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[iPhone/iPod/iPad] Thread - When this thread started phones had headphone jacks
minor incident
expert in a dying field---Registered User, Transition Team regular
expert in a dying field---Registered User, Transition Team regular
This thread is for discussing all of our wonderful little iDevices. Let's chit chat about new hardware, new software updates, cases, styluses, screen protectors, docks, speakers, etc.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
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I live in the NJ/NYC metro area and spend a fair amount of time in Boston. I use public transit directions all the time. Just not Google's. Even Google Maps was shitty for transit directions compared to specialized apps like iTrans or Embark. I mean, you can't even see individual train lines, and bus directions are even worse. It's okay in a pinch, but if you live somewhere with public transit, it'd be silly to not have a local transit app.
Isn't that what Apple is doing now?
See, that's my issue with this. Google's transit stuff was shitty. No way around that. They didn't have maps of subway lines, their bus stops were often inaccurate, and directions were shoddy, often having you swap between busses and trains where no sane commuter would do so.
Local transit apps are MUCH better about all this stuff. That's why I don't think it's a big deal that Apple doesn't _try_ to include them. They'd probably suck at it. Meeting the needs of MTA commuters in NYC/NJ is totally different from building an app for BART travelers in California. This is a situation where specialized apps are the way to go.
The problem is that no one likes to use the other guys idea, so we have local apps....I use PDX Bus myself in the Portland area.
Exactly, yeah. And my god, getting all the transit operators in the country to do anything the same way would be an wonderful exercise in futility.
It's not shitty. That's purely from your local transit authority not using the service correctly. When the data is there it works fucking perfectly and I do not want to be without it.
Apple's competitive solution is shit. Their solution is use another goddamn app. Google maps would give you turn by turn instructions down to leaving now of arrive by times.
And for the record. I have never said the apples data set for maps is unacceptable. I would like it to be better obviously but I am ok with it. What I am not ok with is a reduction in a feature list.
Satans..... hints.....
If a public transit app doesn't have full train map routes (and, ideally, bus line routes) and the ability to limit your route to only busses or only trains, it's shit. I've never seen route info or train tunnel maps in Gmaps for ANY city. Ever. Only little blue dots indicating stations. In NYC, for example, it would often have you going out of the subway to go find a goddamn bus that never fucking runs, rather than just taking another train that's a block farther away. Google may have had directions, but without these things, that's barely half of a decent app.
That's like a turn-by-turn GPS that doesn't actually include any street maps. It just tells you when and where to turn. And maybe it shows you an intersection here and there.
It's shit. I'm sorry it's shit, but it is. Shit.
Edit: Now, I'd totally understand if you were pissed about their iffy data set, like @GnomeTank. That makes sense, because it IS iffy and incomplete, and not yet totally accurate. But being this upset over losing shitty transit directions when there are dozens of apps that do it dramatically better that even Gmaps ever did for a couple bucks just strikes me as weird, especially when the tradeoff is great turn-by-turn directions, which is actually a feature Apple WAS lagging behind Google on.
Edit 2: Seriously, go download Embark or something for your city. If you've gotten by this long on Gmaps, you don't know what you're missing.
I didn't use it in NYC because the map system is clear enough to not need it but it worked fine when we were in Boston a month and took us exactly where we needed to go.
Every major city in Australia now has google maps fully integrated in with bus and train services.. Ive never had a bad experience with it unless the data hasnt been uploaded by the transit authority. And I know plenty of friends in Europe who also fully rely on it.
I really don't know what to tell you other than you are using it in places that don't support it well.
Satans..... hints.....
If you drop a pin in google maps. And you ask it for directions to this place. And you can specify the arrive by or leave by time. And it will tell you where to walk to, what platform number, what bus or train number to catch (and what time it arrives) and the stop to get off, (also with a time) and then how far you need to walk. (Along with a blue GPS dot telling you where you are at any time) would you be happy?
Because that is exactly what it can do.
It's why so many people are upset by the loss of that feature. If you don't use it, that doesn't matter sure. But a lot of people do. I know people who travelled Europe this way. It's why a lot of cities lobby their transit authorities to invest in it. Its great!
Satans..... hints.....
Maybe I'm weird, but I grew up reading paper maps.
Also, who knows, maybe Australia is a Google Maps Transit wonderland.
Personally, no. Unless I can exclude busses, or particular lines, and get a map of the subway system. It's great that it works really well for you (seriously, I'm actually not being sarcastic), but it's not so great here. Especially in NYC, as I've mentioned. Also, in lots of cities like Chicago (and, I think, Portland), there are local transit apps that give you detailed info, like GPS bus tracking and notifications of closed/changed routes (a BIG issue in NYC where every weekend at least 3 or 4 trains are closed or rerouted) with automatic compensation on your route. That's the sort of stuff Google doesn't get. At least not here.
I know that's its fully integrated into seattles public transit too.
Satans..... hints.....
I really wish I had known about it sooner. It is pretty damn awesome. And soooo much better at using the NYC public transit stuff than google is.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Embark is fucking rad.
Since this is a big sticking point for a lot of people, I'm going to list a bunch of the best local transit apps for various cities in the OP tomorrow. Embark covers a bunch, but if anyone from other cities has any favorites, please chime in. A nice, forumer-recommended list will be super handy for iOS 6 newbies.
Satans..... hints.....
Also, it's hard to stay civil with you because I read every word you type in a Dalek voice.
Usually any weirdness with transferring to busses or whatever could be avoided by seeing the multiple route options and picking one that looked best (since it usually picked whichever left the soonest first).
(@syndalis an old standby of hopstop - their recent app is really good actually!, at least for NYC, and covers a few major US cities. Apple still needs to fix the addresses in NYC though, but luckily hopstop has pulldown options for boroughs so even though apple maps is f'd up there, it works fine!)
5 seconds in:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=nf5-Prx19ZM
Someone needs to get me a captioned animated gif of this dude.
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding how a lot of people use transit maps/directions. I, and a lot of the people I know, prefer a map-like approach rather than "turn-by-turn" for transit directions, at least in NYC. That's why I really can't abide a transit direction app that doesn't include an actual map that includes train routes an bus lines and such. For me, I got by happily for years with a simple hi-res JPG on my phone of the NYC subway map.
Apparently more people that I thought just prefer the point-A-to-point-B approach, which is cool. I apologize for projecting my own opinions so much, but I still firmly believe that in most (US, at least) cities, there are cheap local transit apps that are better all around than Gmaps ever was.
Originally, I was thinking that the shaking was no biggie, but this sounds like something important is loose and I'm none to happy about that.
Guess I'm scheduling a genius bar visit tomorrow.
Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.
Me:Remind me to call John Doe at 9 AM tomorrow morning
Siri:I don't see John Doe in your contacts did you mean John Rogers?
Me:No, I mean John Doe.
Siri:I don't see John Doe in your contacts did you mean John Rogers?
So i guess i can only do ohone reminders for my contacts? She also won't lookup phone numbers for me since it isn't an iPhone. Work in progress I guess- I can't be too hard on it- a computer is understanding my voice. This is the future 11 year old me dreamed of- minus hover boards.
Exactly this. Also, there's the MTA's habit of randomly turning the train you're on from a local to an express with no warning. Having a better map of your route and all the stations helps to keep that from being a disaster.
I've got AppleCare - they'll fix it, I'm sure.
They've replaced my 4 for less.
Yeah, they absolutely will. Since you're within the return period they'll most likely just swap it for a brand new one.
I'll admit that third party apps do provide better transit directions. I'm using an app called Transit now and it's great, but I like how Google Maps also incorporates walking to/from stops when giving a route. So if I plan a trip somewhere, and my destination is 20 minutes from the nearest bus stop, which can happen at the edges of the city, it'll include that 20 minutes as well as the 5 minute walk from my house to the subway into the trip. So if the actual time on transit is 30 minutes, Google gives me a total time of 55 minutes. Transit would give me 30 minutes, as far as I'm aware. Which is a pretty big difference. If it's somewhere I've been and I know how far my destination is from the bus stop that's no big deal, but if it's somewhere new and I'm not expecting that, I'd be pretty upset.
XBL |Steam | PSN | last.fm
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
Pretty sure that's not the case though, but I'm up for being shown I'm wrong.
Are you asking because Tim Cook told us all that that's what we could do if we wanted to keep whining? (mostly tounge-in-cheek, but there was a little twinge of "fuck right off, whiners" in this one, but not nearly as much as in the antenna-gate open-letter)
Yes, but it's pretty slow and clunky, and doesn't have street view. So it's not ideal, but still better than Apple maps.
XBL |Steam | PSN | last.fm
It will have Street View shortly, according to Google.
Wait, what? The statement I read was him apologizing and admitting they totally botched the launch. How is that a "fuck right off, whiners" in any sense?
I thought it was well-handled. The few times I ever met Tim in work settings, he always came across as a very genuine, snark-free guy. I'd be perfectly willing to take what he says on this matter at face value.
I think what I'm getting a bit bored with is people/Apple acting like it's a surprise that Apple's mapping data is pretty shitty in its current form. It's not a surprise. They got rid of a mature data-set with some issues and replaced it with a younger, incomplete data-set with a lot of issues. Surprise, there are problems. No way did Apple not expect this, so saying "sorry" about it is a little confusing/frustrating.
[ed] So wait, we are going with "Apple didn't know the data they switched to was gonna suck this bad?" I dunno... for a company that wants me to think they're all about the details I find that tough to believe.
The backlash has been mostly from people who don't follow the tech news, and didn't know it was coming, and people like me who knew it was coming, but didn't think it would be the comedy of errors it's been.
e: I also think you're letting your emotions taint your perspective a bit iTunes. You want to be mad, rightly so, so you're just assuming Tim Cook is being a prick. I was pretty mad a few days ago too, so I get it...but I think if you come back and read that statement in a week, you'll soften on it.