"The longer Apple waits the harder it gets. From iPods to iTunes to iPhones to iOS, Apple’s modus operandi has been to introduce products and continuously improve them into widely attractive maturity by adding value without increasing prices, enlarging ecosystems, deepening integration and generally delighting users with a constant stream of innovations. With a user base fast approaching half a billion and thousands waiting in line to buy its latest product at this very moment, we empirically know this to be true. Why should Apple Maps be any different?"
Here's the thing — I rarely used the previous iteration of Maps on my iPhone.
Reason?
Take that thing to Hawaii and have it guide you.
I have been a long-time user of Motion X Drive on the iPhone. After experiencing Google's horrible directions in Honolulu, I downloaded this app and used it for the duration of the trip.
Being a Southern California driver, there are many opportunities to use a map/navigation system. I typically depended on Motion X Drive. However, there have been a couple times where it was off.
Did I publicly chastise Motion X? No.
I didn't even publicly chastise Google for their "awesome" directions either.
I may have used profane language, but I never attempted to snowball it into a scandalous event.
The world is a huge fucking place. Think about it — the world. Every single road and route — driving, walking, biking, public transit, you name it. In other words, a ton of past, present and future routes.
Sounds like a lot of work. A lot of updating. A lot of refining.
I'm willing to bet that any map/navigation application will give wrong/bad directions from time to time — just like Google did when I was in Hawaii.
But like Google, Apple (with partnerships) attempted to map the world. But they fell short. I'm sure Google did too at some point (but no one seemed to chastise them when they did).
Now I can understand people's frustrations with it — to a certain extent.
But seeing the terms "abomination", "monstrosity", and "mapgate" being tossed around — it makes me annoyed and happy at the same time.
Annoyed because, as Kontra pointed out in his post, Google isn't a knight in shining armor either in terms of maps. In fact, the moment any maps application gives you wrong directions, they lose their knighthood in our eyes. But here we go attaching -gate to it and having a frenzy.
But I'm also happy because now people have something to complain about. What's an Apple release without complaints? What would we tweet about? Who knows, maybe in a week people will start complaining about battery life of their new device (again) — or that it gets hot. Maybe the back scratches too easily. The sky is the limit.
I can't wait for that1.
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Sarcasm. ↩