Apple is rebuilding Maps from the ground up The company is rolling out more detailed maps built from its own data for the first time I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the launch of Apple Maps went poorly. After a rough first impression, an apology from the CEO, several years of patching holes with data partnerships and some glimmers of light with long-awaited transit directions and improvements in business, parking and place data, Apple Maps is still not where it needs to be to be considered a world-class service. Maps needs fixing. Apple, it turns out, is aware of this, so it’s re-building the maps part of Maps. It’s doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy-first methodology and its own fleet of cars packed with sensors and cameras. The new product will launch in San Francisco and the Bay Area with the next iOS 12 beta and will cover Northern California by fall. Every version of iOS will get the updated maps eventually, and they will be more responsive to changes in roadways and construction, more visually rich depending on the specific context they’re viewed in and feature more detailed ground cover, foliage, pools, pedestrian pathways and more. This is nothing less than a full re-set of Maps and it’s been four years in the making, which is when Apple began to develop its new data-gathering systems. Eventually, Apple will no longer rely on third-party data to provide the basis for its maps, which has been one of its major pitfalls from the beginning. “Since we introduced this six years ago — we won’t rehash all the issues we’ve had when we introduced it — we’ve done a huge investment in getting the map up to par,” says Apple SVP Eddy Cue, who now owns Maps, in an interview last week. “When we launched, a lot of it was all about directions and getting to a certain place. Finding the place and getting directions to that place. We’ve done a huge investment of making millions of changes, adding millions of locations, updating the map and changing the map more frequently. All of those things over the past six years.” But, Cue says, Apple has room to improve on the quality of Maps, something that most users would agree on, even with recent advancements. “We wanted to take this to the next level,” says Cue. “We have been working on trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step. That is building all of our own map data from the ground up.” In addition to Cue, I spoke to Apple VP Patrice Gautier and more than a dozen Apple Maps team members at its mapping headquarters in California this week about its efforts to re-build Maps, and to do it in a way that aligned with Apple’s very public stance on user privacy. If, like me, you’re wondering whether Apple thought of building its own maps from scratch before it launched Maps, the answer is yes. At the time, there was a choice to be made about whether or not it wanted to be in the business of maps at all. Given that the future of mobile devices was becoming very clear, it knew that mapping would be at the core of nearly every aspect of its devices, from photos to directions to location services provided to apps. Decision made, Apple plowed ahead, building a product that relied on a patchwork of data from partners like TomTom, OpenStreetMap and other geo data brokers. The result was underwhelming. Almost immediately after Apple launched Maps, it realized that it was going to need help and it signed on a bunch of additional data providers to fill the gaps in location, base map, point-of-interest and business data. It wasn’t enough. “We decided to do this just over four years ago. We said, ‘Where do we want to take Maps? What are the things that we want to do in Maps?’ We realized that, given what we wanted to do and where we wanted to take it, we needed to do this ourselves,” says Cue. Because Maps are so core to so many functions, success wasn’t tied to just one function. Maps needed to be great at transit, driving and walking — but also as a utility used by apps for location services and other functions. Cue says that Apple needed to own all of the data that goes into making a map, and to control it from a quality as well as a privacy perspective. There’s also the matter of corrections, updates and changes entering a long loop of submission to validation to update when you’re dealing with external partners. The Maps team would have to be able to correct roads, pathways and other updating features in days or less, not months. Not to mention the potential competitive advantages it could gain from building and updating traffic data from hundreds of millions of iPhones, rather than relying on partner data. Cue points to the proliferation of devices running iOS, now over a billion, as a deciding factor to shift its process. “We felt like because the shift to devices had happened — building a map today in the way that we were traditionally doing it, the way that it was being done — we could improve things significantly, and improve them in different ways,” he says. “One is more accuracy. Two is being able to update the map faster based on the data and the things that we’re seeing, as opposed to driving again or getting the information where the customer’s proactively telling us. What if we could actually see it before all of those things?” I query him on the rapidity of Maps updates, and whether this new map philosophy means faster changes for users. “The truth is that Maps needs to be [updated more], and even are today,” says Cue. “We’ll be doing this even more with our new maps, [with] the ability to change the map in real time and often. We do that every day today. This is expanding us to allow us to do it across everything in the map. Today, there’s certain things that take longer to change. “For example, a road network is something that takes a much longer time to change currently. In the new map infrastructure, we can change that relatively quickly. If a new road opens up, immediately we can see that and make that change very, very quickly around it. It’s much, much more rapid to do changes in the new map environment.” So a new effort was created to begin generating its own base maps, the very lowest building block of any really good mapping system. After that, Apple would begin layering on living location data, high-resolution satellite imagery and brand new intensely high-resolution image data gathered from its ground cars until it had what it felt was a “best in class” mapping product. There is only really one big company on earth that owns an entire map stack from the ground up: Google. Apple knew it needed to be the other one. Enter the vans. Apple vans spotted Though the overall project started earlier, the first glimpse most folks had of Apple’s renewed efforts to build the best Maps product was the vans that started appearing on the roads in 2015 with “Apple Maps” signs on the side. Capped with sensors and cameras, these vans popped up in various cities and sparked rampant discussion and speculation. The new Apple Maps will be the first time the data collected by these vans is actually used to construct and inform its maps. This is their coming out party. Some people have commented that Apple’s rigs look more robust than the simple GPS + Camera arrangements on other mapping vehicles — going so far as to say they look more along the lines of something that could be used in autonomous vehicle training. Apple isn’t commenting on autonomous vehicles, but there’s a reason the arrays look more advanced: they are.<doc-sep>Apple yesterday made the surprising announcement that it is in the process of rebuilding Apple Maps from the ground up. The move comes six years after the original introduction of Apple Maps, the launch of which went anything but smoothly. Now, Apple says it is committed to rebuilding Apple Maps without reliance on any third-party data providers. Speaking to TechCrunch, Apple’s VP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue explained that the company is focused on building “the best map app in the world.” Furthermore, Apple wants to do this using its own mapping data, not a combination of external data providers. Apple is collecting its data from iPhone users in an anonymous fashion, as well as through the Apple Maps vans we have seen driving across the United States in recent years: “We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” notes Cue. “We collect data — when we do it —in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B. We’re collecting the segments of it. As you can imagine, that’s always been a key part of doing this. Honestly, we don’t think it buys us anything [to collect more]. We’re not losing any features or capabilities by doing this.” Apple, however, faces stiff competition in the mapping industry from the likes of Google Maps and Waze. Whether or not Apple’s completely overhauled Apple Maps will be able to compete head-on with those applications remains to be seen. Personally, I generally rely on Google Maps more than Apple Maps. This is primarily due to the fact that Google Maps offers much superior walking directions where I live than Apple Maps does. I find Waze to be useful in certain instances, but I’m not a fan of the app design. What about you? Which mapping application do you use? Do you think Apple Maps 2.0 could convince you to switch back? Let us know in the poll below and down in the comments! Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news: FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:<doc-sep>Image : Apple Even among the most die-hard Apple fans, the kind who swear by first-party apps like Safari, Apple Photos, and Messages, there’s still one app that often gets ignored in favor of something made by Google: Apple Maps. Advertisement When it was released in 2012, Apple Maps was a mess, and even Apple knew it. O ver time, Apple has done a lot to improve M aps by adding things like additional satellite imagery, pedestrian navigation, and more, yet Maps still falls badly short of the more accurate, full-featured experience you get from Google’s alternative. (Seriously, check out this incredible comparison to see the big gaps Google’s and Apple’s map apps). But in an in terview with TechCrunch, Apple revealed its plans today to completely rework Apple Maps from the ground up with new first-party data and mapping. Apple apparently plans to launch the new version of Maps with coverage of San Francisco and Bay Area in the next version of the iOS 12 beta, before expanding coverage to northern California later this fall. Originally, Apple Maps data came from a mishmash of third-party sources, including TomTom, OpenStreetMap, and others, and had been slowly expanded upon by Apple over the last few years. But with the new rework, Apple has built a team of in-house cartographers and gathered data from its own take on Google’s StreetView vehicles to create something closer to a purely Apple solution. Like Google, Apple says it will gather data from users to help flesh out its maps, though the company apparently put a strong emphasis on privacy, claiming that Apple will never record start and ending location data, and that any info Apple does use is carefully anonymized to prevent sensitive info from leaking out. While being interviewed by TechCrunch, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue, who is now in charge of Apple Maps , said that he didn’t want to “rehash all the issues we’ve had when we introduced [Apple Maps],” and instead wanted to focus on “trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step. That is building all of our own map data from the ground up.” Based on TechCrunch’s experience checking out the work going into the next version of Maps, it seems like Apple in typical fashion is paying attention to many of the little details needed to make its offering a worthy rival to Google Maps. That includes things like licensing all the fonts and type faces such as Helvetica used in major subways systems in places like New York City, and tailoring the amount of information you see at various zoom levels . Advertisement And in a similar move to what Google has been doing with its maps, Apple will also combine satellite imagery with data taken from its mapping vehicles to add more things like the shapes of buildings, foliage, and walking paths to its maps to more accurately represent a given area. However, the one thing the Apple won’t change, at least to start, is Apple Map’s visual style. Cue says in order to protect its users, “We don’t want to combine those two things at the same time because it would cause a lot of confusion.” Advertisement If Apple can pull this off, it might finally have a worthy competitor in Apple Maps. But even with years of data gathering for the new Apple Maps going back as early as 2015, with updates scheduled to roll out across the U.S. over the next year, it’s still going to be a while before Apple has the same level of detail and coverage as Google. [TechCrunch]<doc-sep>
Apple today announced that it will be rebuilding its Maps app "from the ground up" with street-level data collected from its fleet of Apple Maps vehicles, high resolution satellite imagery, and anonymized, random segments of navigation sessions from iPhone users, which Apple refers to as "probe data." Image: TechCrunch TechCrunch 's Matthew Panzarino has published an in-depth overview of the changes coming to Apple Maps, which will be available in the San Francisco area starting with the next iOS 12 beta next week, cover all of Northern California by this fall, and roll out across the rest of the United States over the next year. In short, Panzarino says Apple Maps will be switching to its own base map, reducing but not fully eliminating its reliance on third-party providers like TomTom, which will yield significant improvements to traffic, real-time road conditions, road systems, new construction, changes in pedestrian walkways, and more. Apple also promises more relevant search results that, as Panzarino quips, are hopefully on the same continent now. In a follow-up question-and-answer piece, Panzarino noted Apple Maps will more accurately display foliage like grass and trees, pools, parking lots, exact building shapes, sports areas like baseball diamonds, tennis and basketball courts, and pedestrian pathways that are commonly walked but previously unmapped. His questionnaire also confirms that the overall design of Apple Maps will remain similar for now, beyond the additional detail. Image: TechCrunch "Since we introduced this six years ago — we won't rehash all the issues we've had when we introduced it — we've done a huge investment in getting the map up to par," said Cue. "When we launched, a lot of it was all about directions and getting to a certain place. Finding the place and getting directions to that place. We've done a huge investment of making millions of changes, adding millions of locations, updating the map and changing the map more frequently. All of those things over the past six years." Panzarino spoke in detail about the changes with Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue, who oversees Apple Maps: Cue noted further improvements will take Apple Maps to "the next level": "We wanted to take this to the next level," says Cue. "We have been working on trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step. That is building all of our own map data from the ground up." More from Cue: "We don't think there's anybody doing this level of work that we're doing," adds Cue. "We haven't announced this. We haven't told anybody about this. It's one of those things that we've been able to keep pretty much a secret. Nobody really knows about it. We're excited to get it out there. Over the next year, we'll be rolling it out, section by section in the US." Cue's notion that nobody really knew about these plans is debatable, as its Apple Maps vehicles have been a telltale sign since 2015, the same year Mark Gurman reported that Apple would switch to its own base map by 2018. Apple's in-house base map will continue to improve thanks to probe data. When an iPhone user is navigating with Apple Maps, Apple may collect anonymized data from middle segments of the trip, but never the beginning or end point. Apple says no personal information is ever attached to the data it receives. The secret sauce here is what Apple calls probe data. Essentially little slices of vector data that represent direction and speed transmitted back to Apple completely anonymized with no way to tie it to a specific user or even any given trip. It’s reaching in and sipping a tiny amount of data from millions of users instead, giving it a holistic, real-time picture without compromising user privacy. Despite the privacy push, iPhone users can still disable the collection of probe data from their device, if they so desire, by opening the Settings app and tapping Privacy > Location Services > Maps > Never. Image: TechCrunch "For example, a road network is something that takes a much longer time to change currently. In the new map infrastructure, we can change that relatively quickly. If a new road opens up, immediately we can see that and make that change very, very quickly around it. It's much, much more rapid to do changes in the new map environment."