The Apple iOS 9 Review
by Brandon Chester on September 16, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- Tablets
- iOS 9
Apple Maps: Now With Transit
Apple Maps has been the butt of many jokes in the tech industry since its initial release with iOS 6. At that time it was clearly not ready to start shipping, and it paled in comparison to the previous maps app which used data from Google. Apple was forced to issue a public apology for the issues, and recommended that users use mapping services other than Apple Maps. Since that time, Apple has steadily improved their maps by acquiring companies, sending out cars to do manual mapping, and adding new sources of information for businesses. Even with their improvements, Apple Maps has still lagged behind Google Maps in some key areas, with one of them being built in directions for public transportation. With iOS 9 Apple has implemented their own transit directions right into the app, bringing back a feature that was lost with the switch from Google to their own mapping service three years ago.
Ever since the original Apple Maps release I have used Google Maps to find locations and get directions, as it provides the same experience on iOS and Android, and because public transit directions are something I need. With transit returning to maps on iOS, I thought it was worth going back to Apple Maps to see what improvements have been made in the last three years, and how it compares to Google Maps in my local area.
My first impression is that the Apple Maps application itself is better than Google Maps on any platform. Google Maps has always had fairly janky scrolling and zooming for me. Apple Maps definitely isn't devoid of stuttering, but it's normally significantly smoother than Google Maps. I find the aesthetics of the maps themselves to be nicer, and I think it's just due to the colors used and the fonts for the street names. The Apple Maps app also fits in better with iOS by following Apple's design and navigation guidelines, while Google Maps, like Google's other apps, feels like you're running an Android application and uses methods of navigation that are actively discouraged on iOS.
Google Maps certainly has a number of advantages though. I enjoy travelling by bike, and Google Maps has a really great overlay that shows you bike trails which are often submitted or edited based on user submissions. Apple Maps has no such thing, and I don't know how they would ever match the feature because it would require getting cyclists to submit to Apple Maps as well as Google, which will never occur to any meaningful extent. Google Maps also shows you the names of streets at a reasonable zoom level, while Apple Maps barely shows you any street names until you zoom so close that you don't even have a concept of where you are. The satellite imagery in Google Maps is also much better; it never turns to black and white like Apple Maps, and is noticeably higher in detail and resolution.
At the same time, Apple Maps has some advantages too. While it's very reluctant to put the names of streets, it lists many businesses and they all appear to be accurately placed. In contrast Google Maps does the same thing Apple Maps does with street names and makes only the ones it has arbitrarily chosen show up unless you zoom really close. If you're having to balance clutter I would probably choose to show street names rather than businesses though.
Both mapping apps actually had some issues with the accuracy of their mapping. Google Maps omits a ton of small streets that branch off of other streets, while Apple Maps marked a residential area as though it was a field. There are also some paths and roads that are marked in a questionable or incorrect manner in Apple Maps.
If I had to choose an application based solely on the quality and accuracy of the maps themselves, I would have to go with Google Maps. Apple Maps has improved greatly in my area since it originally launched, but Google has been in this business for far longer and they've collected and accurately marked a lot of data in that time. For my purposes Apple Maps is definitely sufficient, as I really treat my maps app more like a GPS device than a map, and so I was very interested to see what Apple has done with transit.
When Apple announced transit support at WWDC they did so in a somewhat confusing manner. It seemed that it would only support a handful of major cities, like New York, London, and Toronto. In reality, transit directions are supported in a great number of cities, and the ones specifically mentioned by Apple are the cities where they have created map overlays that show all the transit lines in the city. This is really not unlike the situation with Google Maps, where the cities that have transit overlays are big cities that have various types of public transport that run both above and below the ground. Clearly Google still has an advantage of scale, especially with Apple launching with few European and no Japanese cities, but these will be improved over time just like the maps themselves have been.
Of course, coming late to the party does give Apple a chance to think about what things could be done better about transit. For example, you can see above that when you select Toronto's Union Station in Apple Maps you're presented with a very clean view containing relevant info and sections for all the different transport services that run there. In contrast, Google's listing actually splits the station into five separate points on the map for the different transit services, and when you click on one the different transit lines are just laid out haphazardly.
The most amazing thing of all is that contrary to the reputation Apple Maps has, the transit directions and maps are accurate! Not only are they accurate, but I've seen several situations where they give a more sensible route than Google Maps has, and I even had to deal with this firsthand when travelling in Toronto earlier this year. Above you can see me trying to travel from Toronto's Union Station to High Park. Apple Maps presents a very logical route which takes the subway for the entire journey. For whatever reason, Google Maps suggests taking the subway for one section, and then taking a street car which results in a longer journey and also places you in a less convenient spot near a loud expressway on the other side of the park.
I've also noticed that in my city the algorithm Google Maps has used to map the journey of buses has made a number of errors. I see several cases where your route apparently takes you floating over a river, or through the middle of residential areas. While these may seem inconsequential, if the errors occur near the beginning end of your route it can be difficult to tell where you need to get or where you'll be let off. Google Maps also doesn't let you know when a route has been put on a detour due to construction, which is another way to end up missing the stop you want to get to. It really sounds crazy even to myself, but in my experiences I've seen Apple Maps constantly outperform Google Maps as a transit tool.
Now before anyone gets the wrong impression based on what I've written here, I want to reiterate that these are only my experiences. I can't travel too far to test out maps, and I live in a fairly urban area. I've heard and seen the stories of areas where Apple Maps is still mapped completely wrong, or where there's no map at all. I'm sure there are lots of stories that run contrary to my experience. However, with Apple Maps being used by 3.5x the number of users that Google Maps on iOS has, it's clear that a lot of users do find the default maps app to be satisfactory.
My big complaint now is that there are no bicycle routes, and that's an area where I predict Google will have a continued advantage. With that said, I think the better performance and better design of the Apple Maps app are serious points to consider as well. If you're someone who turned away from Apple Maps initially like I did I would encourage you to give it another try. If it's a disaster, then Google Maps is still there to provide great mapping info. However, I think the good aspects of Apple Maps may surprise you, as they surprised me.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
227 Comments
View All Comments
centhar - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
It's called a "toy" because all that "power" it has is relegated the iPad to just being a consumption device. The OS is not developed enough to make it a serious creation tool.ws3 - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
"The OS is not developed enough to make it a serious creation tool."That is not true at all. There is no OS-dependent reason why an equivalent pretty much any desktop software could not run on a high end iPad like the iPad Pro. Desktop applications themselves do not rely on the user having full access to the file system. Of course user interaction would have to be redone to compensate for the lack of a mouse, but the power and OS services required to get the work done are there.
centhar - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
One issue here, the lack of a file system. It makes organization, copying, managing, importing and exporting of data impossible in iOS. Which is needed for apps to function for the user like their desktop bretheren.ws3 - Saturday, September 19, 2015 - link
There is a file system, of course. But it is not exposed to the user.Apple's idea is that manual organization of the file system is an obsolete concept for most users. iOS apps allow you to import and export files without having direct file system access. Of course, due to the lack of direct file system access, the user has much less control over exactly how his files are organized, and must rely upon app-internal organization and cloud services to manage files.
The claim being made by Apple haters is that full user access to the file system is absolutely necessary. The claim being made by Apple is that full user access to the file system is more complexity than most users need or are able to handle, and that in the long run it will be seen as no more necessary than the manual layout of data in main memory -- something that was seen as critically important in the early days of computing, but which now, of course, is completely irrelevant to everyone except people writing operating systems.
It remains to be seen who is correct. I suspect Apple is, but we'll have to wait a while to find out.
osxandwindows - Sunday, September 20, 2015 - link
How about file managers for iOS, I use them all the timeSc0rp - Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - link
Why is it that people were creating stuff on primitive operating systems back in the 90's with far less power available than the iPad, yet for some reason you think that the iPad's os isn't developed enough and it can't be used for productivity. This is someone that used to use Mac OS7/8/9 back in the day and did a lot of producing on those systems, which were limited to cooperative multitasking.osxandwindows - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Well I don't have to buy a new device every 3 yearswylie102 - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
"The Apple people are stupid sheep who can't think for themselves, and I hate to break it to you, but Apple consumers are a very small market compared to the overall PC and tablet market."A sheep is someone who follows the crowd, yet you state in your next sentence that the crowd is overwhelmingly using windows.
So which is it? You can't have it both ways.
robinthakur - Thursday, October 1, 2015 - link
I use a MS Surface Pro 3 and own an iPad Air 2 and I think the gap has narrowed in terms of what the ipad can't do (especially with a keyboard like the optional surface pro 3 keyboard) now that MS Office Web Apps run on them which is 90% of what the majority of working people need it to do. Now, obviously the Surface can do far more as a full blown Windows machine, and the software for it generally exists already. I as a power user and developer enjoy having that much control of full Windows and I need it. However it also has the historic disadvantages of running full windows which made people stop using it i.e. overheating, updates, security problems etc and complexity. For the average user who has been using an iPad in meetings for the last 5 years, Surface as an option really wasn't good enough as it was underpowered, battery poor, too small and too expensive. They have now changed to work with iPad and are used to working around some of the limitations and adapting their workflows.The reality is that the majority of users can get by with an iPad running a modern iOS with the appropriate apps unless they are doing something specialised like Visio, Photoshop or Maya or whatever. Speaking to the influencers and people with the power in business to change this through my job, the general consensus is that while they do like the Surface 3, and can see why having mobile Windows devices operating with a Windows enterprise stack makes things like SharePoint, and other enterprise MS software a much easier proposition, the reality is that MS has also made all it's software far more iPad friendly because the frightening alternative was people moving away from using software that didn't work on the iPad completely. We have zero choice on making software compatible with iPad because that's what people are using, period, and this can't change overnight. Apple has not properly targeted the corporate market other than maiking the devices basically compatible with things like VPN, Active Sync etc. because they haven't had any competition, but it wouldn't surprise me if they started taking it a bit more seriously.
I think MS don't help themselves by changing their minds and approach constantly on things like RT, Windows Apps and others. Businesses are only now starting to gain confidence that they are serious about the Surface program, and who is to say they won't decide to can it next year if the iPad Pro is a success and they want to focus on software and farm it out to Dell/Hp etc?
So nobody doubts that the Surface Pro 3 is a more capable device because it just is, but is it an appropriate device in an App centric world where most enterprise software can be delivered through a thin, light, cool-running iPad with Mobile Safari as a tier 1 browser via Office 365?
lilmoe - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
"most Apple users would never dream of changing ecosystems"Opinions.... Most have no brand loyalty whatsoever, and will move to the newer "best thing" as claimed by their peers in a heartbeat.
iPads are great consumption devices, even I was suckered into buying one because my dad wanted one (his friend told him it was the best....."rolling eyes"). They are successful in part because of the devices themselves (and the brand), but that's not the major reason why. The more important reason is the *lack* of proper/legitimate competition in the iPad's target market.
Tablets running mobile OSs are NOT a necessity in peoples lives. They're more like a novelty some of us buy for "convenience", and are easily replaced by phablets for most consumers. Those who want one, and are willing to pay, will find the iPad very appealing for its performance, smoothness, and selection of media consumption and companion apps. It's a proven product in that respect, and those who're paying the premium don't want to deal with "other issues".
Android has had lots of trouble getting its performance and framerate game together. Google, and it's utter failure to deliver is at fault. Samsung is NOT a software company, and no matter how good and feature rich their modifications to Android are, lots of people will still find them "clunky" because these modifications were never native to the OS. Google's recent versions of Android are too little, too late. While stock Android is now fast and smooth, it still doesn't stand a chance against Touchwiz in neither features nor usability. Let me say this straight for those who think Touchwix is bad; the absolute majority of consumers HATE stock Android with a passion (tech blogs and XDA are NOT the majority of consumers, not by a long shot). Let me say one more thing if that wasn't offensive enough for stock Android lovers: While I personally believe Android is the king of smartphones (for now), it is the very reason why the non-iPad tablet market is so bad, confusing, cheap, and has no future.
Windows RT (now Windows 10 Mobile, without the desktop) was the absolute best mobile OS ever to be installed on an ARM powered tablet IMHO. But it had a mix of management, timing and media conception problems (and sabotage), resulting in the alienation of both users and devs.
Microsoft are really late to the consumer game, so late it's painful. They shouldn't have settled for firing Sinofsky, and everyone else behind how Windows 8/RT was executed, they should make sure they never find a career in tech.
The Surface Pro is very successful and popular because its intended audience know exactly how capable it is. These guys don't need extensive advertising.
True, it's Android (or rather more accurately, Samsung) on smartphones that forced Apple to reconsider lots of their design decisions with their iPhones. But it's Windows that's forcing them to change the face of iOS on their iPads.
There are 3 major markets for tablets:
1) consumers (dominated by Apple)
2) prosumers (spread among Apple and Microsoft, with some Android users here and there)
3) professionals and content creators (dominated by Microsoft).
Apple's latest updates to iOS and the iPad are primarily for maintaining the second type. Because the first type couldn't give a rat's behind how a productive a tablet is.