Hasta La Gadget!

Apple Maps isn’t exactly known for its quality, having garnered so many user complaints that Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a written apology. Now it seems the lagging service has developed another limp, with Apple electing to delay turn-by-turn navigation for Australian users. Originally, the country was set to get the feature this month.

According to Apple’s website, Australian users won’t get the turn-by-turn navigation feature until an unspecified date in November. Presently, the feature is available in 52 other countries, including fairly obscure locations. Back when it was first released in Australia, Apple Maps fubared quite a few landmarks and locations with incorrect placement and wrong names.

The original feature, Directions, which differs from turn-by-turn, had the peculiar habit of sending drivers towards bodies of water and the sides of buildings, and other places cars should not venture. This same issue is now marring turn-by-turn, with users (outside of Australia) reporting that it often gives the wrong instructions. Overall, things still aren’t looking up for Apple Maps.

This comes after a source claimed that Scott Forstall’s upcoming departure from Apple is due, primarily, to his refusal to sign an apology letter about the travesty that is Apple Maps. Forstall, who already has his share of enemies inside of Apple, insisted that the criticism regarding the service could be dealt with without an apology, according to the source. Ultimately CEO Cook ended up signing the apology, which states: “We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers.”

[via SMH]

Apple delays turn-by-turn navigation in Australia is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Huge news out of Apple today, as its senior vice president of iOS software, Scott Forstall, will leave the company next year after putting in some 15 years. Furthermore, John Browett — head of Apple retail — is also on his way out. The memo was delivered late today, on a day that is littered with other news that the company may hope will bury the bulk of it — and, on a day where trading on the New York Stock Exchange is halted due to Hurricane Sandy. It’s practically a given that Forstall is taking the brunt of the impact from its decision to forge ahead with an obviously subpar Maps application, all while trumpeting it as one of the pillars of iOS 6 during his keynote speech at WWDC 2012. The introduction of Siri as a beta product is also on Forstall, and we all know what happens to executives who flub something related to iPhone….

As the shakeup unfolds, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. In other words, Tim Cook isn’t about to usher in new help who may thwart the company’s efforts to continue at its breakneck pace. Curiously, Mansfield will be heaping more on his own plate just months after he had originally planned to retire. As for Ive? He’ll be responsible for providing “leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design.” Eddy Cue will be gifted burdened with Siri and Maps, while also keeping an eye on the iTunes Store, the App Store, the iBookstore and iCloud. Needless to say, he probably won’t be seeing too many walls outside of Cupertino for the foreseeable future. Federighi is being tasked to lead both iOS and OS X, while Mansfield chairs a new Technologies group that bundles Apple’s wireless teams across the company. (Of note, Dan Riccio — who was scheduled to take over for Mansfield prior to his retirement retraction — isn’t among those who are gaining duties.)

Just months after Browett was brought in from Dixons in order to lead up Apple’s retail efforts, he’s on the outs as well. Of course, he’s also responsible for the branch having to tell stores that it “messed up” when he fiddled with staffing levels back in August. A search for a new head of Retail is underway and in the interim, the Retail team will report directly to CEO Tim Cook.

Update: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Forstall was asked to resign after refusing to sign his own name to Apple’s Maps apology, leaving Tim Cook to sign his name instead. Yikes.

Continue reading Apple executive shakeup: Scott Forstall and John Browett are leaving the company

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Apple

Apple executive shakeup: Scott Forstall and John Browett are leaving the company originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Everyone knows that Google prides itself on mapping accuracy. If you hadn’t checked beyond the base maps in the past few years, though, you’d have thought the terrain was charted in the “here be dragons” era — it’s been as flat as a board. Take a second look today. Google has overhauled Google Maps worldwide to show hills, deserts and lush zones by default, as well as label the geographical features that hadn’t previously been identifiable in a sea of white. The map overhaul isn’t so nuanced enough as to remind us how steep the hills can be in San Francisco, but it will remind us that Gobi refers to more than just a chipset.

Filed under: GPS, Internet, Google

Google Maps adds natural terrain by default outside of satellite views, reminds us the world isn’t flat originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia has joined in the maps attention-seeking, highlighting its own camera-toting efforts to 3D visualize locations, just as Google Maps has done with Street View. NAVTEQ True, as Nokia calls its system, combines 360-degree LIDAR with the awesome power of lasers to map out 1.3m 3D data points each second, panoramic cameras, and military-grade positioning systems.

Those positioning systems don’t only rely on GPS for location, but Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors to track speed, orientation, and the effect of gravity, so as to get an even more granular fix on where the teams are. Nokia dispatches them both in cars and on foot – though it’s not clear whether NAVTEQ has visited the Grand Canyon yet – with panoramic cameras (that link 360-degree images to the corresponding position in LIDAR 3D models) and automated high-res multi-view cameras to cut out the amount of user-processing required.

‘For instance, in one single day, we might collect 12 million signage images, two million panoramic images, a trillion LIDAR points, and 65 million million (65,000,000,000,000!) colour pixels” Nokia

The results are all funneled into apps like Nokia City Lens and Nokia Maps, which will be increasingly important in Windows Phone 8. It remains to be seen whether Apple, which ousted Google Maps from iOS in favor of its own navigation application, will turn to NAVTEQ to license the 3D graphics, as Oracle and others have done.

NAVTEQ was one of the few highlights of Nokia’s recent financial results announcement, with licensing of the navigation system to third-party clients looking a little more successful than sales of Lumia Windows Phones. Net sales were down for the Location & Commerce division, as was operating profit, but if you exclude the one-time costs incurred during the three month period, Nokia actually made a little profit on the group.

Nokia: Hey, we do fancy maps too, not just Google! is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You might remember Google’s unveiling this spring of the Street View Trekker, a seeming cross between a backpack and Van de Graaff generator that lets the mapping team produce 360-degree imagery where even trikes dare not tread. The portable camera ball is just going on its first trip, and Google has chosen the most natural destination for a novice tourist — the Grand Canyon, of course. Staffers with Trekkers are currently walking trails along the South Rim of the canyon to provide both eye-level points of reference for wayward hikers as well as some breathtaking, controllable panoramas for those who can’t (or won’t) make it to Arizona. Once the photos make it to Street View sometime in the undefined near future, it’ll be that much easier to turn down Aunt Matilda’s 3-hour vacation slideshow.

Filed under: GPS, Internet, Google

Google Trekker goes to the Grand Canyon, takes Street View souvenirs back home originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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