“The search technology in Apple’s iOS Maps software could implement data from anonymously recorded user visits to locations, like restaurants or stores, to improve map-related search results,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“pple’s concept for ranking local search results based on user-provided data was revealed this week in a new patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and discovered on Thursday by AppleInsider,” Hughes reports. “Entitled “Relevancy Ranking for Map-Related Search,” it describes how an iPhone would optionally report a user’s present location, via GPS, to help Apple improve its search results.”
Hughes reports, “By collecting this data, Apple could find hotspots and popular destinations for iPhone users, allowing it to improve search results when users are looking for a specific location in the iOS Maps application.”
Read more in the full article here.
Maybe it’s just me but I’ve never been able to find anything on the iPhone map app. Perhaps it’s because the screen size is so small that I can’t make out details when I’m zoomed out and when I’m zoomed in I lose the relational position of where I am. Or maybe I just suck at reading maps.
The current Google Maps makes it difficult to look for things by just browsing the map. It is designed to make it easier to use search in order to find things. I don’t think anyone can easily find stuff by just browsing that map. The type is so minuscule, bordering on pointless.
Apple may try to gather data by crowdsourcing the map application. However, unlike Google, Apple will do it properly, letting people know what they want to do and allowing them to opt out before any individual user location data is sent to Apple. Because of that, they have little chance of matching Google’s massive amounts of crowdsourced data, obtained from all those Android users oblivious to Google’s surreptitious user and location data harvesting practices.
Never found reading the map an issue myself, that’s what the zoom function’s for. But then, I’m used to using proper maps like the London AtoZ, which has miniscule text, and no zoom on dead tree, and British Ordnance Survey maps, which are the best on the world, and which also have small text on, so I’m really glad of the zoom function when using OS maps on my iPhone, makes life so much easier, along with the cross-hair that shows me exactly where I am in the middle of a forest.
Anyway, who’s betting on someone suing Apple over their anonymous location data being used to help them find what they’re looking for.
Not gonna happen; if Apple does it the way they do everything else, they’ll first ask people’s permission before any data is collected. The whole location data scandal has surely given them enough of a warning how not to approach crowdsourcing.