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Apple Maps: Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave (1 Viewer)

Hanson

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http://www.apple.com/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/


Quote:
To our customers,
At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO

I guess it's a better response than, "you're holding it wrong". Cook should change his name to Ck, to better reflect his loss of balls. Whether or not Jobs would have allowed a fiasco like this to unfold, he would have approached it with the kind of Jobsian arrogance that would circle the wagons and pump up the troops. All the iPhone apologists who are claiming Maps is still the best mapping program in iOS have no leg to stand on when the CEO admits it sucks and suggests better alternatives.

It appears the sugar water coming from Cupertino is starting to develop an off-taste. Tastes a little like schadenfreude.
 

mattCR

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The Apple maps are terrible.
Right now, the Nokia map thing is the king of the roost, then Google... but those two are close.
But Apple Maps is like.. horrible.. Yesterday, I gave it a try. I said: Take me to 4th and State, Kansas City, KS.. it directed me WTF out in Wyandotte rather then to the downtown. (I knew really where I was going so I didn't follow it through.. once I saw it was heading K32 I knew it was wrong). Google maps got it right right off the bat.

Something just not right with that.
 

schan1269

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Maybe I'm biased, but...
Apple is turning into Bose...(ducking...)
Samsung has had its way the last few days with their G3 ad. However, I'm not sold on Samsung phones either. I "loathe" Samsung at times...yet, bought a Samsung W/D pair. The pair I have has glowing reviews and was the lowest priced set as large as it was(went for the biggest there was without "dryer steam" and other stuff I cared not for. If there had been a Whirlpool brand like it, the same size, I wouldn't have bought Samsung...I bought "what I needed/wanted" regardless of brand).
Back to phones...
My only experience with Samsung is my cousins prior phone(it slid open to reveal the keyboard) on Sprint...
So, a hamstrung phone on a hamstrung network resulted in(whenever I was with him) in phone calls with the response of...
"Can I use your phone to call them back?"
Current T-Mobile Crackberry user.
 

Hanson

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Maps does have flyover views for, you know, if you're piloting your helicopter over certain cities. Of course, if you want to take public transportation in that city, then you're shit out of luck.

Helicopters > Subways
 

Hanson

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Here's another guy who can't forgive Apple for dropping Google Maps in lieu of Apple Maps.

My next phone will be a Samsung, not an iPhone 5



Quote:
So, if you rely on Maps, I hate to tell you this, but don't think iOS 6.1 in January is going to get Apple's Maps close to the level that Google Maps hit on the iPhone even back in 2007. If you ask me, it hardly competes with MapQuest in 1995.





Quote:
The real failure of Apple Maps comes from the fact that it is still clearly an alpha product (not even a beta like Siri -- an alpha) that should never have been released in its current state.


Quote:
When Apple released that statement, I wrote "Some people have called Apple's Maps the company's 'Vista' moment. Though I am quite annoyed by the downgrade, I liken Apple's Maps more to iMovie '08. That's when Apple totally revamped iMovie and turned it into the start of something better, but it didn't start surpassing the old iMovie until the next iteration of the new app."

Boy, was I wrong. After a weekend of really using them, the current state of Apple's Maps is way worse than Vista.



The comments section is typically attacking and angry, offering up stupid workarounds or being the kind of Ugly American stereotype that doesn't realize there's a world outside of the four States they travel in:



Quote:
I find a $75 - $150 GPS far more useful than any navigation on a phone.

Sure, why not carry around another device solely for the purposes of walking around a city (the scenario the author refers to constantly)?

But this one is my favorite:



Quote:
What a bunch of nonsense and waste of time. I have used the new Maps app in iOS 6 for a few months in Beta form. I have used it in NY, NJ, IL, IN with ZERO problems. Does it cover the entire world yet of course not.

WOW! NY, NJ, IN, and IL represent! Apparently, the rest of the world doesn't deserve a proper maps app. Stupid foreigners expecting working software. Don't you know the only people in the world that count travel in Amurrica? USA! USA! USA! USA!
 

Hanson

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ManW_TheUncool

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Looks like the dreaded purple fringing that's common to a lot of digital cameras (even DSLRs w/ certain older lens designs), not just the iPhone 5, although this does seem particularly bad/extreme. Some of that *might* be addressable via image-processing software fix/update, but not sure there's a whole lot Apple can do w/ something this extreme short of a camera hardware redesign unless it's actually just an unexpected manufacturing/QC issue. Looks like another strike against the iPhone 5 for me then...

_Man_
 

Sam Posten

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I dont doubt its a real issue but I have yet to see it.
If not being able to take pics looking into a direct light source is the tradeoff for better low light shots that is a bargain I can live with.
 

Hanson

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But but but... I thought the point of the iPhone is that you don't have to make trade offs

"It's just works... mostly".
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Sam Posten said:
/t/324071/steve-jobs-must-be-rolling-over-in-his-grave#post_3982811
How many idiots take pictures straight into a light source???
Oh yeah, the ones that have never used a real camera...
And how much real experience do you actually have w/ (digital) cameras and photography to call every such person an idiot? I don't know that it will often be quite so bad as shown in some of the sample shots when the issue shows up, *BUT* purple CA/fringing of this sort isn't exactly something completely new (and isolated to the iPhone 5) afterall. It's just that this iPhone 5 issue seems to be a rather extreme example of what often happens to much lower degree on many/most digital cameras -- and the issue is real enough for "real cameras" for it to be talked about regularly in camera (and lens) reviews among other things.

What if the problem shows up for shots involving sunrise/sunset for instance? What about indoor or nighttime shots where there may be plenty of spot light sources that you can't realistically avoid (or may simply not want to avoid)? Is the iPhone 5 camera great at dealing w/ such shots by choosing settings (and in-camera image-processing) that won't exacerbate the problem (as that's what people would normally do for such shots w/ other cameras that may have sensor blooming problems or something similar)?

Also, do realize/remember that many of us will be using our smartphones for video at least as much as stills, which will make avoiding the issue more difficult (for video) -- and those of us w/ real cameras don't necessarily need to rely on a smartphone all the time anyway, especially for shots that might matter quite that much to us in times/places where we're expecting (ahead of time) to shoot some photos. The other thing is that part of the reason to use the smartphone camera at all is for quick grab shots, often in less-than-ideal circumstances/opps. We can accept the general quality tradeoffs (vs a quality camera like a DSLR), but nobody's expecting extreme purple blooming w/ any camera they'd care to use at all, if this is indeed a common enough problem...
_Man_
 

schan1269

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I've been into photography(not just taking pictures) and darkrooms ever since the Canon FTb hit the market(My father bought one of the first ones. He gave it to me in 1973 when I was 3)...
I knew how to set-up 3 hour exposures when I was 5.
I also own 3 large format cameras.
 

Hanson

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Apple on Purple Haze in iPhone 5 Photos: ‘It’s Normal’



Quote:
[COLOR= rgb(71, 71, 71)]The problem with this response, aside from being reminiscent of Steve Jobs’s legendary “Just avoid holding it in that way” [/COLOR]response[COLOR= rgb(71, 71, 71)] to the iPhone 4′s reception issues, is that the haze doesn’t only happen when you point the camera at a light source — it occurs in fairly normal photographic settings.[/COLOR]

It quite clear from many samples that the purple haze shows up even if you don't point the camera directly at a light source. So to say that is some sort of specific use case that only idiots would encounter is quite false.
 

schan1269

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By the way, I don't own this one...but, for me, this one is a piece of cake...
http://www.amazon.com/Toyo-Field-45A-Technical-Camera/dp/B001D0KNXA/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1349199119&sr=1-5&keywords=large+format+camera
 

Hanson

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Does that have wifi connectivity so I can upload the pictures to Facebook?
 

schan1269

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Well, if you get "purple haze" (and not the Jimi kind) from "normal use"...then yes...it is a lousy design.
There are work arounds to shooting into a light source, but I've never encountered a "camera phone" that I'd use for more than "posting crap to Facebook".
 

ManW_TheUncool

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schan1269 said:
/t/324071/steve-jobs-must-be-rolling-over-in-his-grave#post_3982836
There are work arounds to shooting into a light source, but I've never encountered a "camera phone" that I'd use for more than "posting crap to Facebook".
You mean "crap" like a party pic to share or a quick video shot of your kid, if you have one of those, doing something you and your family/friends might adore? You mean you'd be fine w/ nasty purple blooming/haze for that just because it's "crap"? I guess you're gonna bring your large format rig along for those then?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not expecting miracles from any tiny digicam, let alone a phone camera, but this is the sort of thing such cameras should at least not completely fail on in that sort of way afterall.

_Man_
 

schan1269

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Maybe "idiot" was a harsh term...
I should have said "for those that don't know the difference"...
Using a camera phone is a "last resort" for photography. Granted, I have some pictures that I wouldn't have without it. I was walking around out here in BFE Lake County Indiana(yeah, same county as Gary Indiana, but MUCH further south{further, in this case, being the correct term}). I have a pic of a Bald Eagle. I would not have gotten it digging out my FTb, as I hadn't loaded it yet.
 

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