[HN Gopher] Apple's New Map, Expansion #7: Final Parts of the Co...
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Apple's New Map, Expansion #7: Final Parts of the Continental U.S.
Author : Amorymeltzer
Score : 75 points
Date : 2020-01-30 18:41 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.justinobeirne.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.justinobeirne.com)
| nicoboo wrote:
| Always a wonderful work by Justin.
| williesleg wrote:
| Oh that's it for Apple Maps, they're too busy selling your data.
| Maps were fun but too expensive to keep building out. They're
| only there to keep people from switching to Android.
| supernova87a wrote:
| How does he get those cutout comparison tiles exactly identical
| in perspective, position, and zoom level? Does he have some call
| that allows doing that?
| threeseed wrote:
| Not sure if this works.
|
| But Apple Maps exists as an OSX app so you could possibly use
| Apple Script to open the app, navigate to a point and take a
| photo.
| xenospn wrote:
| Was wondering that myself. Presumably when you update your maps
| app or when the server updated, you have no more access to the
| old maps. Unless he took a whole lot of screenshots in
| preparation?
| et-al wrote:
| The URL to an Apple Maps tile includes a version number and
| numerous style options. It's possible the author knows about
| historical tile versions and updates the URL to fetch older
| versions, or has been archiving Apple's tiles periodically _.
| https://cdn4.apple-mapkit.com/md/v1/vtile?x=1310&y=3166&z=13&
| scale=2&style=1&v=2002014&type=poi&lang=en&tint=light&emphasi
| s=standard
|
| Grabbed the tile from Apple's page here:
| https://developer.apple.com/maps/web/
|
| The author also has their email address listed on their site
| if we'd like a definite answer.
|
| - - -
|
| _Edit: Looks like MapKit provides an easy way to take
| snapshots:
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/snapshots
| xenospn wrote:
| I completely forgot about Mapkit JS! I wonder how feature
| complete it is compared to Leaflet.
| gen3 wrote:
| He could have done the whole "in preparation screenshot"
| thing using the js api. Or maybe there is a way to call and
| receive the old maps.
| celeritascelery wrote:
| There was off ramp that changed 4 years ago near where I live.
| Google maps was correct, but Apple always would have you take the
| wrong exit and you had to loop back. With the most recent update
| this is finally fixed. However most people still saying that
| Apple Maps in unreliable. Having big issues like that for years
| can really damage people's perception of your product long after
| it has been changed.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Years ago Apple maps got me really good. It told me to drive
| down a road, and then exit on what turned out to be an
| overpass. Which forced me into a very long round trip that went
| through a toll gate twice.
| dmd wrote:
| And yet it's still wrong often enough to be useless. I'm in
| near-Boston suburbs (Arlington), and every so often I give
| Apple Maps a try, and __literally every single time I do __it
| 's just awful. I just asked it for directions from my work to
| my house, for example, and it routed me on a limited-access, no
| motor vehicle bicycle path.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| In my area (Santa Rosa, CA) Apple Maps is still worse than
| Google Maps. The routing is often very strange and it sometimes
| still can't find stores like OfficeDepot close by.
| threeseed wrote:
| POIs are a whole different story.
|
| I can't speak for US but in Australia and UK it is so far
| behind Google. It feels like 1/3 of them are simply missing
| and a 1/3 of them are inaccurate in some way e.g. opening
| hours.
|
| I don't know how Foursquare and Yelp who supply Apple are
| surviving right now with such inadequate data.
| ldrndll wrote:
| Yeah, perceptions like that are really hard to shake, because
| those people are likely all using Google Maps. I found Apple
| Maps used to be less reliable than Google Maps, but would still
| use it. For places that I wasn't sure of, I'd often double
| check on Google Maps just to be sure. Lately I've been finding
| more and more instances where - when they differ - the Apple
| Maps result is the correct one _.
|
| It'll be interesting to see how Apple communicate this to iOS
| users, and if they'll go out of their way to get back users
| they've lost to Google Maps.
|
| _ I'm based in the UK, YMMV
| masked_titan wrote:
| Can someone tell me where did Apple get all this new data from?
| Was it taken from OSM, bought from Here Maps or some other
| provider or just built on their own from sattelites and on the
| ground surveys?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Previously they licensed TomTom's data and tried to fill in
| gaps with data from OpenStreetMap and others.
|
| Now they have decided to build their own data set from scratch.
|
| >So a new effort was created to begin generating its own base
| maps, the very lowest building block of any really good mapping
| system. After that, Apple would begin layering on living
| location data, high-resolution satellite imagery and brand new
| intensely high-resolution image data gathered from its ground
| cars until it had what it felt was a "best in class" mapping
| product.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-f...
|
| That TechCrunch article has a good overview of their old and
| new mapping systems.
| rathel wrote:
| Due to ODbL licence they can't mix OSM data directly with
| other data.
|
| Apple does use OSM data, but only in some countries (Belarus
| for example IIRC), as allowed by https://wiki.osmfoundation.o
| rg/wiki/Licence/Community_Guidel...
| vineyardmike wrote:
| It appears to be most-of-the-above:
|
| https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps
| atdt wrote:
| How are they generating the 3D models of various landmark
| buildings? It's hard to believe that they were generated from
| photos, since the lines look so clean. But there are too many of
| them to do by hand, no?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| The author of this post made other posts, including one
| discussing the building generation:
|
| https://www.justinobeirne.com/new-apple-maps
|
| It appears to be a combination of algorithmic work from
| satellites with manual generation mixed in.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22193657
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Perhaps soon we'll get cycling directions.
| mataug wrote:
| I've recently switched to using apple maps exclusively as much as
| possible, and TBH its gotten quite comparable to Google maps.
| There are still remote places (e.g an address in a small town)
| which apple maps struggles to find, but for the most part within
| cities I find myself reaching more often for apple maps.
|
| I'm also one of those people who struggles to translate
| navigation instructions on a map to real world turns. So features
| such as highlighting and Stop signs & Traffic signals go a long
| way in helping me navigate safely.
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(page generated 2020-02-02 23:00 UTC)