“Apple has started advertising for a large number of iOS Software Engineers whose specific focus will be on improving the Apple Maps app that is included with iOS 6,” AppleBitch reports.
“The company is advertising for ten new Software Engineer positions, all dedicated to working on various aspects of the Maps app that has courted both praise and criticism since it launched last year, replacing Google Maps as the standard iOS 6 mapping application,” AppleBitch reports. “All are based in Cupertino and will be part of the team that is dedicated to improving the Apple Maps application.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Apple’s Eddy Cue racing to overhaul Maps – November 28, 2012
Apple to Maps manager Williamson: Get lost – November 27, 2012
Forstall pushed out by Cook, source says; news met with ‘quiet jubilation’ inside Apple – October 30, 2012
Can Apple exec Eddy Cue work his magic on Apple Maps? – October 31, 2012
I haven’t had a problem yet with the new maps app. I used it today in dirty jersey (nj) and siri was pretty responsive if i altered the route
Speaking of improving applications, it seems to have escaped the big A’s attention that MAME has sneaked into the iOS App Store again under the guise of a free app called Gridlee that lets those with a smattering of tech knowledge load arcade roms into it (and no jail breaking required!)
It can only be a matter of time before the app’s pulled so go get ’em boys!
Apple maps navigated for me daily and flawlessly for a relentless week on a recent trip to LA…Apple is justfixingto blow Google maps away with new implementation of featrues that Google maps doesn’t have…
i would suspect their current crowdsourcing efforts are on hold.
Twice now I’ve sent them an error message the “report a problem” , and (just checked) they still show two fast food outlets in my neighborhood which haappens to be miles from any fast food outlet.
Same here, reporting streets displaced to cross thru buildingblocks in the very center of my nations capital – zip happens. Why report?
More iOS Maps engineers would be great. But Apple could get far just by hiring people to read & verify problems reported by users and correcting it in the database.
I reported several incorrect locations which remain incorrect every time I open iOS Maps. It’s still broken and I feel like I just wasted my time on it.
Apple needs to request users to update the locations that are wrong on the map app. Make it into a contest. Most per city, county, state, country with prizes. Give it a week and anyone posting false information gets blocked from updating and all prior posting are cleared. Finish up on the USA then do the next country.
This will work in locations that never had mapping by Google or anyone. People will enjoy being part of the fix and development of the maps data. There are many millions of us iOS device users out here and we want to help!
I posted several corrections as soon as Maps was released – nothing happened. Don’t know how long it should take to update simple spelling errors in street names.
I have no knowledge of how Apple uses the correction information people submit. But consider for a moment how easy it would be for competitors to mess up the database if all it took was a person submitting a “correction.”
I once called the number on the freeway “HOV Hero Hotline” because I saw a single-occupant car using the HOV lane as his personal pass around traffic. I asked the operator what happens when we call in and he told me that after 40 complaints of a single license plate they can send a citation.
So while I think that makes the Hero Hotline nearly useless, it also prevents road rage people from abusing the hotline to get other drivers in hot water maliciously.
Back on the subject of Maps, I’ve had a wonderful experience with it, especially versus my TomTom and Hertz Never Lost. But this past weekend Maps was guiding me to a newly constructed water-front home that Maps thought was out in the water. Siri politely told me “after 100 feet you’ll need to park and walk the rest of the way to your destination.” There you have it: Siri thinks I can walk on water! I’m so flattered.
iPad mini fits into many car navigations plans,
so here is where Apple plans to make its money next… the automotive industry? Maps is being focused on increasingly.
iPad mini also, it fits better suited for the medical professionals.
Its also, without a doubt, the best size for outdoor use over the iPad; which is seen as far too big to handle and carry in most outdoor situations. Consider the iPad mini was the perfecter size for editing and taking photos.
But iPad mini needs telephone capabilities TOOOOOOOO !!!
That will put Apple in the untouchable zone – specially if cupeled with 128 Bg or 256 Gb drives.
It sounds like: if you can bolt it on or increase it, you want it. Even though you can’t possibly use all the things you want, you want it.
Isn’t this a massive case of delayed reaction? The maps keruffle happened months ago and apple is just now hiring more engineers to fix it?
On the other hand Siri and maps found me an alternative route with ease yesterday after finding usual way blocked by an accident.
Yes and no. Remember that they had a transition, with an ouster of the product manager and VP. It seems like Cue coming up to speed and putting this plan in motion to the point where they’re hiring engineers did take a long time.
Apple Maps doesn’t have a functionality problem (maybe aside from transit data), it has a data problem. There are some bugs to be fixed in how it consumes data from sources it’s supposed to integrate with. I’ve found many examples of business listed in Yelp that aren’t searchable in Apple Maps.
Another great example of the ineptness of the current CEO and his team and why it’s time for a change. At Apple’s request, I’ve sent no fewer than three messages, all apparently ignored, that the name of the big university in our town is what it was called in the 1960s. No other current map on the planet shows its old name. Only Apple’s. How long has this map blunder been ruining the reputation of the once great company and how long before it’s fixed. Ever?
Pee Pee troll strikes again!
Little pee pee
+1
Apple maps has a big black hole in the entire country of Serbia. If one decides to drive, say, from München (Munich, Germany) to Athens (Greece), which is a trip many Germans take by car in the summer, and chooses to use Apples maps, they just might get lost once they get to Serbia. Of course, they could always drive around it (add extra 9 hours to their trip).
I’d love to hear Apple’s explanation why this big black hole?
Google even has street maps of North Korea! How they obtained those, nobody knows (apparently, defectors, satellite imagery, etc).
If nobody knows how Google got street maps of North Korea, how do we know that those are accurate maps of streets in North Korea? Some articles have pointed out that Google still has quite a few map problems, especially considering how much longer they have been at it compared to Apple.
Well, the maps themselves are pretty accurate, as they are probably derived from the satellite imagery. Street names are probably as accurate as those who defected to the South have made them to be. The main point is, even for the most xenophobic, isolated, closed land on the planet (by far) Google has maps that are (presumably) reasonably correct. Meanwhile, Apple has no map for a pretty large mass of land in the south of Europe, at the crossroads between the Middle East and Western Europe. It is obvious that Google can’t expect maps in North Korea to be used for actual navigation (there is no public cellphone service there; tourists must surrender their phones at the border, or be jailed if they fail to do that; besides, what little internet access is available can’t access Google anyway). So, the reason for the North Korean map must be just the bragging rights.
Again, why Apple doesn’t have any detail for Serbia is completely beyond comprehension.
Indeed! Right after the story about the problems with Apple Maps in the Australian Outback, another story about Google Maps problems in the Outback also came out. Of course that one was not so widely repeated.
They used to have paper maps and atlas’s before the whacky government of today was put in place.
My only problem is the background color. It’s too close to the white color of the street.
I agree. The colour scheme makes it hard to see the streets.
For what i’ts worth I had to do some major driving in Vancouver where I have lived for 30 years and as an experiment I used IOS maps
The routing was way better than I would have done myself. It was excellent
What I miss are the public transport directions. I suspect that this is more easily fixed than streetview
Street view. It’s simply one-of-a-kind. Nothing takes its place. Nothing. As much as I hate Google, their maps are the best. They have too many years headstart and too much input to ever catch up with. Unless Apple wants to buy Garmin or Nokia? Apple can’t be the best at everything. They don’t make vacuum cleaners and I don’t care. And I don’t care if Apple makes its own maps either. Why should I?
Streetview, bahh! I couldn’t care less about street view. It is pretty fluff and mostly useless in my opinion.
Totally wrong. Weekend and appman (below) are absolutely right. Until Apple miraculously catches up to Google’s enormous head start with Streetview, Apple Maps will be completely second rate. Streetview makes any kind of driving directions utterly unnecessary in a vast number of instances. Plotting a course with a satellite map and “driving” it with Streetview implants a phenomenal memory of unfamiliar locations. Landmarks for freeway exits and turns will look familiar. Streetview provides a host of other cues for building layout — parking and such — in many cases. Sure, there will always be new streets and “unfilmed
Never catch up? That would imply roads are being built and modified faster than people can drive them.
And if the value is in the Google streetview, how does buying Garmin or Nokia solve that issue for Apple?
Yeah, go to it Apple. Get yourself a nice fleet of cars, motorcycles and helicopters with mapping gear. Show Google it’s not the only company that can do decent maps. Apple could easily afford to put up some low-orbit mapping satellites to one-up Google.
Why waste time making another wheel? It can’t get any rounder. Just concentrate on something new.
Maps point people to destinations, especially businesses, and that means advertising revenues. If Apple spends $10 million improving its map app and generates another $250 billion in annual earnings (both hypotheticals), then the effort will have been worth it.
Until Apple adds street view I’m sticking with Google.