Apple Maps App Must be Overhauled. No Choice

Apple Maps redesign coming with iOS 12

It seems clear why Apple would want to revamp its Maps app. Apple has a vested interest in preserving and enhancing the iPhone’s utility for finding destinations and invoking transit and other services. Many indirect services depend on the user having great situational awareness. (For more background, see: “Apple is rebuilding maps from the ground up.”)

Why deliver, as Apple has, a map product that’s less than best-in-class and allow a competitor to horn in, inviting the user into its own many services? And Apple has a great reputation for preserving our privacy, so the only reason a user might drift away is because Google Maps remains better in some respects. We understand that.

Still, it remains interesting to hear the other side of the story, especially from Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac. I think he’s incorrect in his overall reasoning, but that doesn’t mean I won’t present his case for you to reflect on. Especially since he does cover all the hot buttons when it comes to Apple Maps. So here it is. “I understand why Apple wanted its own maps, but it fails the laser focus test.”

Apple Maps Should Dominate

Here’s what I think is important. In Lovejoy’s article, a survey conducted by PollDaddy reveals that it’s a fairly even split right now between Apple Maps and Google Maps, amongst presumably a preponderance of Apple customers reading the 9to5Mac article. I imagine Apple execs wonder why they can’t make Apple Maps so good and so well known for its protections that no reasonable iOS user would even consider using Google Maps. In principle, the ratio ought to be 90:10 for Apple Maps. At least that’s the question I’d ask.

In a mobile world of very demanding iOS users, Apple Maps has to really shine. Never fail. Never frustrate. I think that when Apple Maps was first released in 2012 (iOS 6), there was only a vague understanding of the technical challenges involved in first-class mapping.

Now, six years later, Apple knows what it needs to do to perfectly fulfill this critical function of, principally, the iPhone.

Next Page: The News Debris for the week of July 2nd. The World Wide Web has failed us.

Page 2 – News Debris For The Week of July 2nd

The World Wide Web Has Failed Us

Tim Berners-Lee (Wikipedia)

• Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in the 1990s. But now, he’s not happy about the current state of the WWW. He’d like to fix the problem. It would be great if he succeeds. The odds are against him, but maybe with the kind of group support a worthy project can generate these days, his new project has a better chance.

For the backstory, see: “The web had failed instead of served humanity’: Tim Berners-Lee was crushed by Russia using Facebook to meddle in the US election.”

The original, glorious source is at Vanity Fair: “‘I Was Devastated’: Tim Berners-Lee, The Man Who Created The World Wide Web, Has Some Regrets.” His new project is called “Solid.”

Berners-Lee has, for some time, been working on a new software, Solid, to reclaim the Web from corporations and return it to its democratic roots.

Remember that project name.

More Debris

• Author Lovejoy is, again, in lights here his week as he summarizes: “Net neutrality returning to California; new bills ‘strong and enforceable’.” His source is a statement from Scott Wiener who represents California’s Senate District 11.

Net neutrality isn’t dead so long as more than 20 states have filed lawsuits against the recent FCC (anti) net neutrality ruling. While the Congress may not be able to jointly pass a bill that would be signed by the president, the actions (and laws) of so many states seem to make it impractical for ISPs to fully exploit the new FCC rules for now.

• Microsoft continues to show signs of market savvy as it, according to Windows Central, plans to bring its Movies and TV app to iOS. MacRumors has the overview.

Will Apple think like this when it releases its own original TV content service?

• CNET this week suggets that: “One of the 2018 iPhones will reportedly have 5 color options.” It’s short and sweet, but the source is analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, so there’s that. The sub-title notes: “But you’ll probably cover it with a case anyway.” My take is that iPhone customers think about color first and defer any thoughts about the case until later. Besides, there are lots of clear, polycarbonate cases that preserve the iPhone’s color. I’ve been using them myself for years.

• Finally, breakthroughs continue in the work towards quantum computers and communications. See: “Synthetic Diamonds Lead Princeton Team to Quantum Computing Breakthrough.”

For decades, physicists, materials engineers, and others have been trying to achieve the conceptual promise of quantum-encrypted communications because the data transferred in that process is theoretically immune to covert surveillance. Any attempt to observe that data between parties — à la the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle — would fundamentally alter that information, quickly revealing that it was compromised. The problem has been storing and preserving qubits and then converting them to fiber optic-ready photons, and using diamonds appears to be the route toward achieving both.

But they needed a special kind of diamond and ended up synthesizing their own.

Pretty cool.

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Particle Debris is a generally a mix of John Martellaro’s observations and opinions about a standout event or article of the week (preamble on page one) followed on page two by a discussion of articles that didn’t make the TMO headlines, the technical news debris. The column is published most every Friday except for holiday weeks.

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