Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation

[ltcommander.data]

I wonder if Maps would have launched with IOS 6 if Jobs had been alive.

Well it's not like they had a lot of choice if Google wasn't going to allow additional functionality to be added like turn-by-turn and Apple wasn't going to allow Google additional branding and access to iOS user information. Multiple sources agree that Apple only had 1 year left on their Google Maps contract and John Gruber seems to think that the expiry is actually on the anniversary of the first iPhone launch at the end of June 2013, which seems reasonable, at which time Apple wouldn't be allowed to activate any more new devices to use Google Maps. Since iPhone and major iOS launches have been pushed back to September, if the new Maps hadn't launched with iOS 6, there would have been a 3-4 month gap where new iOS users would have no Maps functionality at all until iOS 7 is released. Pulling in iOS 7 development to launch at WWDC may not be possible and pushing out a new Maps app for the first time in a minor iOS 6 update isn't ideal. Besides, given the need to crowd source data and having many eyes around the world using the new Maps to better identify all the problems, Apple waiting until the Google Maps contract expired to release their internal solution may not have resulted in a substantially better product anyways.

What Apple should have done was keep Google Maps alongside the new Apple Maps for as long as possible while the contract was still valid. Obviously Apple wouldn't want two separate Maps icons on the homescreen and would want to feature their own Maps more prominently. So they could have provided a single Maps app where the default search is done against Apple's map database. If the result doesn't look right the user could click on the location and bring up a menu with an option to "Search with Google Maps" or to avoid the G-word "Search with Maps iOS 5" and present that result within the same app. That way users get the benefits of both Apple and Google's map solutions and it also provides users an easy way to compare and give feedback of incorrect locations to Apple. By the time the Google Maps expiry comes in June 2013, Apple can just roll out a minor iOS 6 update at WWDC that disables the Google Maps component. With 9 months of widespread usage under it's belt, Apple Maps would have been in a much better position to be the sole integrated maps solution.

 

[Exophase]

What are the chances Apple uses Intel Fabs

http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/conte...ce-tim-cook-fill-intel%92s-fabs.html#comments

I want to know exactly how this guy figures Intel will have an empty 22nm fab by the end of this year.

 

[Ailuros]

Well, you would if you are a sun-starved nord on vacation...

Bad for your health irrelevant where you're from. Even worst for northern europeans with milk white skin that resemble more to lobsters after the first few days. Extreme sun-burns is amongst the worst you could do to your skin.

Crete is heaven on earth as far as I'm concerned...except for the traffic. Greeks drive like drunken maniacs the lot of them. It's so beautiful there though you can forget such details. The food is so lovely and the people are nice, the mediterranean is amazing and the nature is awesome. As long as you don't get stung by mosquitoes or step on a sea urchin while bathing...

I can't say much about our driving culture because it is bad in its majority, which is give or take common place in the mediteranean. However on the other hand do you want a description how the majority of tourists actually drive around here? It's more like they've landed from another planet and no I wouldn't say that driving on a national road with a speed limit of 90-110km/h (depending on spot) at barely 40-50km/h right in the middle of the road because someone wants to enjoy the landscape is all that great either. Do it but at least leave some space for other cars to drive by and hang on to your toirtuse speed forever. They shouldn't also stop their damn cars wherever or whenever they remember to check a map and no the middle of a crossroad or blocking a road junction isn't exactly nice either. Nor should you stop the car when just the green light hit in the middle of the road to pick up your mobile. I apologize for the OT, but there are always more than one perspectives to each story.

It's not what you or I do in general, but if you'd experience the other side of the story once you've lived here for some time things aren't all that simple. I grew up in Germany and my driving culture is give or take alike to Germans in their own country; but definitely not to what they typically do when they drive around these neck of woods. Maybe they just think that since the driving culture is bad per se and things are quite a bit more laid back in general they could do whatever they please.

Apple has A LOT of money. Intel loves money. That's a good incentive.

On the other hand, intel wants to take over the phone space with its shitty x86 architecture, and apple is pretty much the biggest stumbling block to that happening (there are more blocks than just apple of course...), so intel probably doesn't want to give apple any extra advantages in the form of the most advanced silicon process on the planet. I swear I don't get that company; they had the chance to start fresh with something new and good in a marketspace where backwards compatibility don't mean diddly, and they still continue building on the same tired old junk that they once tried to replace back in the 90s with itanic.

I'd be VERY surprised if Intel would manufacture for Apple, but stranger things have happened in the past.

As for Intel and the small form factor market with their current roadmap I'd be equally surprised if they'll manage to capture any sizeable market share, unless their future roadmap I'm unaware of is so aggressive that it will be hard for any of their competitors to breathe in.

 

[Gubbi]

I upgraded to IOS6 and now my house is b&w instead of color

It's worse here in Denmark, there are clouds on the images!!

That's a major problem since one of our customers is a big consultant house that does urban geo-tagging in the field on iPad 2s with an app. we developed. They can't place the tags precisely because they can't see the buildings they're supposed to tag.

Cheers

 

[Gubbi]

Pulling in iOS 7 development to launch at WWDC may not be possible and pushing out a new Maps app for the first time in a minor iOS 6 update isn't ideal.

I think you're right. It is obvious that they needed Maps to build buzz for IOS 6, otherwise it would just be passbook and a lot of small tweaks, - not something to justify a major version increase.

It was clearly rushed.

Besides, given the need to crowd source data and having many eyes around the world using the new Maps to better identify all the problems, Apple waiting until the Google Maps contract expired to release their internal solution may not have resulted in a substantially better product anyways.

Beta testing by crowd sourcing is very non-Apple, IMO.

Cheers

 

[wco81]

It's worse here in Denmark, there are clouds on the images!!

That's a major problem since one of our customers is a big consultant house that does urban geo-tagging in the field on iPad 2s with an app. we developed. They can't place the tags precisely because they can't see the buildings they're supposed to tag.

Cheers

The built-in camera isn't geotagging accurately?

Should just be embedding the raw coordinates in the EXIF right?

 

[ltcommander.data]

Beta testing by crowd sourcing is very non-Apple, IMO.

Cheers

Apple already did it with Siri in iOS 5. They needed a large userbase to refine their voice algorithms. They were just more upfront about it by labeling Siri as a beta throughout iOS 5. And I agree it was strange that a beta feature was the headline feature for the iPhone 4S.

 

[wco81]

And it's still beta, isn't it?

 

[ltcommander.data]

And it's still beta, isn't it?

Apparently it is. I wonder what their criteria is to bring it out of beta? Language support has been greatly expanded in iOS 6. Are they looking for a certain % accuracy, a certain feature-set to be filled out?

 

[silent_guy]

And it's still beta, isn't it?

Still beta, but improved to the point where it understands me reasonably well. That wasn't the case at launch: it basically didn't understand a word I was saying.

 

[french toast]

Isn't the apple mapping solution based off tom tom?

Tom tom is a very good mapping service...so how apple managed to fuck that up is anybody's guess.

 

[silent_guy]

Isn't the apple mapping solution based off tom tom?

Tom tom is a very good mapping service...so how apple managed to fuck that up is anybody's guess.

The driving directions are really good actually. It's the POI database that sucks, at least where I live. For others, it's the satellite pics that are a major regression. POI and pics are not delivered by TomTom, AFAIK. And then there's the missing StreetView, of course, which IMHO is more useful than the flyover, even with it working very well on my house.

That the flyover is riddled with issues for things like bridges etc is less of an issue: technology can only do so much, extracting 3D coordinates from 2D pictures.

 

[wco81]

Yeah can that be automated or do they have to have artists render the scenes manually and locate it manually?

Maybe the startups they bought has some kind of automation tools.

Otherwise, it would take years to cover even just every significant city. Flyover is more interesting for well-known landmarks, not some nondescript office building in any given modern city.

 

[french toast]

Oh right..I'm still amazed by Google earth,street view really does take the piss...first time i had s go on that I thought it was some sort of black magic! Lol.

Nokia hasn't really got anything like either has it? Only the new augmented reality map..which I'll admit..is pretty darn sweet..but nothing ive seen compares to street view...

Really not I interested in fly over...sounds like a step backwards to me.

 

[silent_guy]

Yeah can that be automated or do they have to have artists render the scenes manually and locate it manually?

It can be totally automated. I saw demos of this kind of technology in academia more than a decade ago.

Maybe the startups they bought has some kind of automation tools.

Yes. That's the C3 (and I think Poly9) acquisition.

Otherwise, it would take years to cover even just every significant city. Flyover is more interesting for well-known landmarks, not some nondescript office building in any given modern city.

It think it's 'just' a matter of flying over all cities a couple of times from different angles. It's a much faster and cheaper way than doing it by car, but the level of detail acquired is an order of magnitude smaller too obviously.

A couple of months ago while in Europe, I saw a TomTom car that looked just like the almost ubiquitous Google cars that you see a workday mornings swarm out from the Google mothership. So I assume TomTom has a similar program of filming the whole everything from ground level. Whether or not Apple will license that is a different question.

 

[Pressure]

Nice memorial on the Apple front page about Steve's passing one year ago.

 

[ltcommander.data]

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12...support-automatic-offline-use-for-a-wide-area

For all the iOS 6 Maps complaints, at least it seems to have better offline map caching due to more efficient vector maps vs bitmaps in iOS 5. Still not sure what the persistence algorithm is although it's apparently not RAM-based since it's been reported to persist after a device restart.

 

[silent_guy]

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/10/05/apples-new-ios-6-maps-support-automatic-offline-use-for-a-wide-area

For all the iOS 6 Maps complaints, at least it seems to have better offline map caching due to more efficient vector maps vs bitmaps in iOS 5. Still not sure what the persistence algorithm is although it's apparently not RAM-based since it's been reported to persist after a device restart.

The caching is indeed very impressive and persistent.

I was in no-data-cover land recently and it just worked, even in areas where I hadn't been earlier: it looks like its low detail tiles span a very large range, so it caches major arteries, airports etc. over large swaths of land even if you haven't zoomed in there earlier.

The place finding search algo still sucks though.

Edit: I think Android has the kind of caching, doesn't it? Or do you have to explicitly select an area to download?

 

[ltcommander.data]

Edit: I think Android has the kind of caching, doesn't it? Or do you have to explicitly select an area to download?

The AppleInsider report, perhaps not the most unbiased source, found that iOS 6 automatic map caching generally includes a larger area than automatic caching in Android. They reported after scanning San Fransico with iOS 6 maps then going offline, street level maps were still available for locations up to 740 miles away (Salt Lake City). On Android they found some major highways disappearing after 10 miles with Highway 101 being gone 70 miles outside San Francisco. Android also offers the option of manually caching a 50 miles radius which offers all zoom levels within that area, but again degrades rapidly outside. iOS 6 caching seems to offer a larger cached area although not with as many zooms levels, but AppleInsider considers its degradation outside the original area of interest more graceful.

 

[wco81]

740 miles would be more than enough for most car trips that you'd take in a day.

Now if you can do turn-by-turn purely with cached maps and even have it recalculate routes without a data connection, that's a big improvement over Android's Google Maps Navigation. My understanding is that while you can cache pretty big tiles, once you decide to have it calculate a route, you need a data connection.

So lets say you don't have mobile data at all, you cache the area you're going to visit from the Hotel Wifi and then go out to the car and plug in your destination. Would it work without a data connection at this point?

If iOS6 does work, that's as good as a PND, though having a data connection would offer other advantages.

If you can determine how much range to cache and downloaded just that much data, so much the better.