This post is somewhat of an extension of Jose Montero's post on the Apple Maps vs. Google Maps, as I unfortunately upgraded to iOS6 before I heard about the disaster that is Apple Maps, which does not have public transit directions (when you click on the bus logo, it suggest a few apps you can purchase to get this information).
As Jose pointed out, Apple's issue stem from the fact that it developed the product in-house at Cupertino rather than using a trusted map developer to help out. Given Apple's history of tightly controlling every single detail of its products, I'm not that surprised that they decided to keep it in house (though I am surprised at how miserable of an app it is). What really surprised me was the fact that much of the problem is due to a lack of data and the fact that Apple relied so heavily on technology to create these products. Google's search capabilities far outpaced Yahoo's, because the former had an algorithm handle the indexing of the internet, while the latter used humans. But that's the virtual world, where everything is at least an attempt at structured data. The real world has just too much unstructured data and nuances. In creating maps and doing local searches of the physical world, algorithms just are not as good as humans right now.
As Mike Dobson (a mapping expert) points out in his blog, "Perhaps the most egregious error is that Apple’s team relied on quality control by algorithm and not a process partially vetted by informed human analysis." Furthermore, Google had an insane amount of local search data to analyze before launching Google Maps, so they started off leaps and bounds ahead of where Apple started. In fact, Apple's approach to maps has been so far inferior to Google's that Dobson jokingly posted that Google Maps has a 400 year advantage over Apple.
I still have faith in Apple, and I except them to up their game quickly. They should at least see a benefit from interested third parties, because there is so much room for improvement and Google Maps (for now) is not the only heavyweight in the maps game anymore. Hopefully, I'll be able to post on how much Apple Maps has improved before the semester is over.
You can find Mike Dobson's post on Apple vs. Google here: http://bit.ly/SqGoDp
There are numerous articles on Apples Maps, so here are a few that I've enjoyed:
Venture Beat: http://bit.ly/SqFDdf
NYTimes: http://nyti.ms/SqFG91
TechCrunch: http://tcrn.ch/SqFM0n
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