Neil Hughes
On the "Features" section of Apple's website promoting the new iPad, the company has a side-by-side comparison simulating the iPad 2 display as compared to the Retina display on the new iPad. The site showcases three iOS applications: iBooks, Photos and Mail.
Viewing the file names of the "Retina Gallery" images shows that they are identified with numbers. AppleInsider reader Pierre-Arnaud pointed out on Tuesday that the iBooks images are labeled as "1" and screenshots of "Photos" are "2," but the images of the Mail application are saved with the "retina_gallery_4" filename.
That means the JPG files labeled "3" were originally planned as part of the imagery, but were eventually left out of the promotional material on the finalized website.
However, the filename for "retina_gallery_3" can be manually entered into a Web browser to access the images that Apple uploaded to its website. These show that the files labeled "3" were actually screenshots of the Maps application running on iOS.
The uploaded-but-unpublished screenshot shows directions from the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, to the Eiffel Tower via Google Maps for iPad.
The specific exclusion of Maps from the promotional material is noteworthy because Apple's map software for iOS still relies on mapping data from Google. There have been numerous indications that Apple plans to transition away from Google Maps in iOS in favor of its own mapping solutions.
Most recently, Apple chose not to use Google Maps for mapping data in the new iOS version of iPhoto. Instead, Apple has implemented data from the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
Apple has also acquired a number of mapping companies in recent years, including Poly9 in 2010 and Placebase in 2009. The company also revealed in 2010 that Apple had begun using its own databases for location-based services, although it continues to rely on Google for maps and the Street View feature.
Apple even publicly revealed last year that it is working on an "improved traffic service" for the iPhone, based on location-based data it has been collecting. The "crowd-sourced traffic database" has been tested by Apple with anonymous traffic data it has collected from iPhone users.
Further potential justification for Apple to transition away from Google Maps came last year, when Google announced also announced it will begin to charge partners who heavily use its Maps application programming interface. The search giant will charge $4 per 1,000 views for partners who serve up more than 25,000 uses per day of the Google Maps API.
Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
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Andrew O'Hara
30 Comments
Just another battle in SJ/Apple's thermonuclear war on google/android.
I can hardly wait to see them get annihalated.
I hope Apple don't rely on OpenStreetMap! It's not very acurate (I search for my house using my postcode (zip code) and it wasn't correct. I also searched a business and nothing came up and most of all it's ugly.
Has anyone ever developed a vector-based map where all the map data is saved on your phone so you don't need a mobile phone signal to load it? And the digital compass and GPS also works perfectly without slow data connections, why hasn't this been done? iPhone's and iPads surely have enough GB's to store the maps, even if they just allowed you to store by state or country?
Has anyone ever developed a vector-based map where all the map data is saved on your phone so you don't need a mobile phone signal to load it? And the digital compass and GPS also works perfectly without slow data connections, why hasn't this been done? iPhone's and iPads surely have enough GB's to store the maps, even if they just allowed you to store by state or country?
You mean, a GPS app like Navigon? There are plenty, you just have to pay for them.
It's no surprise, given the recent 'activities' of Google... If it's up to my call, I will also sideline Google Map from any presentation, marketing, etc materials of the new iPad.
Give me a better search engine than Google and I will gladly move away...
No, I wasn't referring to turn-by-turn TomTom-like navigation apps. Just maps like Google Maps that allow searching of businesses and addresses and clear directions with accurate GPS. The onlky issue with it I find is the sometimes slow loading of maps, if the map detail was already stored on the phone, it would be perfect.