Apple Inc. “was recently awarded a patent for a potentially useful feature that could help you avoid areas with weak cellular coverage when planning your trip with navigation in Maps,” Zac Hall reports for 9to5Mac.
“The USPTO awarded Apple with a patent to analyze routes between two locations and ’employ an algorithm that considers wireless network signal strengths along those routes,'” Hall reports.
“In other words, because your iPhone can collect and measure cellular signal data and many iPhone users anonymously share travel data with Apple, there’s potential for Maps to know which routes problematically contain dead zones and suggest lengthier routes with better signal.” Hall reports.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Something like this would be a welcome and useful addition to Maps. We’d use it, for sure, whenever we’re working while traveling.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Darrell” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
It would be great if it could predict that and preload map data so the map continues when there in no cell service.
That’s what I was hoping for here – even in the background. When it sees that I’m headed into a dead spot, load enough to get me out the other side via whichever routes are most likely. If I hop on a small back road, that’s my problem, and I must already know where I’m headed, so no big deal.
That’s why I still have the TomTom App installed. No cellular, no problem. All TomTom needs is GPS. Very reliable.
Also love that it provides an estimated arrival time that has always been within 1 or 2 minutes of actual drive time.
I have not trusted TomTom since they released a software update that bricked my TomTom GPS, and refused to take responsibility for what they had done; I will never consciously give them another penny, and will forever speak out against them at every appropriate opportunity. Like this one.
Do other maps, such as Google Maps, still use bitmap screens rather than vector based maps (like Apple does) that use less data?
Does google have a maps app? Who knew!
Google updated their iOS maps application very soon after Apple released Apple Maps. It was a point of discussion on this forum that even though the initial release of Apple Maps had some beta-type issues, it was still a good move because the availability of an Apple solution forced Google to update its iOS client and bring it to relative parity with its Android counterpart. Many people, including MDN, have disparaged the decision to release Apple Maps in an unfinished state, characterizing it as a mistake that will always stick in peoples’ minds. But Apple needed a stick to use against Google, and Apple Maps offered sufficient advancements to pose a long term threat to Google on iOS devices. Whether or not Apple should have waited to release a more mature version of Apple Maps is irrelevant at this point. The threat to Google forced Google to improve Google Maps for iOS, and Apple Maps is gradually growing into the long term threat that Google feared. In addition, Apple is poised to sucker-punch Google on its home turf – search and ads. The end of the Google contract with Apple for search on iOS will cost Google $B, and I could not be more pleased.
My personal experience with Apple Maps has been good, and I routinely used DuckDuckGo for internet searches. I refuse to touch any Google services – Gmail, etc. – and I do not feel that I am sacrificing any capabilities or convenience. On the contrary, the peace of mind and the satisfaction of doing my part against Eric T. Mole and his fellow conspirators makes me feel good.
Thanks for answering my question. 🙂
You mean there was a time when Google used vector base maps for Android and bitmap data for IOS?!?!?
No wonder Apple pulled the trigger on Apple maps. (that and the lack turn-by-turn for IOS)
Just look at the bars. Jeez.
It would be nice if Apple actually fixed usability and accuracy problems of Maps instead of working on pointless “features” that nobody asked for. Crap like this shows that Apple has no focus anymore.
In the Mac world, now we have new emoji and a neutered Photo application. Pathetic, Apple. Why are you letting your software go downhill so fast?????
Translation: “Apple’s products have some problems, and they should give up innovating – you know, that whole ‘making things people don’t know that they need’ thing – until they’ve fixed every last one of those problems.”
Pathetic.