being biased to shipping over having a perfect product aka "Real Artists Ship". The first version of OSX had non-functional CD writing, from what I recall (fixed in the first update). Siri was released as beta, attenagate, the iMovie and Final Cut rewrites -- these all happened under Jobs.
Thank you - I think people are forgetting such misses as the Cube when Jobs first came back. I remember very distinctly after taking it off the market his comments about not always being able to get it right but they must continue to try and push the envelope. To add to your list btw, he also let MobileMe ship which no one agreed was up to snuff and he acknowledged later by firing the entire team.
Okay, Maps are bad, but this type of overreaction is from people who secretly think that Apple is doomed now that Jobs is gone.
>The fact that such a public letter had to be issued means that there's a lot of push-back. Apple just doesn't do that. In fact, I don't remember any software company doing this. I could be wrong. This feels unprecedented.
This is a gross overreaction and just a few examples from the comments below indicate Apple not only did this with earlier computing products, but did with the original iPhone, the antennae issue a while back. Netflix did too with their Quickster debacle.
Calm down. Maps is bad, but it will be fixed. Apple is still the most valuable company in the world. The iPhone 5 is still in the top 95% of devices on the market. Things will be okay.
This is interesting, it sounds like you don't have any first-hand experience with Maps being awful but are advising everyone you know not to upgrade to iOS 6.
Is that correct? I'm not saying it's unreasonable. It isn't the path I'd take though, and I find it a bit surprising.
I'm also curious, you say you have eight iOS devices and won't be upgrading any of them because of Maps. Do you use Maps on all of them? Or is your choice to upgrade none of them more about taking a stand?
Unprecedented for Apple maybe. Look Apple never admits to any bugs or issues until it (the issue) gets main stream press. Then fall over themselves offering explanations and feel good messages like "We make great products for you!". Remember Antenna Gate? Or Mobile Me? This letter is basically the same thing.
There's a LONG list of bugs/issues in OSX and IOS that have been around for years. Some of these issues have huge threads on Apple's own forums. They might get around to fixing them. But the reason some of these haven't been fixed is lack of press. Which is sad really.
Look, I've been an Apple fan-boy from way back (longer than many of you have been alive). And I am getting damn tired of Apple's "perfect world". I bet they released Apple Maps really not expecting any complaints. Really. Apple is probably shocked at the reaction.
But I also bet that the majority of people using IOS6 don't have problems with Maps.
Google was not going to give them turn-by-turn and they didn't want to keep falling behind. The only choice was to pull off the band-aid, release an inferior service, and then improve it with the help of users.
Yes, exactly. I'm not sure why some people think this is still a mystery - Apple's negotiation with Google on adding features like turn-by-turn navigation to iOS maps failed (we don't know who if anyone was at fault, but it is reasonable to assume Google would be cautious about adding a powerful feature to the main competitor of Android).
My understanding is that negotiations broke down because Apple wanted turn-by-turn navigation but in exchange Google wanting more branding and Latitude integration.
According to their sources, Google was keeping Apple from adding turn-by-turn directions without complying to some conditions that were too onerous for Apple.
Hardly so – Apple had to issue a similar mea culpa for Mobile Me back around this time in 2008. The big difference is that instead of apologizing to a small subset of customers, Apple has had to address all iOS 6 users. So this time it has to come from the CEO. (But don't think for a minute Steve didn't help pen the last one.)
They've been here, with a mouthful of crow, before. Large-scale, cloud-based services are not in Apple's DNA, so every time they try it seems to hurt the first time around.
I keep thinking it mirrors the introduction of Final Cut Pro X, in that a fundamentally broken product was dropped, without warning, on a group of users who relied on it heavily. Meanwhile, FCP 7 was yanked from the market at the exact same time - again, without warning - meaning (very) established users couldn't continue to rely on a very good system until the "improved" system was actually improved.
I remember seeing an extraordinary amount of dismissiveness on this very board from people with no media or post experience who were sneeringly characterizing editors and post-producers as neo-luddites who simply didn't understand technology (!) and who didn't want to change. The idea that Apple could have taken a big step backwards and tripped while doing so seemed like anathema. "Clearly" the fault must be with the users. "You just have to adapt to what MUST be good for you" came the refrain.
From the perspective of people who actually knew what they were doing, this came as insult added to injury. All the cloying remarks about Apple "simply moving the cheese (to a better spot!)" missed the real point, which is that Apple had made the cheese inedible then thrown it off a cliff. And they'd done so without warning, leaving a lot of heavy investments in equipment, media, and skills in the lurch.
Because it all this played out in a specialized niche, most people ignored it. Apple's chief competitors (Avid and Adobe) jumped on it, and life moved on - with Apple's once-sterling reputation in the professional post-production market forever dimmed.
Now that the same pattern is playing out with Maps. The big differences are (a) Maps are insanely mainstream - everybody notices this (b) Maps - unlike video editing - are absolutely central to mobile computing in general and (c) Mobile computing is clearly the future of not just Apple, but computing in general. So now there's a replay of the FCP X blowback, but this time, it's headline news worldwide. And the obvious response (switch to another system) isn't one Apple can afford having this many people make.
I have no idea what prompted this fiasco. Much of it may be external to Apple (e.g. a Google deal they couldn't live with). But judging from the reckless and completely unnecessary way they botched the FCP 7-X transition, I suspect something unique to Apple's culture is on display here.
It isn't pretty. But judging from the letter, Tim Cook seems to get it. They really Really REALLY need to get Maps right, and I really hope they do. The iPhone5 is beautiful, but I'm holding onto my 4S and its access to Google.
Similar issue with cell reception ... I still somewhat believe this is all purposeful. Their cult following wants them to succeed, and they will want to support them - so when a crappy product turns into gold (future release) they will cheer and all will forget --- except everyone's talking about Apple now, and Maps. Is all publicity good publicity? It's possible with the right factors at play IMHO.
It would be interesting to know how much decisions at Google had to play in all this happening. I'm sure they knew how much value they added to Apple's platform, and with the continued rise of Android it's certainly possible they saw this as an opportunity to have yet another reason for customers to leave iOS and come to Android.
The iPhone 5 and iOS 6 are merely evolutions of what came before them, and there are very few reasons for people to upgrade. Apple runs a real risk of losing customers over this (i.e., people keep their perfectly good iDevice and buy an Android/WP device to try them out). Maybe this is the proverbial kick in the pants that Apple needs to make sure the next iPhone and iOS version are more baked coming out the door.
> As a developer there's a lesson that needs reinforcing every-so-often. What better way to reinforce it than to see a tech giant make some of the mistakes lesser companies make: If you can at all help it, don't base your product on someone else's technology. Don't make someone else's technology such an important part of your offering that not having them will hurt you. Of course, sometimes you have no choice.
It seems like this is evidence of the opposite. Apple based its technology on another company, and it became the most valuable company in the world. It stopped using the other companies tech, and then it was forced to make an embarrassing public apology.
Apple had an existing agreement with Google for the data used in the old Maps app for one more year, and they chose to terminate it early. They could have released New Maps alongside Old Maps, made them optional for a year while the data matures, and none of this would have been an issue.
It takes 2 to tango, Apple would not have done this without a gun at their heads. iOS maps were clearly behind the state of the art and it was, for some reason, impossible to modernise them.
The gossip is that Google requested unacceptable licensing changes. Whatever the truth is, this situation is due to Apple and Google being unable to reach an agreement. Apple can and will recover this situation within a few months and, if Google dropped them into this situation, they will be looking for an opportunity to exact revenge.
Software companies always issues letters of sorry. Maybe you are just not paying attention or have no idea what is going on in the software community.
Or perhaps you prefer this flavor of kool-aid.
Apple had 3 options:
1. Delay release of product
2. Pull maps, release
3. Release an app with bugs
They chose 3. So what, happens all the time. But don't call this letter noble nor novel.
Loosing simultaneous voice and data was a painful lesson too. Was trying to get a taxi, they asked the address, it wasn't on the building. Tried to look it up, realized I couldn't.
> Apple engineers are not known for being dumb. Someone had to know that Maps was a bad idea. A huge step backwards. They had to know.
Maps is a unique problem in that it's hard to judge quality without doing field tests all over the world. I guess Apple management/engineers/testers live in and did most of their testing in SFO/CA/West Coast/US in that order which gave them a skewed idea of how good or bad the maps were.
I live in the Bay Area and my town isn't even named on Apple Maps. The streets are there, but they show it with the wrong name. I could understand if this was an obscure little English hamlet in the wilds of Norfolk, but this is the San Francisco Bay Area.
Not one person posting on HN and the many blogs really knows what happened behind the scenes. Apple engineers are not known for being dumb. Someone had to know that Maps was a bad idea. A huge step backwards. They had to know.
So the question might very well be: Why did they do it?
This couldn't have been out of spite. Just to kick Google off the platform. One just doesn't do that. Maintaining a complex code-base such as iOS is difficult enough. Adding to that the friction of delivering a substandard product is not something one does without very good reasons.
Conjecture is all we have from the outside. My humble guess is that it had to come down to a business deal they did not want to make. The details of the deal are not important. Who was right and who was wrong isn't important. What is important is that whatever they had in front of them convinced Apple management that it they had no choice but to, effectively, downgrade the next release with Maps.
I already know of a lot of non-tech people, particularly outside the US, who are livid about Maps. After dutifully upgrading their devices to iOS 6 they discover that Maps are, in their words, "crap", "useless", "unreliable", "a joke", "not accurate", "una mierda" (shit), etc. The reason for the strong feelings is that, let's face it, if a good tool such as Google Maps is available to you, you might tend to use it.
And a lot of people would use it all the time. My own wife relies on Google Maps all the time. Thankfully she was wise enough to marry a geek who promptly told her not to upgrade her iPhone 4S to iOS 6 and not to swap it out for an iPhone 5. In fact, not one person in my family will do either of those things. And that is the case --that has to be the case-- for millions of people at this point.
This is the data we are not getting and that Apple will probably never release. I own eight iOS devices. Not one of them will be upgraded to iOS 6. In fact, the upgrades stop here until either Maps starts to get really good marks. And, of course, we probably would have purchased at least three iPhone 5's. Not happening. I'll get one for development but it will not be activated.
How many millions are in this boat? If someone is a heavy Google Maps user it makes no sense to get an iPhone 5. What's wrong with a 4S? Nothing. Use their website you say? Not the same, most would say.
As a developer there's a lesson that needs reinforcing every-so-often. What better way to reinforce it than to see a tech giant make some of the mistakes lesser companies make: If you can at all help it, don't base your product on someone else's technology. Don't make someone else's technology such an important part of your offering that not having them will hurt you. Of course, sometimes you have no choice.
As a user and a developer I view iOS 6 as a significant, if not huge, step backwards. Between Maps and the eviscerated app store one has to ask that cliche-ish question: What were they thinking?
Wouldn't we like to know.