BlackBerry Live
Friday, December 20, 2013
BlackBerry demos world’s first smartphone to car video chat
During the BlackBerry Live Keynote, the Canadian handset manufacturer carried out the world’s first smartphone to car video chat, demoing upcoming technologies.
Utilising a BlackBerry Z10 handset and a stunning Bentley car, BlackBerry showed how it is working on in-car video calls, with users soon to be able to make face-to-face video chats from their smartphone synced in-car entertainment systems.
Although demoed on a concept vehicle, the in-car video call shows where future in-car capabilities are going to head, with the demonstration Bentley boasting a BB10 powered system further enhanced by a 17-inch touchscreen display.
Functioning in much the same way as modern smartphone sync entertainment systems, the smartphone to car video call demonstration saw BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins chat with one of the company’s product managers.
While offering new business potentials, in the interest of safety, however, these video calling features will not be available at all times, with drivers able to make use of in-car video calls only when their car is stopped, with calls automatically switching to audio only communications when the car begins to move.
As well as showing the world's first smartphone to car video call, the BlackBerry Live keynote saw the unveiling of the BlackBerry Q5, a new budget QWERTY hosting handset with four colour schemes set to see it appeal to youth markets.
More to follow.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Battlefield 4 campaign mode details unveiled, introduces Tombstone Squad
Battlefield 4
EA has teased a range of new Battlefield 4 campaign mode details, confirming gamers will take control of Sergeant Daniel Recker, a member of the elite Tombstone squad.
Sent on a mission deep into Azerjaian, the latest Battlefield 4 story line previews have revealed gamers will be caught whilst looking to glean intelligence on a potential coup in China. The resulting furore will reportedly see World War 3 become a distinct possibility, with the Tombstone Squad again tasked with easing tensions.
Late last month developer DICE revealed that the Battlefield 4 campaign mode would be far less linear than that of its predecessor, with a selection of multiplayer elements able to be introduced at gamers’ discretion.
“There are signature multiplayer elements that we want to bring into single-player,” DICE’s General Manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson said of the upcoming game. “We want to give the player a choice. Do they want to go for the sneaky approach with a sniper rifle and a silenced pistol, or do they want to take the jeep and have the entire squad shoot at everything they see?”
Officially unveiled earlier this year, a Battlefield 4 release date has already been confirmed for both current and next-generation consoles, with the eagerly awaited first-person shooter to touch down for the upcoming Xbox One and PS4 consoles after hitting PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms.
The full Battlefield 4 campaign mode description as confirmed by EA reads as follows:
“In Battlefield 4, you take on the role of Sergeant Daniel Recker, member of an elite group of soldiers known as Tombstone squad. While on a mission to collect intelligence from a defecting Russian General in Baku, Azerbaijan, your squad is discovered and you must fight your way through waves of Russian troops in order to escape. Upon getting back to the USS Valkyrie, a Wasp class carrier, the intelligence you've retrieved confirms previous suspicions. The Chinese Admiral Chang is planning a coup in China, and if this happens, the Russians would back him up.
“With this intel secure, the USS Valkyrie sets a course for Shanghai. You and Tombstone squad are sent on a covert mission into the city to extract a group of VIP's. China is in uproar after the U.S. has been implicated in the assassination of Jin Jié, the future leader and voice for peace in China. Admiral Chang has cancelled elections and martial law has been declared. As U.S. and Russian naval forces position themselves off the coast of China, and the situation quickly escalates into a stare down akin to a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
“In Shanghai, protestors clash with police as the streets are filled with chaos and turmoil. Tombstone manages to find the VIP's, among them a CIA field operative known as Laszlo W. Kovic. With him is a mysterious individual that the Chinese military has been franticly searching for. Together with Kovic you fight your way out of Shanghai and back to the Valkyrie as countless civilians flee the city, many of which are brought aboard the Valkyrie as refugees. With communications dead, the Valkyrie sets course for Singapore to rendezvous with the USS Titan and the 7th US carrier group at their last known position. As you reach Singapore you are shocked to find a horrific scene of fire and mayhem. The flagship is sunk and its fleet is eradicated, and from this point on nothing is certain.”
Read More: Battlefield 4 Review – Hands-on
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Apple bans Saga #12 comic for gay sex images
Saga comic
Apple has banned a comic written by acclaimed writer Brian K. Vaughan for two “postage stamp-sized images of gay sex”, the author announced.
Vaughan has released a statement criticising Apple’s decision to ban the latest issue of Saga, which has always been aimed at more mature readers due to its explicit and graphic nature.
The new Saga issue was due to be released this week and featured two small images depicting gay sex acts displayed on the TV set head of one of the characters, Prince Robot IV, when he is lying injured on a battleground.
“As has hopefully been clear from the first page of our first issue, Saga is a series for the proverbial ‘mature reader’,” said writer Brian K. Vaughn in a statement on his publisher’s Tumblr page. “Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow’s Saga #12 from being sold through any iOS apps.”
“This is a drag, especially because our book has featured what I would consider much more graphic imagery in the past, but there you go. Fiona [Staples, Saga’s artist] and I could always edit the images in question, but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not (just) to shock or titillate, so we’re not changing shit”.
The science fiction comic book series follows the story of new parents, Marko and Alana, struggling to raise their newborn child in the midst of a galactic war, and often features graphically violent images. Charlie Jane Anders at sci-fi site io9 described Saga content as often featuring “some intense stuff, including straight sex, bloody violence and child birth.”
Despite Apple having a strict anti-porn policy in its App Store, the iPhone 5 manufacturer has still faced a backlash of criticism for its decision to ban the sale of Saga #12. The Saga series has already featured other sexual content including bare breasts and situations that include child prostitution, but Apple has not previously banned the comic or required Vaughn to make changes.
Due to this, the books industry has been very vocal about the ban, calling the move “homophobic”. The New Statesman said previous issues of the comic featured “larger issues of heterosexual orgies”, which were allowed to pass through Apple’s selective filters.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Following Apple, Microsoft to open mini-stores in Best Buy
Much as the Redmond giant attempted to do with its own dedicated retail locations, Microsoft will now follow Apple's lead in opening mini-stores in Best Buy retail locations across North America.
Microsoft and Best Buy announced the collaboration on Wednesday, noting that it will bring Windows-focused mini-stores to 500 Best Buy locations in the United States and more than 100 Best Buy and Future Shop locations in Canada. The stores will be between 1,500 and 2,200 square feet in size, and they will showcase devices running Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Microsoft's Xbox products, Windows software, and Microsoft's hardware peripherals.
Microsoft will provide training for more than 1,200 Best Buy sales associates in order to help them better pitch products to customers.
For Microsoft, the move may make it better able to compete against Apple in the new computing paradigm. The company's Windows 8 platform has continued to struggle in the face of a weakening PC market and an exploding mobile device market.
Microsoft has attempted to follow Apple's lead in the past, opening its own retail stores. Those locations, though, have failed to reproduce the considerable success Apple has achieved with its physical locations.
For Best Buy, the new Windows Stores are a continuation of a trend that has seen the retailer reaching out to major electronics brands, getting them to open mini-stores within Best Buy locations in an effort to transform the retailer. Best Buy has struggled to retain relevance in the era of online shopping, and one big problem the retailer faces is "showrooming," wherein customers check out devices within Best Buy before going home to order them online.
Apple was the first company to get its own dedicated mini-stores within Best Buy, with distinctive installations showing off MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones. Samsung has followed suit recently, opening 1,400 mini-stores over the past few months.
Microsoft and Best Buy announced the collaboration on Wednesday, noting that it will bring Windows-focused mini-stores to 500 Best Buy locations in the United States and more than 100 Best Buy and Future Shop locations in Canada. The stores will be between 1,500 and 2,200 square feet in size, and they will showcase devices running Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Microsoft's Xbox products, Windows software, and Microsoft's hardware peripherals.
Microsoft will provide training for more than 1,200 Best Buy sales associates in order to help them better pitch products to customers.
For Microsoft, the move may make it better able to compete against Apple in the new computing paradigm. The company's Windows 8 platform has continued to struggle in the face of a weakening PC market and an exploding mobile device market.
Microsoft has attempted to follow Apple's lead in the past, opening its own retail stores. Those locations, though, have failed to reproduce the considerable success Apple has achieved with its physical locations.
For Best Buy, the new Windows Stores are a continuation of a trend that has seen the retailer reaching out to major electronics brands, getting them to open mini-stores within Best Buy locations in an effort to transform the retailer. Best Buy has struggled to retain relevance in the era of online shopping, and one big problem the retailer faces is "showrooming," wherein customers check out devices within Best Buy before going home to order them online.
Apple was the first company to get its own dedicated mini-stores within Best Buy, with distinctive installations showing off MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones. Samsung has followed suit recently, opening 1,400 mini-stores over the past few months.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Amazon smartphone reportedly delayed due to production difficulties
The much-rumoured Amazon smartphone has been hit by production difficulties which could well result in a delayed launch, according to reports.
Taiwan-based industry rumour-monger DigiTimes cites sources within the flat panel supply chain concerning the delayed Amazon smartphone. Apparently its planned Q2 release date will probably slip.
No specific reasons are given for such a delay, other than the fact that "the production progress at its manufacturing partner, Foxconn International Holdings, has not been as smooth as expected."
Amazon's original roadmap stipulated that its smartphone should complete its production verification test phase during the first quarter of 2013, which would lead to mass production in the second quarter. However, with the PVT phase ongoing, the Amazon smartphone is likely to miss its June production window.
Like the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, it's believed that the first Amazon smartphone will come with an extremely cheap and subsidised price tag. Initial reports suggest it could cost around the £100 mark.
As with its tablets, the Amazon smartphone will run on the company's Silk browser - a heavily modified version of Android with Amazon's own online ecosystem deeply integrated.
Reports late last year suggested that Amazon was planning to have five million smartphones ready to ship this summer. These latest reports of production difficulties could put paid to such ambitions - at least in the immediate future.
Would you be interested in an Amazon smartphone? Would it tempt you away from your iPhone or Android device? Let us know what you think in the comments section below, or take to the Trusted Reviews Twitter and Facebook feeds to have your say.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Apple looking to improve Maps service, recruits experts
Apple Maps
Apple is looking to improve its ill-fated Maps service by employing a host of navigation experts and asking for the assistance of its huge iOS userbase.
The iPad mini creator is attempting to improve its Apple Maps service by recruiting full-time experts to its team.
A whole range of Maps related jobs have appeared on Apple’s careers page, including a host of posts for Maps Ground Truth Local Experts.
“The Maps team is looking for people with a passion for mapping, great testing skills, and deep regional knowledge to help us build better and better maps”, reads the job listing. “In this position, you will be responsible for the quality assessment of Apple Maps for your region, including both data and map services. You will monitor changes to our maps, provide feedback on unique local map requirements, collect ground truth information, and evaluate competing products.”
For these positions, Apple is looking for Ground Truth Local Experts in specific cities all across the world, in an attempt to build more accurate maps for those cities and locations.
Apple is also looking to hire several map experts within its Cupertino HQ. Positions range from geodata scientists to QA staff to weed out any bugs in the service.
When Apple Maps launched last year there was a huge amount of consumer outrage after the service listed misnamed towns, poor journey planner results and often missed out entire roads altogether.
The service was actually so poor that Apple CEO Tim Cook actually issued an apology to iOS users.
In order to avoid repeating its previous mistakes, Apple is coupling the addition of experts with an opt-in “Help Improve Maps” service for iOS 7 users.
iOS 7 users will be asked if they wish to help Apple improve its Maps app, which also ties into the new Frequent Locations feature. This function allows Apple Maps to remember places the user has been, which can be saved to iCloud so that directions to that location can be quickly and easily presented to the user.
“If you choose to enable Improve Maps, Apple will correlate the street address associated with your Apple ID with the GPS coordinates obtained through the Frequent Locations feature on your device,” reads the iOS 7 Maps disclaimer. “This will enable Apple to better approximate the geographic location of that address.”
Also Apple has acquired location data company Locationary, indoor mapping service WiFiSLAM, and transit app HopStop to improve the Maps service.
Next, read our iPhone 5 tips and tricks.
Via: AppleInsider
Monday, November 25, 2013
Call of Duty Ghosts multiplayer teased ahead of reveal
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Ahead of the Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer reveal on August 14, Activison has released a teaser video on YouTube.
The video not only aims to build the hype ahead of tomorrow’s multiplayer reveal, but also lists the dates and locations for future Call of Duty: Ghosts events.
The Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer reveal will take place on August 14 in Los Angeles, with the event and live stream starting at 10.30am PDT or 6.30 BST.
Presented by Microsoft, the multiplayer unveiling is happening earlier than usual, as Activision is usually known to show off their COD multiplayer features in September.
However, from the multiplayer reveal teaser, it seems like there will be other Call of Duty: Ghosts events dotted around the globe.
With the Los Angeles event kicked things off, it will be followed by:
August 21 – Cologne, Germany (GamesCom)
September 26 – Dubai
September 26 – London (EuroGamer)
October 3 – Moscow, Russia (IgroMir)
October 4 – Sydney, Australia (EB Games Expo)
October 23 – Sao Paulo, Brasil (Brasil Games Show)
October 30 – Paris, France (Paris Games Week)
Activision has already confirmed that the Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer will feature character customisation and a new dynamic experience shown off in the pre-order bonus multiplayer map: “Free Fall”.
“Dynamic map event change the way players approach the game, and Free Fall does a great job illustrating this new mechanic,” said Mark Rubin, the game’s Executive Producer. “As the match progresses, the geometry of the world continues to change and players need to adjust on the fly or else.”
Call of Duty: Ghosts will be released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 on November 5. The game will also ship as a launch title on the Xbox One and PS4.
The game will also be available for PC and Wii U.
Next, read our hands on review of Battlefield 4.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Apple iOS 6 Maps vs. Google Maps 2.0 for iOS labels local search
As Apple prepares its latest enhancements to Maps with iOS 7, Google has released its own major update for Google Maps on iOS. Here's how the two compare in location data and local search, our fourth segment looking at mobile maps.
Source: Apple
Introducing iOS 6.0 Maps
Using Maps Offline
2: Maps and visualizations
3: Transit directions
4: Map labels & local search
5: Routing & traffic
As previous segments in this series have detailed, Apple's new iOS 6 Maps introduced cutting edge technology related to efficient 2D and perspective vector maps, as well as 3D visualizations of satellite maps, a feature Apple calls Flyover. In these areas, Apple is well ahead of the mobile apps from Google and Nokia, the existing market leaders.
Apple's mobile iOS 6 Maps is even well ahead of Google and Nokia in the arena for 3D mapping visualizations using a full powered desktop.
Google Maps 3D still a work in progress, even on full power desktops
On top, Apple will be bringing its own desktop class Maps app to OS X Mavericks, providing larger map views without the performance constraints imposed by mobile devices.
Apple's Maps also handle offline use much more efficiently. If you do any traveling where you work outside of the network service area, being able to efficiently work offline is a major feature.
For example, after going off the mobile grid on the way to the airport in Hamburg, Germany, Google Maps for iOS gave me nothing but pixelated mess of jagged lines well before I got there, while Apple Maps properly cached enough vectors show where I was, navigate the highways and read the street labels of the major roads.
Google Maps fail rapidly, while Apple Maps continue to work for miles offline
At the same time, Apple's iOS 6 Maps doesn't provide its own transit information, relying instead on third party partner apps to deliver this. And in many reviews, Apple's new Maps have been criticized over misplaced map labels and inferior search results.
To see how well (or poorly) Apple's map labeling and location search stands up to competitors (and companion iOS 6 alternatives in the App Store, including Google Maps for iOS and Nokia Here), we conducted a series of tests to see how well each performs at finding and locating points of interest and (as will be detailed separately in a future segment) in providing driving directions and traffic information. You can skip the historical context of iOS 6 Maps below and jump to our comparison of iOS map apps on page two.
Last fall's release of iOS 6 Maps wasn't Apple's first move into the business of maps and location-oriented technology. The company began laying the groundwork for location awareness and finding and labeling locations at least five years earlier. Within six months of launching the original iPhone, Apple added the beginnings of a location system to its Maps app, originally based on WiFi base station data compiled by Skyhook Wireless (because the original iPhone lacked hardware support for "real" GPS in the form of the satellite-based Global Positioning System).
In iOS 2, alongside the release of the App Store, Apple began recognizing the potential for misuse of location data and the need for protecting users' security from intentional or inadvertent mishandling by third party apps. It gave users the ability to turn location data off before it even launched the App Store, and forced app developers to ask the user for permission before accessing the device's location for any reason.
In iOS 3.0, Apple added remote location capabilities for MobileMe's new "Find my iPhone" feature, similarly protected via a user-secured account. It also introduced Core Location, a framework that enabled third party apps to develop turn by turn navigation apps.
In parallel, Apple also launched a new version of iPhoto in early 2009 that added geolocation awareness to photos on the desktop, a feature it named Places. Beyond just reading the geotag metadata of a photo and plotting it on a map, iPhoto also performed reverse lookup of place names from the latitude and longitude data, as Apple's Phil Schiller demonstrated at Macworld Expo. While Apple continued to use Google's map data, it was beginning to develop its own location database for Places.
At the same time, Apple also began acquiring location based mapping companies, including Placebase in July 2009. That startup's employees had been working on maps product before Google brought its own Maps to the web for free; Placebase then changed direction to offer a more customizable product to layer "private and public data sets" together. Former Placebase employees subsequently joined the "Geo Team" at Apple to work on a series of location-based initiatives in iOS and OS X, and in apps like iPhoto.
Apple continued hiring staff to work on maps, with one job posting in late 2009 noting, "we want to take Maps to the next level, rethink how users use Maps and change the way people find things. We want to do this in a seamless, highly interactive and enjoyable way. We've only just started."
By 2010, most of Apple's iPhone installed base now had GPS, but Apple's other products, including the iPod touch, all WiFi-only iPads and Macs, still relied on WiFi location. That spring, Apple began providing its own location information in place of data from either Skyhook or Google. It also began supporting iPhoto Places on iOS 3.2 for iPad.
And that summer, Apple released iOS 4 with additional security features related to location services, which it also enhanced to "define geographic regions and monitor when the user crosses the boundaries of those regions," a technology referred to as geofencing.
Apple also enhanced its Map Kit framework in iOS 4, adding support for map overlays to "provide a way to create more complex types of annotations. Instead of being pinned to a single point, an overlay can represent a path or shape that spans a wider region." Apple told developers, "you can use overlays to layer information such as bus routes, election maps, park boundaries, and weather maps on top of the map."
The company also acquired Poly9, a Canadian company that produced mapping products used by companies including Skype, which was later purchased by Microsoft. And through the end of 2010, Apple continued to hire new engineers related to mapping services, asking for candidates with "deep knowledge of Computational Geometry or Graph Theory" and posting listings related to "distributed image processing on a server cluster."
In 2011, the company announced in April that it was "collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database." The collected data sparked a controversy after users discovered caches of large amounts of data that were being unnecessarily backed up to iTunes, issues that Apple addressed with an iOS update in May.
Apple subsequently introduced iOS 5, which added new support for geofencing in location-based Reminders, a feature that later made its way to the Mac. This feature was an application of the Location Services and Map Kit enhancements Apple had first introduced in iOS 4.
When iOS 6 arrived, it should not have been huge surprise that Apple was now serving its own maps within the app, rather than Google's. At the same time, however, a variety of features that users commonly associated with Google Maps were actually Apple's own work.
This included the original iOS Maps user interface (which Apple patented) and the Map Kit frameworks developers use to interact with it and to locate places and draw points of interest, bus routes, arbitrary regions and other annotations on a map. Developers were fully aware of this, but many users did not seem to be.
However, after years of internal work, the new iOS 6 Maps was released last fall without full and official recognition by Apple that some elements of the new product were brand new and still being completed, particularly its Flyover 3D satellite renderings, which were only finished in a variety of U.S. cities.
Critics, unaware of Apple's years of work invested in Maps (many of whom apparently thought that that iOS 5 Maps was entirely a Google product) virtually ignored all of the new product's innovations to focus on four things: Flyover glitches in areas that hadn't been fixed (such as the Brooklyn Bridge), the lack of Google's Street View, the lack of integrated transit data, and a variety of improperly located or otherwise incorrect points of interest.
Maps, a primary strategic product for Apple in iOS 6, rapidly became one of the most ridiculed and dismissed products in recent history. Pundits' contempt for the new Maps grew so loud and scathing that Apple's chief executive Tim Cook issued an apology for any inconvenience to users and recommended a variety of alternative mapping tools in the App Store and on the web for iOS 6 users.
It has since been widely reported that Scott Forstall, then acting as the head of iOS development, refused to make the public apology himself. That was said to be the last straw in what has been characterized to be a series of contentious management issues, and resulted in Forstall being stripped of his responsibilities. Management of the Maps team has now been delegated to Eddy Cue, who runs the rest of Apple's online services including iCloud, iTunes and the App Store, and the Siri service integrated into Maps.
Source: Apple
Introducing iOS 6.0 Maps
Using Maps Offline
2: Maps and visualizations
3: Transit directions
4: Map labels & local search
5: Routing & traffic
As previous segments in this series have detailed, Apple's new iOS 6 Maps introduced cutting edge technology related to efficient 2D and perspective vector maps, as well as 3D visualizations of satellite maps, a feature Apple calls Flyover. In these areas, Apple is well ahead of the mobile apps from Google and Nokia, the existing market leaders.
Apple's mobile iOS 6 Maps is even well ahead of Google and Nokia in the arena for 3D mapping visualizations using a full powered desktop.
Google Maps 3D still a work in progress, even on full power desktops
On top, Apple will be bringing its own desktop class Maps app to OS X Mavericks, providing larger map views without the performance constraints imposed by mobile devices.
Apple's Maps also handle offline use much more efficiently. If you do any traveling where you work outside of the network service area, being able to efficiently work offline is a major feature.
For example, after going off the mobile grid on the way to the airport in Hamburg, Germany, Google Maps for iOS gave me nothing but pixelated mess of jagged lines well before I got there, while Apple Maps properly cached enough vectors show where I was, navigate the highways and read the street labels of the major roads.
Google Maps fail rapidly, while Apple Maps continue to work for miles offline
At the same time, Apple's iOS 6 Maps doesn't provide its own transit information, relying instead on third party partner apps to deliver this. And in many reviews, Apple's new Maps have been criticized over misplaced map labels and inferior search results.
To see how well (or poorly) Apple's map labeling and location search stands up to competitors (and companion iOS 6 alternatives in the App Store, including Google Maps for iOS and Nokia Here), we conducted a series of tests to see how well each performs at finding and locating points of interest and (as will be detailed separately in a future segment) in providing driving directions and traffic information. You can skip the historical context of iOS 6 Maps below and jump to our comparison of iOS map apps on page two.
iOS 6 Maps was not Apple's first location project
Last fall's release of iOS 6 Maps wasn't Apple's first move into the business of maps and location-oriented technology. The company began laying the groundwork for location awareness and finding and labeling locations at least five years earlier. Within six months of launching the original iPhone, Apple added the beginnings of a location system to its Maps app, originally based on WiFi base station data compiled by Skyhook Wireless (because the original iPhone lacked hardware support for "real" GPS in the form of the satellite-based Global Positioning System).
In iOS 2, alongside the release of the App Store, Apple began recognizing the potential for misuse of location data and the need for protecting users' security from intentional or inadvertent mishandling by third party apps. It gave users the ability to turn location data off before it even launched the App Store, and forced app developers to ask the user for permission before accessing the device's location for any reason.
In iOS 3.0, Apple added remote location capabilities for MobileMe's new "Find my iPhone" feature, similarly protected via a user-secured account. It also introduced Core Location, a framework that enabled third party apps to develop turn by turn navigation apps.
In parallel, Apple also launched a new version of iPhoto in early 2009 that added geolocation awareness to photos on the desktop, a feature it named Places. Beyond just reading the geotag metadata of a photo and plotting it on a map, iPhoto also performed reverse lookup of place names from the latitude and longitude data, as Apple's Phil Schiller demonstrated at Macworld Expo. While Apple continued to use Google's map data, it was beginning to develop its own location database for Places.
At the same time, Apple also began acquiring location based mapping companies, including Placebase in July 2009. That startup's employees had been working on maps product before Google brought its own Maps to the web for free; Placebase then changed direction to offer a more customizable product to layer "private and public data sets" together. Former Placebase employees subsequently joined the "Geo Team" at Apple to work on a series of location-based initiatives in iOS and OS X, and in apps like iPhoto.
Apple continued hiring staff to work on maps, with one job posting in late 2009 noting, "we want to take Maps to the next level, rethink how users use Maps and change the way people find things. We want to do this in a seamless, highly interactive and enjoyable way. We've only just started."
By 2010, most of Apple's iPhone installed base now had GPS, but Apple's other products, including the iPod touch, all WiFi-only iPads and Macs, still relied on WiFi location. That spring, Apple began providing its own location information in place of data from either Skyhook or Google. It also began supporting iPhoto Places on iOS 3.2 for iPad.
And that summer, Apple released iOS 4 with additional security features related to location services, which it also enhanced to "define geographic regions and monitor when the user crosses the boundaries of those regions," a technology referred to as geofencing.
Apple also enhanced its Map Kit framework in iOS 4, adding support for map overlays to "provide a way to create more complex types of annotations. Instead of being pinned to a single point, an overlay can represent a path or shape that spans a wider region." Apple told developers, "you can use overlays to layer information such as bus routes, election maps, park boundaries, and weather maps on top of the map."
The company also acquired Poly9, a Canadian company that produced mapping products used by companies including Skype, which was later purchased by Microsoft. And through the end of 2010, Apple continued to hire new engineers related to mapping services, asking for candidates with "deep knowledge of Computational Geometry or Graph Theory" and posting listings related to "distributed image processing on a server cluster."
In 2011, the company announced in April that it was "collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database." The collected data sparked a controversy after users discovered caches of large amounts of data that were being unnecessarily backed up to iTunes, issues that Apple addressed with an iOS update in May.
Apple subsequently introduced iOS 5, which added new support for geofencing in location-based Reminders, a feature that later made its way to the Mac. This feature was an application of the Location Services and Map Kit enhancements Apple had first introduced in iOS 4.
Maps-gate, right out of the gate
When iOS 6 arrived, it should not have been huge surprise that Apple was now serving its own maps within the app, rather than Google's. At the same time, however, a variety of features that users commonly associated with Google Maps were actually Apple's own work.
This included the original iOS Maps user interface (which Apple patented) and the Map Kit frameworks developers use to interact with it and to locate places and draw points of interest, bus routes, arbitrary regions and other annotations on a map. Developers were fully aware of this, but many users did not seem to be.
However, after years of internal work, the new iOS 6 Maps was released last fall without full and official recognition by Apple that some elements of the new product were brand new and still being completed, particularly its Flyover 3D satellite renderings, which were only finished in a variety of U.S. cities.
Critics, unaware of Apple's years of work invested in Maps (many of whom apparently thought that that iOS 5 Maps was entirely a Google product) virtually ignored all of the new product's innovations to focus on four things: Flyover glitches in areas that hadn't been fixed (such as the Brooklyn Bridge), the lack of Google's Street View, the lack of integrated transit data, and a variety of improperly located or otherwise incorrect points of interest.
Maps, a primary strategic product for Apple in iOS 6, rapidly became one of the most ridiculed and dismissed products in recent history. Pundits' contempt for the new Maps grew so loud and scathing that Apple's chief executive Tim Cook issued an apology for any inconvenience to users and recommended a variety of alternative mapping tools in the App Store and on the web for iOS 6 users.
It has since been widely reported that Scott Forstall, then acting as the head of iOS development, refused to make the public apology himself. That was said to be the last straw in what has been characterized to be a series of contentious management issues, and resulted in Forstall being stripped of his responsibilities. Management of the Maps team has now been delegated to Eddy Cue, who runs the rest of Apple's online services including iCloud, iTunes and the App Store, and the Siri service integrated into Maps.
