WebProNews

Tag: Mobile Navigation

  • Apple Was Warned About Maps App Issues

    Soon after iPhone users got their hands on the iOS 6 update, it became clear that the new Apple Maps app sucks. Users quickly took to the internet to vent their frustrations and laugh at the incorrectly placed landmarks, distorted satellite imagery, and poor search quality.

    The issue even played a part in lowering customer satisfaction toward iOS 6 compared to iOS 5. The outcry eventually humbled Apple, and CEO Tim Cook apologized for the software, urging customers to use alternative map applications which it then promoted in the App Store.

    Now it appears that Apple’s hubris in believing it could easily replace Google Maps (a product that has over 7,000 employees working on it) with its own software was even greater than was readily apparent.

    This week CNET reported that developers have been complaining about the new Maps app since the pre-release version of iOS 6 was released back in June. The report quotes a “half-dozen” unnamed developers as saying they filed bug reports, sent e-mails, and posted to message boards with “doomsayer” rants, but went ignored by Apple. Some of the developers stated that the broken nature of the Maps app broke features within their own apps that relied on an accurate map imagery.

    One of the unnamed developers told CNET that an Apple employee did reply to his or her complaints, saying that the maps issue was “well understood,” so it isn’t as if Apple simply didn’t hear developers’ warnings. Perhaps in the future Apple will listen more closely to those people who are on the font lines of Apple software development.

  • TomTom Releases $50 Android Navigation App That Only Works on Low-Resolution Devices

    This week TomTom, the makers of stand-alone navigation devices for vehicles, announced that it has released a Navigation app for the Android platform – with a couple of catches.

    The TomTom app has been available for a while on the iOS platform for $50, which seems steep, but is understandable on a platform that, until recently, lacked a built-in navigation feature. The Android version of TomTom is also $50. On a platform that often comes with Google’s excellent navigation app pre-installed. While the TomTom app does offer offline navigation, on devices with a data connection a situation where data would not be available and navigation would be important seems (intuitively at least) rare.

    The new Android app also only works on Android devices with resolutions of 800 x 480 or 854 x 480. This excludes many newer Android smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X, and Galaxy Nexus. The company stated that it is “committed to supporting higher resolutions on an ongoing basis,” but did not say when newer devices would get the app.

    “TomTom has a history of making great navigation applications,” said Corinne Vigreux, managing director for TomTom’s Consumer division. “Our existing iPhone app gets fantastic customer feedback and regularly wins awards. Today, we are bringing this world-class navigation experience to millions of Android smartphone users for the first time.”

    For the record, TomTom’s current iPhone app has a 2.5-star rating, with user reviews complaining heavily about the app’s new forced Facebook integration.