Why Google Maps is years ahead of the competition

Justin O’Beirne, former head of cartography at Apple, explains why Google Maps has a multiple year advantage on the competition.

Basically, it’s about the structures/building footprints Google can display thanks to their satellite imagery and Street View efforts. Nobody else has this level of precision.

Bye Apple Maps!

1 1+ +Childhood+Neighborhood

Here’s another example:

[Source: Google Maps’s Moat]

A Watch OS idea

Consider this.

Jane has an Apple Watch, she travels often and has a weather complication on her Watch Face. Jane took a plane from New-York to London. She just landed in London. 

Her watch changes the time automatically.

However, Jane has to go to her Apple Watch app on her iPhone and change the weather manually. 

This is cumbersome. 

Apple Watch should have a setting which would allow automatic detection and change of the weather complication based on the user’s current location.

(Not the biggest experience problem of the Apple Watch? It’s all about the details, man.)

iWatch May Use Optical Sensors to Measure Heart Rate and Oxygen Levels

iWatch May Use Optical Sensors to Measure Heart Rate and Oxygen Levels

I look at myself as an artist if anything,” Mr. Jobs said. “Sort of a trapeze artist.

In 1983, Steven Levy interviewed Steve Jobs for hours about his recent breakup and the birth of the Mac.

At some point, Levy asked Jobs what he saw himself as. To which Jobs replied “Sort of a trapeze artist”.

It’s funny that no one noticed this is the exact one liner Bob Dylan used while interviewed in Austin in 1966:

Reporter: What do you consider yourself? How would you classify yourself?

Bob Dylan: Well, I like to think of myself in terms of a trapeze artist.

Now, now, Steve, everyone is going to call you a thief again. 

Apple Interested in Liquidmetal Alloys for Home Buttons, Touch Sensors, and Tamper-Resistant Screws

Apple Interested in Liquidmetal Alloys for Home Buttons, Touch Sensors, and Tamper-Resistant Screws

Apple investigating built-in solar power converters for iPhone, MacBook

Apple investigating built-in solar power converters for iPhone, MacBook

Good iOS app design is obsessed with touch. Bad iOS app design takes touch for granted.

Jared Sinclair explains why he doesn’t like iOS7.

Don’t get me wrong, I think iOS7 is more modern and has better functionality. But aesthetically, I think they made a mistake by reducing the touchness factor of the OS.