Waze's display (in the UK) of their data is just as bad as Apple. They opt to show far more placenames than Apple, but the choices of which ones to show at which zoom level are bad and it is all a bit of a mess.

Actually, I take that back. Waze is far, far, far, far worse at deciding what data to show when. Just awful and random, awful.

I mean, just look at this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andynormancx/sets/72157631644505573/show/

(zooming in on the area where Birmingham, Britain's second largest city)

The amazing thing about Apple's own goal is that there was reportedly more than a year left on the existing contract with Google for maps, so even if they knew they wanted to file for divorce, there was time to beef up their own offering before parting ways. Instead, in a display of great hubris, they took their ball went went home, and now look ridiculous. For the price they're paying for this in negative PR, they could have simply cut a check with several commas and many zeroes to convince Google to change their terms, keep Latitude out, etc.

I know it's been reported that Google had no interest in compromising, but Apple's got mountains of cash that they don't know what to do with right now. For a small chunk of that, I'm sure they could have come to some sort of resolution, especially as they got closer to the actual expiration of the existing contract. If it turns out that Apple made an astronomical offer that Google declined, then okay, they had to do what they did, but they didn't have to do it now, when their own product is inferior to also-rans that Apple could have simply licensed for a while until their own offering is at least respectable.

Apple is using Waze data BTW.

TomTom is currently betatesting the Android app of their software, so it should be available very soon.

Even if Apple had a year left on the contract, it is possible that iOS6 was not under that contract, and that they'd need a new contract to cover the life of iOS6.

Two links on the topic of the maps issue: One from Apple CEO Tim Cook and the other former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassee.

That's a possibility, but that calls into question why they had to call this release IOS6 in the first place. There are certainly some improvements, but IOS6 looks like more of a "Snow Leopard" or "Mountain Lion" release than a "Leopard" or a "Lion." If the contract stipulated that Apple couldn't do another "major release", then they could have just call it a minor release and ran out the clock on the old deal. Imagine what another year of development could have done for the Apple maps product. (Of course GMaps would improve in that year as well, and Google has many more resources dedicated to Maps than Apple ever will, but still.)

Obviously "IOS 5.1" doesn't push units the way "IOS 6" does, but from what I've seen, people are more excited about the new hardware than the OS upgrade.

I can only think of two OS releases that might qualify for a full version number bump. 2 and 4. And then only because the functionality they brought was significant on a platform level. Developer SDK/API with version 2 and third-party multi-tasking with 4.

Everything else has totally been .1 in significance. But that's kind of besides the point because whether anything changes in the core OS or not, Apple are on a system of revising the major number every year.

And now, unfortunately, the same schedule for the desktop OS. Which IMO is way too aggressive and they should do a 24 month major cycle with 6-10 minor bumps in the middle.

And for both mobile and desktop I'd like to see more of the built-in apps put on their own schedules and updated more completely regardless of OS versioning. Right now it takes a long long time to get anything fixed.

But they do have a satellite.

As I recall it is of sufficiently high resolution that the take goes first to the NSA, who then filters it down to what is allowed for NGA's.

Well, it's not quite their satellite, but I suppose with an exclusive agreement for commercialization of the images it might as well be.

Apple need to launch a series of communication satellites that can also do photos. Then they can start selling their own satellite-based phon plans. How much can that possibly cost to set up?

Lots. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars. More expensive even than a 32 GB iPad.

tanstaafl.

The maps deal was set to expire in June 2013. That would put the expiration right in the middle of the iOS 6 lifetime, when iOS 7 would just be entering beta. Apple would have to insert the new maps, including the underlying framework changes at a time when no one would be prepared for it. Major framework changes in iOS are saved for X.0 releases, not X.1/X.2 releases.

They chose to launch maps when they did to try and avoid a larger disaster of many third party apps also breaking. Showing it at WWDC, and using the new maps in beta for almost 4 months allowed enough time to ensure proper compatibility without running into a deadline. App developers could work directly with Apple engineers onsite to overcome the initial major hurdles. It also fixes the problem of not having navigation for yet another cycle, when Android competition is getting stronger. Brand recognition of Samsung is rising, and to not have navigation of the box is a serious black eye. Time will tell if that black eye would have been smaller then the damage to their reputation from launching now. They had to switch at some point. I don't think another year would have improved most of the errors I've seen, compared to a few weeks in users hands reporting problems.


iOS 6 does introduce a number of new user facing features, along with a lot of new and changed frameworks for developers. Some of these features though won't be highly user visible until developers take advantage of them. Even skinning wise, iOS 6 saw some deep changes. Looking at iOS history release, these always come in on X.0 releases too. X.1 and X.2 have not added the type of changes they made to the OS user wise. Unlike Android where Google has decoupled most of the major apps from the OS, Apple still keeps them tightly integrated.

Used an iPhone 5 yesterday for a few minutes. Decent build quality, very light, very thin. Amazing screen clarity and vividness - unequaled.

Here are my issues:

Too light. Feels cheap compared to iPhone 4 or original iPhone.

Too thin. Not anywhere near as comfortable in the hand as an iPhone 4.

Too narrow. Going tall with the screen doesn't solve any problems, it only adds a check-mark for 4" screen to their spec list.

The screen (STILL!) has a visible black border around it - this is jarring on the white iPhone and really should have been hidden.

It would have been so much nicer had they gone for an all-stainless steel design instead of using aluminum. I don't use a case or bumper on my iPhone 4 and in 2 years of use, it's still spotless. The iPhone 5 is not going to have that kind of blemish-free longevity.

I also used a Sony Experia briefly and its screen is just about the size I wish Apple had moved to - both wider and taller, but still very comfortable in one hand with using only a thumb to navigate. At a visual inspection is seemed about 5mm wider, the exact size I'd advocated Apple moving to. But of course the screen quality doesn't hold a candle to the iPhone in terms of clarity, density and closeness of the pixels to the top glass surface. But it felt like a great phone and miles ahead of the Samsungs I've used in fit/finish.

Apple will do well with the iPhone 5 and I'm confident they'll outpace their iPhone 4 sales. But I think they really missed the boat not moving to a larger screen in this generation. It only causes the potential for additional friction and fragmentation should they choose to do this later. And if history is any indication, there won't be any format changes next year with the expected iPhone 5GS.

Overall impression after having lived with an iPhone 4 for 2 years. Not impressed.

I agree with you on the choice of anodised aluminium, my 5 already has two tiny marks on it (that no one else would see unless I pointed them out). I dropped my 4/4S many times before managing to put any noticeable damage on them (my 4S has a nick in the plastic buffer between the screen and the steel).

I'm sure the first time I drop my 5 it will pick up a very solid dent in the aluminium. However if they'd have gone with plain steel the whole thing would have looked unfinished and it would have been heavier...

...which brings us to the weight. I shared your view when I first held my 5, it was just too light. After a few days though my opinion changed, when I pick up my 4S is now feels like an overweight old dinosaur.

I can't agree on the too thin, I love the thinness and if anything it is more comfortable in the hand than the 4/4S for me (less sharp edges for a start).

I'd have been happy if the screen stayed the same size as the 4/4S. However, the extra height isn't the pain I thought it might be, though you do end up shuffling it around slightly more when using it one handed.

I'd have been very unhappy if they'd have made the screen any wider. I know a lot of people want a wider phone, sales of big arsed Android monsters have proved that. But I'm not one of them. For me the iPhone screen width is perfect. Any wider and it wouldn't be comfortable to reach all the way across when one handed.

I'll be very sad the day Apple cave in to you people who want big phones. Though I suspect some day it will happen.

Your proposed extra 5mm doesn't sound like much, until you add in the extra reach we already have with the new taller screen. No bigger please

The black border problem is easily resolved by buying the correct colour phone

I don't think the screen improvements have got as much coverage as they warranted. The screen is dramatically better than the 4/4S. It goes massively brighter when needed and the amount of reflections are much, much lower.

That makes it much easier to read the screen in sunlight than it has ever been before. Can't wait until the iPad gets the same improvements.

Xperia S ?

I'm not sure what Experia it was. I think from earlier this year, not the newest one.

In addition to making the screen 5mm wider, I'd also have liked to see the bezel area around the screen shrink by a couple of mm per side, so the overall width of the handset would be only 1-2 mm wider than it is now.

Less bezel on the top and bottom would also have been nice. The 5 is currently a little smaller than the 4, but it should have been even thinner.

With a thicker phone Apple could have actually included a better camera instead of pretty much the same one they had in the 4. So optical quality could have been improved through physics rather than software tweaks.

I'll say it again, I think the iPhone 4 takes crap pictures. Seems like Nokia is currently king of the hill for quality in the camera-phone department right now. Of course their phones with the amazing optics are rather thick.

Apple has had two revolutionary iPhone hardware releases IMO. The first iPhone and then the iPhone 4. The 5 just doesn't seem like "enough" to me. Which is typical Apple and they make it work in their favor. I'd just have liked something more remarkable.

Making the bezel more narrow would be a disaster. I already run into the occasional problem where one of my fingers is close enough to the screen on the side of the phone to cause a missed tap.

Unless they also at the same time managed to tweak the tap handling to deal with that situation better.

And before you say, yes I'm clearly holding it wrong

Also, I'm not sure if it is a fault with my phone or the new design of the digitiser, but the 5 seems somewhat less sensitive to the touch than previous devices. Need to go and play with some other 5s in store to compare (have been avoiding going into Apple stores since the retina MacBook was release, for obvious reasons).

And yes, I'd have no objection to Apple fattening the iPhone a bit again if it meant a better camera or more battery.

I don't have the same problem with the camera as you though, I think it takes remarkable photos, considering it is in a smartphone. Most of the pictures I've been happiest with over the last three years have been taken with my iPhone.

I expect if I were printing them and sticking them on the wall then I'd have a different opinion, but then I never get round to doing that with my DSLR pictures, let alone my iPhone ones. And I actually look at my iPhone ones far more often than the DSLR ones...

That can be solved with software/logic.



Of course not. If that were the case then the designers failed at their job. It should be obvious how a device should be held and variation should should not impact the utility dramatically. At least that's the goal.



I noticed the same thing with my brother's iPhone 5 last night. I hope it's a software issue. I first noticed it when trying to swipe the screen to go to the next page of icons on the springboard.

WRT the camera, it's definitely remarkable if you look back 10 years in comparison and yes it's a phone. But for many people it's the only device they might have on them. And we're not living in 2007 or 2008. I expect greater progress year over year and Apple, IMO has not delivered enough on the photo front. They've come a long way since the first model, but we need to see a leap in every product revision, IMO. The camera/lens in the Nokia 800 and the new 900 really shame every other phone on the market. Still not as good as a Compact Canon, but every other phone's images are laughable in comparison. Well, they would be laughable if it sometimes didn't make one cry that they missed a photo moment or ended up with a shite image. The iPhone 4 can't do anything unless you've got an incredible amount of ambient light. The LED "flash" is really really bad, too close to the lens, too weak, too narrow and slows down the camera to an almost unusable state. So unusable that if I'm trying to capture my 3 year old, I have to take some 10 images in hopes of even getting one marginal-to-decent result. Multiple images might look good if down-scaled to 320x200.

One thing I wasn't able to confirm last night was the resolution of Panorama images. They really dropped the ball on the UI for viewing the images. On a really wide pano my brother had taken the night before, I could not zoom in so that the height of the image was greater than the the screen ( holding the phone in landscape). I took a sample of my own and made a much less wide pano and when viewing that I could zoom in to a finer detail with the image easily spanning a size/distance much larger than the screen. I really hope this is a viewing/playback issue. When I first looked at his image I was afraid the camera was using the video mode to record the pano and wasn't using more than 720 vertical pixels. That would have been a real shame.

The only thing the pano mode has in its favour is its dramatic speed (i.e. instant). It doesn't balance exposure across the image and I find it very hard to keep that arrow on the line.

Photosynth does a much, much, much better job, even if it isn't as quick. There are some good iOS developers hidden there somewhere at Microsoft

Linked is a panorama I shot yesterday. Dimensions are 7424x2482, and I did not full the entire horizontal space allowed with this one. Via a 4S, not 5.

image

tbh the iPhone4 camera was a big step up from the 3GS, but the 4->4S was a huge step. I don't think it's really fair to be moaning about the 4 camera being behind the times when it's been out for 2 years and has been bettered twice by Apple since.

As for the bezel: you can't just lose bezel from the side, at least not on LCDs (and, I suspect OLEDs are the same). You need to run electrical traces to each row on the screen, and those hookups go from the driver IC that sits on the driver ledge (top or bottom), down the inactive screen areas on the left and right, to the rows.

This could get solved by adding thickness and working out how to do through-glass vias - you wouldn't want them running over the pixels as that'd reduce image quality - but that's not generally a tradeoff people fancy.

I wonder if OLEDs could get rid of them though? They don't need the bottom layer of glass, do they?

I didn't ask for no side bezel, I asked for slightly less side bezel. ANd I asked to hide the non-active parts of the LCD since it looks cheap and diminishes the illusion of the pixels being printed right on the glass. It's up to Apple to solve these issues. If no one else can do it, then it would be revolutionary.

I'm interested in knowing which phone currently has the thinnest side bezels.

The same goes for battery life - let's see some new tech that no one else has. Still waiting for that liquid metal to be used for something other than a paperclip replacement too.

I'm with a lot of the pundits here. The iPhone 5 is a great device, but frankly, it's boring. It simply does not have the impact of the original or of the 4. Don't get me wrong, the thinness is an amazing achievement, but I (and apparently a number of other people) don't value this attribute as much as some of the compromises made elsewhere.

2 Years ago, the iPhone 4 camera was decent for a phone, but that's still a cop out - let's have something that's just great without the "phone" footnote/disclaimer.

When Apple hits multiple cylinders in the form of incredible software engineering and hardware engineering at the same time, it's something to behold. But when they only hit either one or neither... With iPhone 5 they very nearly hit the hardware, but they've really done nothing on the software. At least "nothing" when you consider it's Apple. Here's that footnoting again.

You mean like the 41mp camera in the old Nokia phone?

Oh.. And while a year ago I didn't know a single person with an Android phone, that number is now at 4. All of them having been somewhat deliberate in their choice, two of them having previously used iPhones.

I did tell them that I own Apple stock and that they should go back to Apple phones as quickly as possible.

Arrrg, the "crap" new iPhone Maps application is now affecting my day to day life. It's getting difficult to deal with. Here's exactly how this "fiasco" is affecting me:

1. The stock price is down. When Apple stock falls it means my personal earnings per share fall. Then again I do't have so many shares that I can say the drops affect my wealth meaningfully.

2. I have to read about it in blogs day in and day out.

I've called Apple's geniuses to find out if they can offer a solution to both or even either of the above problems. Nothing offered yet.

But Tim Cook did: "While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app." Clearly these geniuses didn't get CC'd on that letter to Apple customers, maybe you could share it with them?

But downloading/using other apps doesn't help with the only two problems I'm currently having with this brouhaha.

They did just announce an October 25th 4th Quarter earnings call. Maybe that will clear things up.