The native iOS 6 Maps are just short of wretched. No transit directions, unhelpful default views, a dramatically weaker points of interest database, weaker scrolling performance, and a busier UI that doesn't add anything of great use.
It's a rather big turd in an otherwise delicious punchbowl, and it is going to become a real-world talking point about iPhones starting today.
Apple needs to take their massive $$$ warchest and spend an inordinate amount of money on getting maps back up in shape. Each of those $'s is worth it. It's an absolutely crucial feature and it needs to be not just good enough, it needs to be really good and better than most.
My fear is now Apple is becoming more bean counter and less passion, strong-opinion driven. To let Maps out in this shape is a troubling misstep.
That falls afoul of Brooks' law though. Apple isn't limited by development cash in any meaningful way. They're limited by staff. There aren't that many world class developers out there. Apple is grabbing up all they can, but they're in competition with a lot of other companies with sizable war chests. And the ones Apple has are hard at work already.
Google's been throwing world class talent at maps for the better part of a decade now. And it's only now, within the last year or so, that the product has even begun to look mature enough to be cloned. Basically, Apple can't buy this. They just have to work on it iteratively until it improves.
Which, IMHO, it will. The "innovative window" for maps has closed. There aren't enough great features left for Google to add, so they won't be able to maintain their lead indefinitely. Mapping will be a commodity app (and hopefully an open source one) within a few years.
> Apple is grabbing up all they can, but they're in competition with a lot of other companies with sizable war chests.
Why not start a price war for developers? Presumably Apple has plenty of funds to start offering developers, say, double what they're offering now. If developer skill and/or quality is really a primary concern for Apple, what is stopping them from simply offering more compensation? (Obviously, I'm not suggesting that this would be a quick fix to their maps project.)
Yes, I meant the data improvement. Pay people to get all major metros internationally double-checked and corrected. Pay for POI data entry or develop that separately.
I think Amazon one-upped Apple on the maps front by licensing Navteq's maps (now owned by Nokia) for the Kindle tablets and wrapping a nice API around them for developers.
Navteq's maps are way better than TomTom's. One of my friends had a TomTom GPS a few years ago and it was terrible, like once taking us around in circles for a restaurant and showing it was three miles away, when we could see it across the street a few hundred feet away. He had such bad experiences with it that he would borrow our Garmins and finally switched to Garmin a year ago. I just assumed that TomTom was Europe based so had much better coverage there and pretty horrible maps in the US.
If I were Google, I would release a very polished maps app for iOS for $10 with ads, but they might be just content with some people picking Android phones just because the builtin maps experience and turn by turn voice directions is really good.
Eh, I tried the new Maps and it seems usable. What's really wretched in this release is what they've done to the App Store. It's now HTML5-based, like the old (and despised) facebook app. It crawls compared to the old one.
Unless I'm terribly mistaken, ALL apple stores (iTunes music, iOS App, Mac App, iBooks) on all platforms (Mac, WIndows, iOS) have always been web views. Every single one of them. Ever since 2002 when iTunes was launched.
And my experience in the past few months (iPad 2, iOS 6 beta) was that the store is not slow at all, so don't worry!
> What's really wretched in this release is what they've done to the App Store.
The appstore has always been web-based. You could really feel it on a slow connection (e.g. Edge), because the UI itself (not just the content) would take ages to display and sometimes fail to render altogether.
I agree in general, but it isn’t all bad. (Recounting my experience on the Retina iPad:) At least on that device, performance now appears to be on par with the old app, much improved from earlier betas (but the new iPad is a pretty beefy device, other devices may struggle more). On bad connections, maps seem to load much better (because they are now vector based) and I do like their style – if it weren’t for the atrocious map data, I think the default view would be on par with the old app (I also have seen the styling of the maps and the placement algorithms for labels improve by leaps and bounds during beta testing). Turn-by-turn is really great and works very well. I have no complaints about the UI on the iPad, it’s more or less the same (though the changes they made might not works so well on smaller screens).
(I’m in Germany, living in a small city with 50,000 inhabitants:) However, map data is atrocious and riddled with embarrassing mistakes (when zooming in, the label of my city is not visible for the longest time – while much smaller villages around my city appear much earlier – and when it finally becomes visible it’s about three kilometers east of my city, in some forest). Satellite images are embarrassingly bad. POIs are practically non-existent and useless in Germany. If they exist at all they are out of date (when I search for italian restaurants, it shows me a pizzeria that closed half a decade ago, not a single italian restaurant that is open now). Google’s POIs are current and (more or less) comprehensive, Apple’s are anything but. Plus: No one uses Yelp in Germany, Qype is pretty popular around here, though – consequently there is just no useful data on Yelp about German restaurants.
I really hope that Google will soon come out with their maps app for iOS. And I hope that Apple will improve. I believe they can (hey, it took Google some time, too), and I don’t object to the existence of a second good maps service.
I was actually thrilled that for transit directions in NYC, Maps just gave me a button to the Embark app, which won the MTA App Quest for best subway navigation in the city. It has a better interface than Google Maps for transit, anyway. It's obviously an extra step to go to another app, but if the experience is better in the long run, I'm willing to go with it.
Google Maps has been annoying on iOS for a while -- ever since they updated their Android app to use vectors, while ignoring the iOS version, it's felt much slower and I figured it was just a matter of time before they abandoned iOS completely.
I shared many of those concerns from the previews given by Apple. That is until I actually tried using it, at which point I have deemed it much better than the Google-backed version. With that said, I think your location matters: Transit directions are not something I can use anyway, for instance.
Honestly, I think this just showcases how difficult maps really are. No matter how bad people in the US are finding it, I guarantee that users outside the US are going to hate this change even more than you do.
It's a great example of something that doesn't scale easily.
Yes, the map over Helsinki, Finland is full of errors like stores and restaurants being in totally wrong locations or just plain wrong (according to the map I have a bar I never have heard of on my iPad 200m from my house in the middle of a park).
I suspect Google will release an IOS app putting back their functionality soon enough. I hope so because while the apple maps looks pretty, the utility comes from the search by point of interest, and that's considerably weakened by this release.
There are a few improvements though, I like the new app store better because I don't need my password to update apps, or buy free ones, and the icon has a little 'new' badge to remind me to try the app.
As an Android user who was recently given an iPad for work, this one step stopped me from installing probably 10-20 apps. I'd be on a site, think "oh there's probably an app for this", realize I'd have to type in my 15-character password, and think "oh...well using the website's ok I guess". It baffles me that it's been around for as long as it has.
I haven't had time to explore it very much yet, but I was a bit disappointed when I first launched it and found that the only overhead imagery available for my area is in black and white. It's hardly a remote location.
I suppose they will be making a lot of map-related deals over the coming months, but Google may have arranged exclusive contracts with some companies.
I saw someone tweet (and someone I follow retweet) this: "Nine years ago Safari was released: a fringe browser that didn't run sites for IE well. Today, its engine powers everything. Now think maps."
I laughed and then felt really, really bad for them.
It's unbelievable the way people react to criticism. (in any cases, not just Apple/iPhone)
Trojankitten is extraordinarily astute and her opinion is not to be dismissed as partisanship. She is correct in that Maps are a fundamental and incredibly important platform service that will only become moreso over time.
If it doesn't change how much they suck today, then why do people keep bringing it up in response to complaints about how much they suck today? I can understand speculating that the new maps will get better, but I don't understand why that's being used as a response to people talking about how terrible they are now.
I have no idea who this person is other than guessing she is a female from her profile picture. It's also not the first tweet I've found to be completely off-base and ironically, the second today. The tweet about intro/extrovertedness is just flatly wrong.
I have no reason to take her tweet as anything but what it is. In context with her other tweets, I feel pretty damn safe in calling it at least a bit partisan. A quick scan of the first above-the fold tweets shows another conversation that is blatantly intentionally down-playing the badness of the iOS6 maps.
edit: I mean, I haven no stake in this, as I've said I have no idea who this person is, but you can't read through that feed and tell me with an honest tone that it's not biased. It's blatantly pro-Apple tweet, anti-Google tweet, ambiguous tweet about Microsoft competing with Google. Repeat.
edit2: I've devolved into an off-topic rant about some random Twitter account. I apologize. I'll merely conclude that likening iOS6 Maps to Safari (and really WebKit) as a response to how bad Maps is... is pretty desperate in my opinion.
Yes it's biased, she's deeply opinionated, yes she's an opinioneer, etc... But she's still got a piece of the truth in hand: Maps are important, they're only becoming moreso, and Apple is extremely unlikely to sit on their ass now that they've launched their own stack. (especially once their customer satisfaction numbers start plopping, which they will)
Now that is a much more palatable and understandable angle. I completely agree that it makes sense for Apple to take it in house. I completely sympathize that is a monumental (literally, World-sized) problem to tackle and that for a first-release, this is probably admirable of Apple.
I guess I still don't buy that Apple Maps are going to become the ubiquitous success that WebKit is.
There's one of two implications at hand:
1. It will be the best thing ever because Apple made it (which makes me immensely sad and is why I groaned at this tweet).
2. It will become a staple used by everyone like WebKit.
I don't see any chance of #2 happening as that would require Apple to license that data, or make it a service, or a reusable component for others to use. I can't think of anything that Apple does so with currently, nor any movement from them to make that seem like a logical choice.
Thus, again, I'm left wondering where on Earth someone comes up with correlating iOS6 Maps and WebKit.
I'm thinking it goes something like this: Let's assume Apple's map quality is more or less resolved within the near future and put it aside. What can they do with total control over a POI+venue database?
-- They can generate statistics on who's searching for what, when, and where from and sell that off or give it away free to venue operators.
-- They can link custom Apps and content to a venue. (Welcome to the Museum! Tap here to download a free tour guide.") They can link .passbook offers directly on-map. ("Tap here for a discount on entry, today only!")
-- They can sell off preferential search results, preferential ratings, or retargeted advertising like Google and Yelp do.
-- They can do the opposite of that and proclaim that their maps and venue listings are of unimpeachable quality without gamed results
-- They can create a meta-venue datatype through Apple Connect that allows authorized entities to quickly whip up appealing micro-sites for their venues "Drop your menu .PDF here"
-- They can do anything they want with in-venue navigation, which is going to be massive now that the interior mapping tools are coming onto the market
With all this done:
-- They can API-ize this and create mini-sites or mini-apps wrapped in Yelp-y context that replace the entire idea of how you interact with a venue. For instance: "Thai Bistro" is now an App that tells you exactly what's going on with your favorite joint without consulting twitter, facebook, a webpage, and a mapping service.
In short, with this map platform they can now own the total experience of -leaving the house-. Google is years ahead of them on this, and it's unlikely Google's willing to share their advances with their frenemy.
Maps are foundational to representing the state of the civilization around you. It's the Webkit for Real World Experiences.
I don't think her point is that it's going to get used in lots of other projects but that it will grow to be a big success, and one that people will look back on and say "Apple was right to set off on this weird-seeming path back then." We'll see, of course.
(I say this as somebody that was shocked that Apple didn't build Safari 1.0 on top of Mozilla/Gecko. KHTML?!)
I mean, in that regard I hope she's right. I hope that Apple brings Google Maps some serious competition and obviously, for my iOS breathren, I hope that their maps experience continues to be enhanced.
But we all know that, right? Maybe this was just a response to "iOS Maps sux. Apple sux." type comments? I'm not sure. It's hard for me to believe how polar peoples' opinions still are on iOS and Android to have to have these silly conversations.
Also, it seems very misguided to use "Safari was released. [Safari] became successful."...
to imply that "AnythingElse was released. AnythingElse will become successful."
Literally pick any product that has ever not become a rousing success and you have plenty of counter-examples as to why that logic is faulty at best.
I still also find it be evidence of pandering to go out of the way to say "Safari is a success" rather than "WebKit". The sentiment of the tweet isn't even remotely accurate for "Safari".
That one is not that bad, I just take it to mean a humble start can become a fantastic product.
Now this one on the other hand, I can't figure out the state of mind leading to writing it and releasing that to the world:
> What’s missing from this conversation is that map usage is critical. […] Google’s maps are going to start degrading. Apple’s will get better. They’ll meet in the middle within 18 months.
I've seen that response several times now, and it's incredibly bizarre. Why should a guess at the potential future impact evaluation of how the thing is right now?
Based on kbutler's response above, my other post detailing the two options I see and the fact that my "Uh, it's not open source?" comment is downvoted, I'm inclined to think that there are some here that believe "Apple release -> auto(eventual) success".
I mean, as you say, what other basis is there for even making such a strange comparison between two vastly different projects (an open source rendering engine and a proprietary data set gained through partnerships and manual data gathering?
Comments
The native iOS 6 Maps are just short of wretched. No transit directions, unhelpful default views, a dramatically weaker points of interest database, weaker scrolling performance, and a busier UI that doesn't add anything of great use.
It's a rather big turd in an otherwise delicious punchbowl, and it is going to become a real-world talking point about iPhones starting today.
Apple needs to take their massive $$$ warchest and spend an inordinate amount of money on getting maps back up in shape. Each of those $'s is worth it. It's an absolutely crucial feature and it needs to be not just good enough, it needs to be really good and better than most.
My fear is now Apple is becoming more bean counter and less passion, strong-opinion driven. To let Maps out in this shape is a troubling misstep.
That falls afoul of Brooks' law though. Apple isn't limited by development cash in any meaningful way. They're limited by staff. There aren't that many world class developers out there. Apple is grabbing up all they can, but they're in competition with a lot of other companies with sizable war chests. And the ones Apple has are hard at work already.
Google's been throwing world class talent at maps for the better part of a decade now. And it's only now, within the last year or so, that the product has even begun to look mature enough to be cloned. Basically, Apple can't buy this. They just have to work on it iteratively until it improves.
Which, IMHO, it will. The "innovative window" for maps has closed. There aren't enough great features left for Google to add, so they won't be able to maintain their lead indefinitely. Mapping will be a commodity app (and hopefully an open source one) within a few years.
> Apple is grabbing up all they can, but they're in competition with a lot of other companies with sizable war chests.
Why not start a price war for developers? Presumably Apple has plenty of funds to start offering developers, say, double what they're offering now. If developer skill and/or quality is really a primary concern for Apple, what is stopping them from simply offering more compensation? (Obviously, I'm not suggesting that this would be a quick fix to their maps project.)
Apple Maps might need some code improvement, but what they really need is data improvement, and that can be bought.
Yes, I meant the data improvement. Pay people to get all major metros internationally double-checked and corrected. Pay for POI data entry or develop that separately.
I think Amazon one-upped Apple on the maps front by licensing Navteq's maps (now owned by Nokia) for the Kindle tablets and wrapping a nice API around them for developers.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/18/amazon_google_map_bm...
Navteq's maps are way better than TomTom's. One of my friends had a TomTom GPS a few years ago and it was terrible, like once taking us around in circles for a restaurant and showing it was three miles away, when we could see it across the street a few hundred feet away. He had such bad experiences with it that he would borrow our Garmins and finally switched to Garmin a year ago. I just assumed that TomTom was Europe based so had much better coverage there and pretty horrible maps in the US.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/375415/how-satnav-maps-are-m...
If I were Google, I would release a very polished maps app for iOS for $10 with ads, but they might be just content with some people picking Android phones just because the builtin maps experience and turn by turn voice directions is really good.
My experience in the reverse and backs up your assumption: in the UK TomTom has MUCH better maps than my Garmin device.
Eh, I tried the new Maps and it seems usable. What's really wretched in this release is what they've done to the App Store. It's now HTML5-based, like the old (and despised) facebook app. It crawls compared to the old one.
That doesn't sound good. The app store wasn't all that zippy to begin with on a new iPad, and became nearly unusable on an (admittedly aging) 3GS.
Unless I'm terribly mistaken, ALL apple stores (iTunes music, iOS App, Mac App, iBooks) on all platforms (Mac, WIndows, iOS) have always been web views. Every single one of them. Ever since 2002 when iTunes was launched.
And my experience in the past few months (iPad 2, iOS 6 beta) was that the store is not slow at all, so don't worry!
> What's really wretched in this release is what they've done to the App Store.
The appstore has always been web-based. You could really feel it on a slow connection (e.g. Edge), because the UI itself (not just the content) would take ages to display and sometimes fail to render altogether.
I agree in general, but it isn’t all bad. (Recounting my experience on the Retina iPad:) At least on that device, performance now appears to be on par with the old app, much improved from earlier betas (but the new iPad is a pretty beefy device, other devices may struggle more). On bad connections, maps seem to load much better (because they are now vector based) and I do like their style – if it weren’t for the atrocious map data, I think the default view would be on par with the old app (I also have seen the styling of the maps and the placement algorithms for labels improve by leaps and bounds during beta testing). Turn-by-turn is really great and works very well. I have no complaints about the UI on the iPad, it’s more or less the same (though the changes they made might not works so well on smaller screens).
(I’m in Germany, living in a small city with 50,000 inhabitants:) However, map data is atrocious and riddled with embarrassing mistakes (when zooming in, the label of my city is not visible for the longest time – while much smaller villages around my city appear much earlier – and when it finally becomes visible it’s about three kilometers east of my city, in some forest). Satellite images are embarrassingly bad. POIs are practically non-existent and useless in Germany. If they exist at all they are out of date (when I search for italian restaurants, it shows me a pizzeria that closed half a decade ago, not a single italian restaurant that is open now). Google’s POIs are current and (more or less) comprehensive, Apple’s are anything but. Plus: No one uses Yelp in Germany, Qype is pretty popular around here, though – consequently there is just no useful data on Yelp about German restaurants.
I really hope that Google will soon come out with their maps app for iOS. And I hope that Apple will improve. I believe they can (hey, it took Google some time, too), and I don’t object to the existence of a second good maps service.
I was actually thrilled that for transit directions in NYC, Maps just gave me a button to the Embark app, which won the MTA App Quest for best subway navigation in the city. It has a better interface than Google Maps for transit, anyway. It's obviously an extra step to go to another app, but if the experience is better in the long run, I'm willing to go with it.
Google Maps has been annoying on iOS for a while -- ever since they updated their Android app to use vectors, while ignoring the iOS version, it's felt much slower and I figured it was just a matter of time before they abandoned iOS completely.
You realize that Google Maps iOS app is an Apple product, right? They worked closely with Google, but it's not Google's code.
I was actually thrilled that for transit directions in NYC, Maps just gave me a button to the Embark app
I don't understand how you can be thrilled about that. It's a link to the App Store, and represents one less option available to you.
I shared many of those concerns from the previews given by Apple. That is until I actually tried using it, at which point I have deemed it much better than the Google-backed version. With that said, I think your location matters: Transit directions are not something I can use anyway, for instance.
Honestly, I think this just showcases how difficult maps really are. No matter how bad people in the US are finding it, I guarantee that users outside the US are going to hate this change even more than you do.
It's a great example of something that doesn't scale easily.
Yes, the map over Helsinki, Finland is full of errors like stores and restaurants being in totally wrong locations or just plain wrong (according to the map I have a bar I never have heard of on my iPad 200m from my house in the middle of a park).
I suspect Google will release an IOS app putting back their functionality soon enough. I hope so because while the apple maps looks pretty, the utility comes from the search by point of interest, and that's considerably weakened by this release.
There are a few improvements though, I like the new app store better because I don't need my password to update apps, or buy free ones, and the icon has a little 'new' badge to remind me to try the app.
> I don't need my password to update apps
As an Android user who was recently given an iPad for work, this one step stopped me from installing probably 10-20 apps. I'd be on a site, think "oh there's probably an app for this", realize I'd have to type in my 15-character password, and think "oh...well using the website's ok I guess". It baffles me that it's been around for as long as it has.
I haven't had time to explore it very much yet, but I was a bit disappointed when I first launched it and found that the only overhead imagery available for my area is in black and white. It's hardly a remote location.
I suppose they will be making a lot of map-related deals over the coming months, but Google may have arranged exclusive contracts with some companies.
Turn-by-turn is great. If only Google could bring that out of Android-land and into their iOS app.
I saw someone tweet (and someone I follow retweet) this: "Nine years ago Safari was released: a fringe browser that didn't run sites for IE well. Today, its engine powers everything. Now think maps."
I laughed and then felt really, really bad for them.
It's unbelievable the way people react to criticism. (in any cases, not just Apple/iPhone)
Trojankitten is extraordinarily astute and her opinion is not to be dismissed as partisanship. She is correct in that Maps are a fundamental and incredibly important platform service that will only become moreso over time.
Doesn't change how much they suck today, though.
If it doesn't change how much they suck today, then why do people keep bringing it up in response to complaints about how much they suck today? I can understand speculating that the new maps will get better, but I don't understand why that's being used as a response to people talking about how terrible they are now.
I have no idea who this person is other than guessing she is a female from her profile picture. It's also not the first tweet I've found to be completely off-base and ironically, the second today. The tweet about intro/extrovertedness is just flatly wrong.
I have no reason to take her tweet as anything but what it is. In context with her other tweets, I feel pretty damn safe in calling it at least a bit partisan. A quick scan of the first above-the fold tweets shows another conversation that is blatantly intentionally down-playing the badness of the iOS6 maps.
edit: I mean, I haven no stake in this, as I've said I have no idea who this person is, but you can't read through that feed and tell me with an honest tone that it's not biased. It's blatantly pro-Apple tweet, anti-Google tweet, ambiguous tweet about Microsoft competing with Google. Repeat.
edit2: I've devolved into an off-topic rant about some random Twitter account. I apologize. I'll merely conclude that likening iOS6 Maps to Safari (and really WebKit) as a response to how bad Maps is... is pretty desperate in my opinion.
Yes it's biased, she's deeply opinionated, yes she's an opinioneer, etc... But she's still got a piece of the truth in hand: Maps are important, they're only becoming moreso, and Apple is extremely unlikely to sit on their ass now that they've launched their own stack. (especially once their customer satisfaction numbers start plopping, which they will)
What in the world is an opinioneer?
A word I made up.
Now that is a much more palatable and understandable angle. I completely agree that it makes sense for Apple to take it in house. I completely sympathize that is a monumental (literally, World-sized) problem to tackle and that for a first-release, this is probably admirable of Apple.
I guess I still don't buy that Apple Maps are going to become the ubiquitous success that WebKit is.
There's one of two implications at hand:
1. It will be the best thing ever because Apple made it (which makes me immensely sad and is why I groaned at this tweet).
2. It will become a staple used by everyone like WebKit.
I don't see any chance of #2 happening as that would require Apple to license that data, or make it a service, or a reusable component for others to use. I can't think of anything that Apple does so with currently, nor any movement from them to make that seem like a logical choice.
Thus, again, I'm left wondering where on Earth someone comes up with correlating iOS6 Maps and WebKit.
I'm thinking it goes something like this: Let's assume Apple's map quality is more or less resolved within the near future and put it aside. What can they do with total control over a POI+venue database?
-- They can generate statistics on who's searching for what, when, and where from and sell that off or give it away free to venue operators.
-- They can link custom Apps and content to a venue. (Welcome to the Museum! Tap here to download a free tour guide.") They can link .passbook offers directly on-map. ("Tap here for a discount on entry, today only!")
-- They can sell off preferential search results, preferential ratings, or retargeted advertising like Google and Yelp do.
-- They can do the opposite of that and proclaim that their maps and venue listings are of unimpeachable quality without gamed results
-- They can create a meta-venue datatype through Apple Connect that allows authorized entities to quickly whip up appealing micro-sites for their venues "Drop your menu .PDF here"
-- They can do anything they want with in-venue navigation, which is going to be massive now that the interior mapping tools are coming onto the market
With all this done:
-- They can API-ize this and create mini-sites or mini-apps wrapped in Yelp-y context that replace the entire idea of how you interact with a venue. For instance: "Thai Bistro" is now an App that tells you exactly what's going on with your favorite joint without consulting twitter, facebook, a webpage, and a mapping service.
In short, with this map platform they can now own the total experience of -leaving the house-. Google is years ahead of them on this, and it's unlikely Google's willing to share their advances with their frenemy.
Maps are foundational to representing the state of the civilization around you. It's the Webkit for Real World Experiences.
I don't think her point is that it's going to get used in lots of other projects but that it will grow to be a big success, and one that people will look back on and say "Apple was right to set off on this weird-seeming path back then." We'll see, of course.
(I say this as somebody that was shocked that Apple didn't build Safari 1.0 on top of Mozilla/Gecko. KHTML?!)
I mean, in that regard I hope she's right. I hope that Apple brings Google Maps some serious competition and obviously, for my iOS breathren, I hope that their maps experience continues to be enhanced.
But we all know that, right? Maybe this was just a response to "iOS Maps sux. Apple sux." type comments? I'm not sure. It's hard for me to believe how polar peoples' opinions still are on iOS and Android to have to have these silly conversations.
I'd say the 2005 open source release of WebKit was a necessary precondition for "Today its engine powers everything."
Is there any reason to expect a similar direction for Apple with maps?
Webkit was just Apple's fork of KHTML.
The KDE Linux desktop people should get way more credit for having written the engine the powers Android's browser, Safari and Chrome...
Besides it not being open source, etc?
Also, it seems very misguided to use "Safari was released. [Safari] became successful."...
to imply that "AnythingElse was released. AnythingElse will become successful."
Literally pick any product that has ever not become a rousing success and you have plenty of counter-examples as to why that logic is faulty at best.
I still also find it be evidence of pandering to go out of the way to say "Safari is a success" rather than "WebKit". The sentiment of the tweet isn't even remotely accurate for "Safari".
That one is not that bad, I just take it to mean a humble start can become a fantastic product.
Now this one on the other hand, I can't figure out the state of mind leading to writing it and releasing that to the world:
> What’s missing from this conversation is that map usage is critical. […] Google’s maps are going to start degrading. Apple’s will get better. They’ll meet in the middle within 18 months.
I've seen that response several times now, and it's incredibly bizarre. Why should a guess at the potential future impact evaluation of how the thing is right now?
Based on kbutler's response above, my other post detailing the two options I see and the fact that my "Uh, it's not open source?" comment is downvoted, I'm inclined to think that there are some here that believe "Apple release -> auto(eventual) success".
I mean, as you say, what other basis is there for even making such a strange comparison between two vastly different projects (an open source rendering engine and a proprietary data set gained through partnerships and manual data gathering?