I'm worried!
I really like google maps, and have invested a lot of time adding content in 2D and 3D to it. That was great as our desktop map data matched our mobile map data. I am very interested in 3D and have created my own content in Google maps 3D using sketchup.
Apple's 3D mode (enabled through their purchase of C3 technologies) looks good at first but there are issues, it appears to use 3D mode for satellite view as well, but since most of the world has not been mapped you may end up with a blurry mess when looking at locations that have not been mapped in detail. The 3D mode is good except it is just basically a very detailed texture map draped on top of a very detailed elevation map. This means that there can be no holes in 3D objects.
A well crafted 3D model can look much better than an auto generated 3D model.
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| A 3D model I made using Google Sketchup |
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| An auto generated 3D model created by C3 for Nokia |
I am very concerned about the 2D map tile quality that Apple is using. To be honest, compared to open street map, and Google, Apple's 2D tiles are not at all good. This is especially true if you live in the UK. The zoom level is also lacking in detail and very poor.
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| Apple's (map tiles) |
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| Open Street Map (map tiles) |
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| Google (map tiles) |
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| Open Street Map (zoomed) - Notice building outlines |
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| Google Maps (zoomed) - Notice building outlines |
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| Nokia's Satellite view for Exeter using C3's 3D mode |
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| Google's Satellite view for Exeter |
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| Google's Exeter University 3D building view |
Now if Apple combined map vector info from open street map with their own tiles, and offered a crowd sourced geo reference building tool to add information I could be persuaded to come on board, but I will also miss street view built into the maps app.
I understand that Apple (and many users, including myself) were not best pleased with Google holding back their best tech to only work on Android. I've been annoyed that Google did not implement 3D building support in Google Earth on iOS, as this would be a piece of cake for them to do.
I'm not entirely happy about Apple dropping Google for maps, but I can see why they had to with Google's apparent attitude towards iOS. This move may teach google a lesson, but It may be the users that pay the price!
http://www.refnum.com/tmp/apple.html tiles comparison between Apple, OSM, and Google map tiles.
http://maps.nokia.com/50.7198485,-3.5317789,17.61,301.84,50.27,3d.day Nokia 3D maps using C3 tech, should be similar to Apple's, is my area covered?
http://maps.exeter.ac.uk/ This will display all of Exeter University's points of interest on a Google Map in 3D, with 3D buildings which are quite detailed. Normally we don't display all the points of interest like this, but check out the 3D terrain satellite quality compared to Nokia's 3D satellite view, it is far superior. Trouble is now our mapping tech won't be the same across all platforms! We have made 120 quite highly detailed 3D models for our University.
Having said all this, I have not used iOS 6 on a 3rd gen iPad to test this out yet, maps may be better when iOS6 is actually released, and their 3D mode may be better than Nokia's C3 developed 3D mode... But I'm still a little worried about maps quality on iOS.
