Apple's New Maps Put Brooklyn In Manhattan: Gothamist:
Yesterday millions of happy iPhone and iPad users were told by their devices that a new version of the phone's iOS was ready. Yay, right? Well, sure—unless you want to use your phone for directions. Because one of the big features Apple is touting about this release—the all-new, not-at-all-Google Maps app—is an undeniable mess. But at least it has turn-by-turn directions?
There are lots of reasons why Apple dropped Google's map app (and YouTube!) from its lineup, but the main one appears to be fear of giving Google more user data to work with. "The importance of the map in the new mobile ecosystem is really what drove this decision [that] 'we have to own this component'," an executive at one of the companies providing mapping data to Apple told Business Insider.
But the data that Apple has bought from companies like TomTom simply isn't as good as Google's (for the moment)—and just as irritating, right now Apple's software isn't as good as Google's was at parsing what you mean.
