The iOS 6 Review: Maps Thoroughly Investigated and More
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2012 2:21 PM ESTApp Store UI Changes
Apple hasn’t made a huge deal about it, but in iOS 6 the App Store UI changes in a dramatic way. The new interface appears to offer greater flexibility for Apple to customize the layout on the fly and change the order of menu items or other features. In addition there are a host of subtle but welcome changes.
The individual app listing page is different, adopting a three-tab system for details about the app, reviews, and a related column with apps by the same developer. There’s a lot more whitespace in the new layout as a whole, and although the changes make the app description pages more inviting I can’t help but shake a suspicion that information density took a hit as a result.
App discovery traditionally has been a challenge for mobile platforms, partly because it’s hard to come up with a good visualization for lots and lots of apps and partly because of the limited display area inherent in a mobile device. Unsurprisingly it seems as though the App Store redesign tries to tackle that problem head-on. First, the bottom bar places Genius dead center and offers a horizontally paginated nearly infinite scrolling list of recommended apps. This basic view also gets copied on the search page – there are pages of apps matching the search term with a big screenshot and install button. Featured gets changed dramatically and Top becomes Charts.
Updates with individual changelogs (Left), New search view (Right)
There are a few friction points which have also been smoothed over. A hugely welcome change is that app updates can now take place without requiring an Apple ID password. Likewise, free applications can be installed from the store without entering a password. Only purchases require a sign-on. The update screen also now has an expandable region under each app for viewing many changelogs at a glance as well. There’s update progress displayed in this menu in addition to on springboard. Newly installed applications also now get a new badge on them which goes away after a first launch.
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Leonick - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
The satellite images are interesting. You can zoom further in on my house in the middle of a forest in Sweden than you can Seoul, the image is in greyscale for some reason but you get fairly close and it's also fairly recent. (A shame the road that goes by the house doesn't have a name or can be found with search even though the road itself is on the map.)Another interesting thing that I noticed while looking around is that at least here in Sweden Apple seem to have a lot more current imagery than Google or even Eniro (local service) does (Eniro seem to mostly have the same as Google though). In Kalmar, a moderately sized city on the south eastern coast a bridge was constructed over the railroad about 2-3 years ago, in Google Maps there are just two piles of sand on both sides where the bridge will be, in Apples imagery the bridge is there.
Spoelie - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Wouldn't it be swell for Google to now sue Apple over mundane features like dropping a pin in their maps app? Sweet vengeance over Apple suing OEMs over the bounce animation or showing a menu while tapping on numbers, ...Not that I agree with such practices, but at least it would balance things out ;)
yticolev - Saturday, September 22, 2012 - link
If I'm not mistaken, the push pin in the Maps app is Apple developed, not Google. The entire Maps app used an Apple interface with Google data.welltoldtales - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
"one of the new OSes have done a great job of dealing with the problem of displaying content from two applications at once"I know people will rip me for saying this, but the Blackberry Playbook actually does THE best job of multitasking. Having used on with my work I attempted to use a 3rd gen iPad and simply couldn't handle the lack of multitasking. Same with an ASUS Transformer.
steven75 - Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - link
Do you know about the multitouch gestures? Most iPad users do not, but they are indispensable for multitasking.faizoff - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
There seems to be many people unhappy with the native maps app. I read about it yesterday in many forums but today many news sites seem to be reporting it as well.Heck BusinessInsider has a step by step guide to get the website google maps on your home screen.
http://www.businessinsider.com/get-google-maps-bac...
Conficio - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
"and at present it [Google] literally is the 9000 pound gorilla for maps."That is only true if the Google maps can connect to the Google servers. If that connection is not there a 5 year old navigation device with no updates beats it hands down.
Flying Goat - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Have you played with Google maps offline mode? I haven't, but it may be handy, assuming you plan in advance, of course.chinkgai - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
i'm not sure i like his writing style. he doesn't seem as concise as the other writers here.marioyohanes - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Brian, you might wanna check Siri again in international location, I'm pretty sure Dubai will works just great now. From my experience in Jakarta Indonesia, last week I couldn't ask Siri for anything related to location based questions. However, yesterday, as iOS 6 officially launched, I can even ask Siri for nearest dentist and it even listing nearest food stall with delivery option. I'm very overwhelmed with how good Siri is righ now, for the first time, my investment in 4S paid off :)