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This

From TUAW:

Last week I wrote an article criticizing Apple’s new Maps capability explaining why it was a deal-breaker for me and why I was leaving the iPhone. That article generated hundreds of comments (in agreement and disagreement), tweets, and emails to me and TUAW, some going so far as calling for me to be fired. Since that article was published, the criticisms of Maps have exploded, so much so that Tim Cook released a rare public apology from Apple and pointed users to mapping apps from competitors. While that may help stem the bleeding until Apple can figure out how to fix its Maps mess, there are two things about Tim Cook’s statement I want to address.

The first is that Cook’s apology shows that Apple truly cares about its users. You know those times you mess up and realize how hard it is to apologize for your mistake? It’s usually pride or embarrassment that gets in the way of apologizing. Either way, it’s still incredibly hard to admit you were wrong. Now multiply that feeling by a million, knowing that your apology — the admission that you were wrong — will be reported by every major newspaper and tech blog in the world.

On top of that, when your company is almost always right in its business choices, admitting a mistake is a huge mark against it. Add to that the suggestion that some third-party companies products — some of them from your major competitors — might do the job of your mobile OS’s primary new feature better than your product does. Put those all together and you might have an idea of how monumental and significant Tim Cook’s apology was.

That shows just how mature Apple is and exactly how much the company cares about the user experience its customers enjoy. I’ve written in depth about Tim Cook before and this just solidifies my opinion about him. He is the best CEO on the planet and the person to lead Apple into the future.

But here’s the second thing: As much as I believe in Tim Cook and appreciate his acknowledgment of the Maps fiasco, his suggestions that users check out other mapping or web apps aren’t a real solution to the problem. Most of the mapping apps highlighted by Apple are really navigation apps. They get you from point A to point B. They can get you from St. Louis to Chicago. That’s not the problem with Maps. The real issue is the lack of extensive localized and accurate POIs and the ability to search thoroughly for them. A POI is a point-of-interest, which can be something major like a monument or a park, or something smaller like the corner drug store.

None of the apps suggested by Cook have the POI database that Google does and obviously, neither does Apple Maps. Also, none of the apps have the search capability for POIs that Google does. And if you’re one of the iPhone’s tens of millions of users living in a major city like New York or London or Singapore and don’t own a car, you don’t care about driving between cities — you care about being able to find any of the four dozen businesses that could be located on the single city block you’re on.

Another suggestion from Cook was to add the Google Maps web app to your home screen. The reason this isn’t a real fix is because a web app doesn’t have the fluidity, interactivity, or ease of use that a dedicated maps app does. If you think I’m wrong, I challenge you to use nothing but the Google Maps web app on your iPhone for a week. You’ll soon agree with me as to how much it hampers your iPhone experience.

Apple’s only solution—and I think they know this—is to return to Google. They need Google’s extensive POI database and its search capabilities. Whether that Google solution is getting a standalone app in the App Store or integrating Google Maps back into iOS while offering Apple Maps as a secondary option is something Apple needs to decide. But Apple needs to decide quickly, because it is not going to be able to build a POI database and map search capabilities that can compete with Google in just a few months, or even a few years.

I’ll close by saying that it’s a shame that the Maps mess overshadowed the iPhone 5 launch. From an engineering and design perspective, the iPhone 5 is the best smartphone ever made. It’s a work of art. It just needs for all of its core, built-in services to work, accurately and completely.

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Quote of the Day

“This isn’t a case of measuring a response to an unforeseeable situation twice and cutting it loose to the press and public once. This is a case of risk assessment and mitigation gone wrong, and of brand currency expended. Apple doesn’t only have to fix maps, they have to fix the process that resulted in Tim Cook having to write this letter.” ~ Rene Ritchie, Editor-in-Chief of iMore, responding to Tim Cook’s very public apology for the huge fail that is Apple Maps on iOS6.

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Smell

The human sense of smell is a wondrous thing, especially when it comes to memories.

A couple months ago I was driving home through one of the less-urban, more heavily wooded residential areas of Denver right after a freak thunderstorm. It smelled exactly like walking through the meadows on my grandparents’ old property in western Massachusetts.

My new garage smells like my grandfather’s workshop on that same property.

As I got in the elevator to leave work this afternoon, I was greeted with the sweet, flowery smell of my great aunt’s attic, something I hadn’t consciously thought of in decades.

 

 

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Fireworks

But why?

I started hearing loud explosions around 8 pm tonight and went outside to see what was going on. I still have no idea what it was all about…

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Quote of the Day

“Every time you propagate the message that being gay is to be less than human, that same sex marriage cannot be as filled with love and laughter and tears as heterosexual marriage, that gays don’t deserve to pass a legacy on to their family, you quicken that howling storm and sweep away a tiny bit more humanity from the world, drive one more child to contemplating the cold razor’s bite, or the yawning abyss of the overdose because they simply cannot deal with the unceasing assault upon their psyche. Well I, for one, will not stand for it.

“I will not stand for a world that demeans those it finds ‘different’ or ‘gross’. I will not stand for an ideology that promotes slavish adherence to a single arbitrary standard, that sacrifices children on the altar of oppression and control. I will not stand for one more RED TINGED MUSHROOM CLOUD second of people thinking that they have the right to live someone else’s life for them, for the complete lack of empathy so often shown in our society. I stand for gay marriage. I stand for the end of segregation. I stand for a woman’s right to vote. I stand for equality under the law, for treating others how I want to be treated, for the fundamental human right to live a happy life free of tyranny. I stand for my children.” ~ Minnesota Vikings kicker Chris Kluwe, writing for the Pioneer Press.

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It's Been an Interesting Day

Apple unleashed both iOS6 and OS X 10.8.2 today.


I don’t have a whole lot to say about iOS6. My aging iPhone 4 is unable to take advantage of many of the new features the software is touting. With upgrades like this, I’m just happy if they don’t break anything. (Sadly, something I came to expect with Microsoft for the last twenty-plus years.) I’m sure I’ll have a more formed opinion of the OS once I replace the phone with the new model.

And as for OS X 10.8.2, it added Facebook integration to the Mac operating system and cleaned up a few stray bugs that were still plaguing some users who upgraded to Mountain Lion last July. Facebook integration—much like Mountain Lion’s Twitter integration—is something I’m not likely to use much. It’s no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, and if I want to waste time there, I’ll go onto the website itself. And frankly, there’s nothing I need to post there that’s so important that it can’t wait the additional two seconds it takes to do that.

Like a lot of users, my initial upgrade to Mountain Lion caused a precipitous drop in battery life. I think that was addressed in the .1 update a few weeks ago because yesterday I’d forgotten to plug my laptop into the mains and hadn’t realized it until nearly 5 hours later when the low battery level warning popped up. That is at least back to where it was under Lion, so if this .2 update gives me any more time, it’s gravy.

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