Apple Expands 'Maps Ground Truth' Hiring to Rest of the World

Well said.

I think Apple needs to do a lot more than hire a few more people in order to get to Google's mapping level.

Those hiring posting are for Managers. If you have any common sense at all, you'd figure that each Manager would be responsible for "managing" a bunch of employees working under them. So conceivably this might end up being several dozen to a few hundred "Ground Truth" employees under this single Apple project alone.

But I expected the Google fanboys to come and pour some salt in here anyways, as if it's some heinous crime for Apple (or anyone else) to work on improving their own mapping software. By the way, Android OS in its first year of existence sucked balls compared to iOS. Does that mean Google should have stopped improving it back then? ;)

This project should have already been in place 1 year ago.

This weekend, for the very first time* since the Maps switch, I actually had a need to go back to the Google app.

I wanted to use Street View to see the signs on buildings and find the right one.

Unfortunately....

a) Street View was completely blurry and shadowed and even enormous signs were unreadable on storefronts.

b) Google had the location completely wrong.

c) Compounded by the fact that getting around (reaching the CORRECT location manually) in Street View is an incredible pain compared to smoothly zipping around in Flyover. (Which, granted, puts you 50 feet in the air at best, but is still a great, immediately recognizable view of street in high detail. You can zoom in quite far in Flyover, and even read larger commercial signs.)

So I went back to Apple Maps and followed the route. Lo and behold, Apple has the location exactly right. The pin was in front of the exact building, and I didn't need a sign after all.

Some people have problems with Apple Maps, no doubt. We forget how often Google Maps has problems too.

* I do use Google for transit... but I do my destination search in Apple Maps because it has been easier and equally accurate. Then I hit the Transit button in Apple Maps which hands the query off to the Google app. Very painless: I get Google's transit results without having to deal with Google's painful searching... such as a failing to access my Address Book and Home locations, and failing to remember a search I just made 10 seconds ago! It's too bad, because Google IS the best at getting a badly-typed query right: I give full credit there.

Apple forgot an important rule when dealing with third-party data:

Trust, but verify.

This kind of thing should have been going on long before the Apple Maps app ever shipped.

Still wondering how committed Apple is to maps though. Only time will tell that.

Meanwhile, once Google has the autonomous cars legitimized (which is getting closer everyday), you can bet they'll never send out a manned Google Car again. Those things will be eventually be all electric and have their own tiny garages to charge overnight in every part of every major area and go out everyday and constantly be updating StreetView without anyone ever setting foot in one.

How's Apple's StreetView coming?

The TRUTH Apple?

The TRUTH is your maps are subpar to Google Maps. :apple:

I dunno, when I'm in the car (which is often here in the greater Los Angeles area), Apple Maps are a huge improvement and load way way faster over cellular data than Google's. Traffic information is much better as well, Google is always slow to change and misses a fair amount of pesky congestion.

I guess if your walking around, stopping to study details on the satellite/street views, then you might prefer Google Maps, but for driving and getting around California, Apple Maps destroy the Poodle. Most times, I don't even look at the screen, Siri does all the interfacing.

A little too late...again.

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:confused:

I had the same face expression.

Will they dig up my buried lies?

The TRUTH Apple?

The TRUTH is your maps are subpar to Google Maps. :apple:

:confused:

Well said.

I think Apple needs to do a lot more than hire a few more people in order to get to Google's mapping level.