The iOS 6 Review: Maps Thoroughly Investigated and More
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2012 2:21 PM ESTFinal Thoughts and Conclusions
Apple's iOS has now graduated into a fairly mature operating system. Features like Passbook and the new first party Maps application show that there still a lot of new tricks that we'll see despite where iOS is in its evolution curve.
The new Maps app and Passbook are easily the two biggest changes to iOS 6. The former is a bold move by Apple into controlling its own destiny, while the latter is a much needed feature that depends significantly on developers and third parties to make it useful.
The new first party Maps application does surprisingly well given Apple's relative inexperience in the field. Turn by turn navigation works incredibly well, and for cities with good 3D data the flyover experience is quite impressive. The problem is Apple's Maps application simply doesn't have the wealth of data that backed up the old Google driven Maps app. Public transit routing and a good amount of location data are simply missing. The burden is now entirely on Apple to ramp up its dataset in order to replace what has been lost. The question that remains is how long it will take Apple to get there.
3D Flyover and Turn by Turn Navigation
Both iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 represent fairly large steps for Apple in the direction of becoming even more vertically integrated. For Apple to continue to grow its business outside of adding new product categories, it will have to look to assimilating more users as well as increasing revenue per user. If average device prices don't go up, Apple simply has to take a larger portion of the revenue share per device. In iOS that manifests itself as replacing licensed Google services with its own, and we've already seen what that means for silicon in the iPhone. Apple is first and foremost a consumer company, so user experience must not suffer as it internalizes more of the world around it. In the case of Maps, the infrastructure is in place for user experience not to be an issue, but depending on what you used the app for in the past you may find yourself having taken a step backwards. Similarly, if you didn't rely on what's missing, you can just as easily find yourself in a better position in iOS 6. I suspect there's a roadmap to take Apple from here to feature parity with the old Maps across the board, but the public is never privy to such things.
Passbook is exciting if its power can truly be harnessed in the way Apple wants it to. The gap between where we are today and disappearing wallets is enormous. Being able to authenticate payments is a major step along the way to integrating wallet functionality, and Passbook isn't that. What the feature promises to do is slim down everything non-payment related in your wallet. Boarding passes, VIP/VIC cards for stores/restaurants, tickets to shows and games are all examples of things that don't directly interface with your credit card or bank account, but that can be relatively easily integrated into your smartphone today. The strength of the iOS ecosystem should really help push Passbook adoption along. Most major players in any service industry already have some sort of an iOS app presence. Extending support to Passbook should be a logical step. Once again we're left with a bit of a waiting game until everyone is on board but the point of these updates to iOS is really to enable functionality down the road.
Fullscreen browsing in MobileSafari
Although not as shiny of a feature, iCloud Tabs in Mobile Safari really addresses a fundamental issue with the current OS X/iOS divide - transporting an experience between devices. It's often said that the tablet is a great consumption device but not ideal for many types of content creation workloads because of the lack of a physical keyboard and trackpad. Apple somewhat responded to these complaints with the introduction of apps like iPhoto and Pages. Even then, there's still going to be a not-insignificant group of users who use a Mac for work and an iPad for casual web browsing, watching movies, etc...
The problem with that usage model is it's always been clunky to move state between these two very different devices. The iPad arguably delivers a better browsing experience than a MacBook Pro, but if you have to email yourself a dozen links to stop browsing on your notebook and start again on your tablet the experience becomes more of a burden. iCloud tabs in Mobile Safari works well to address this specific usage scenario. Furthermore, like most of the other iCloud enabled features, cloud tabs does a good job of encouraging customers to buy within the Apple ecosystem. It's a somewhat worrisome future that we're headed towards where everyone is building these fairly independent platforms that work best within an ecosystem rather than across boundaries. For now the sacrifice seems worth it as the payoff is something that works very well, but I worry about what happens down the road if you're forced to buy a device not because it's the best device for you, but because buying an alternative would hurt the experience on another, unrelated device.
The rest of iOS 6 is a mixture of polishing up existing features and adding new ones that were long overdue for Apple. Facebook integration is a classic example, and should have been implemented a long time ago, right alongside Twitter integration. Improvements to the dialer with its new Do Not Disturb feature are good to see as many still use their iOS devices to make calls. The remodeled stores and backend optimizations for better app discovery are all welcome additions.
There's still tons of room for improvement. Other than Windows 8, none of the new OSes have done a great job of dealing with the problem of displaying content from two applications at once. On a phone it's perhaps not the best idea, but on a tablet where screen size/real estate are more plentiful there's a definite need for a real, simultaneous multitasking solution. New notifications (and the notification center) from iOS 5 helped alleviate some of the pressure here, but there's still room for evolution.
The yearly iOS cadence continues to be a smart move on Apple's part. While updates may range in significance depending on your usage model, in building marketshare it's important to deliver regular updates that help keep the platform feeling new. With the latest version of iOS, Apple does just that. There are new features both big and small, and enough small improvements to keep it fresh.
What iOS 6, Android 4.1 or Windows 8/RT/Phone 8 fail to do however is establish a single dominant winner in the market. This war is far from over, which is a great thing for pushing innovation.
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melgross - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
That's not actually true. The only thing you're limited to buying from Apple is apps. Everything else can be bought elsewhere and read, or played. That's true for books, music, video of any kind, including Tv shows and movies, PDF's, etc.reuthermonkey1 - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Assuming that Apple continues to allow those 3rd party apps to exist in their App Store...GSRennie - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I would rather buy Apps from the Apple Store and have some confidence that the products have been reviewed for functionality and are virus-free. I gave up on Windows years ago after adding up the time I was spending on malware control using the mix of products that you seemed to need to do a complete job. Add to that the item and money spent to get rid of viruses on various family computers (the kids weren't as cautious as I was). No doubt the Windows world is much more secure these days but I'm not going back. I run the occasional Windows program on Parallels on a laptop (with virus protection). Other than Apps for iPhones, iPads, iPods (all Apple devices), I don't see what outside content I'm blocked from getting by Apple. I can buy any software I can run on OSX and run any Windows software using Boot Camp and a Windows installation or Windows emulation options. As to the agency pricing model Apple and its partner publishers were pushing for textbooks, lets wait for a court ruling on whether that amounts to collusive price fixing. Apple wasn't setting the prices, and the publishers (with some considerable support from authors) were making the case they needed more revenue than derived from Amazon discounted sales to survive. I'm not trying to take sides on that issue until I hear more on the merits of both positions.Sufo - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
lol, instead of teaching your kids how to not bork a computer you simply ran away from the problem. If you can afford a mac, you could have afforded to buy them their own shitty laptop, which they could infect to the point of failure and then learn how to deal with the mess themselves... or not. Seems the typical mac user is a lazy parent as well as user!robinthakur - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
I think we are coming to the point where a computer should not be easily bork-able because it is essentially just an appliance which is reliable and easy to operate. This means things like OS drives and system files should be hidden to end users, but this would drive us technical types round the bend.The solution to most infections is simply to reinstall and restore/repoint data, and buying them a shitty laptop which may get infected constantly will simply waste time that they could otherqwise spend doing something more useful. Unless you teach your kids how to reinstall Windows also, that's a lot of wasted hours.
Also quite a bit of how you don't get infected is not necessarily teachable, which I realised recently trying to explain it to someone les technical. I was downloading a link from Zdnet and on the page there were loads of ads and download managers that looked like the download button but when you clicked them they tried to install some stupid software. The actual download link was fairly hidden. This and the dangers of pop ups/cookies/add-ins is not an easy subject to teach, its something we have learnewd and now take for granted.
If my Windows 7 or 8 pc (self-built I might add) kept getting infected with malware in a way which was difficult to defend against using the standard approaches, I would 100% look at moving to another infrastructure. Not everybody has the knowledge or time to deal with the problem as we would. It does not denote laziness, simply different priorities than you own. If a curated app store does get around the danger of malware from unsafe install locations, it's not surprising that its incredibly popular with regular users and is now being adapted by most of the companies out there. Even Android only trusts known safe download locations by default.
steven75 - Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - link
Ah the classic "blame the user" mindset instead of the fact that Microsoft Windows is a perilous platform to use when it comes to security.MykeM - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
The choice to shop where goods are sold cheaply is all good but it's not without downfall. But as someone pointed out your fury is bit misguided. With the exception of Apps, I can load onto my iPhone movies, books and songs that I got elsewhere. iTunes doesn't differentiate from items bought from its store or downloaded off Google Play- as long the format is compatible.The irony to finding cheaper price elsewhere is that media whether it's from Google Play, Amazon or iTunes, are priced equally. So there's hardly any truth in that argument.
crankerchick - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Your last statement hasn't quite been my experience, at least on the content I purchase. I do don't do a lot of video purchases, but the few I have purchased have generally been cheaper on Amazon. I also routinely find music to be cheaper on Amazon, along with more specials to be had.Also, Apple may allow you to install media purchased from other sources, but it sure doesn't make such options a desired thing to do. Unsupported media formats require third party apps (for a price) along with the archaic way of transferring that content one-by-one, app by by, using iTunes, instead of allowing a true sync, as with supported content.
It is infinitely easier on Android to put the content you want on your device and consume it as you desire.
Again, not nitpicking, as your statements are accurate, but just point out that while Apple may "allow" something, they certainly don't make those "allowed" things something appealing to do.
Petri - Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - link
I have a mac and an iphone and regularly buy content from Amazon - you're right, it is generally cheaper than itunes. It's also very easy to do, since Amazon supply a downloader for the mac which neatly places all your downloaded content directly in iTunes for you.Of course once the content's in itunes, it syncs with the iphone as easily as anything else does.
Stas - Sunday, September 23, 2012 - link
What a can of worms that is. People are surprisingly easily manipulated. The pen is built around them, and they don't notice or care. Thus the the term - iSheep. But it's our nature, I suppose; not inherent to just iFans. Look at our country and "our" government...