The head of the project got canned later, but not before Scott Forstall got canned for refusing to apologise about Maps.
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The most revealing thing about maps of the past 1, 000 years, however, is the record of what the world's best informed people did not know.
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Question about Maps and new products.
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One of my complaints about Apple maps is that the text showing your time and distance to destination is much too small.
How about wall maps, 3-D relief maps, world maps, classroom maps, topographical maps, satellite maps, special projections, even maps of the ocean floor?
Live Nation, for example, talked about including maps of stadium layouts in the printing of tickets, while Yahoo suggested a daily personalized news service.
Today is about Google Maps, though.
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"It has been a wonderful success for us, " says Daniel Graf about Google Maps for iOS. Originally from Switzerland, Graf worked for Leica and Philips, and went on to co-found video service Kyte before landing at Google in 2011.
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There were apparently lots of developer feedback about problems with Maps that were ignored.
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All the decisions, both about drawing the maps and deciding how money is spent, continue to be taken there.
Sean Pan, 41, who was waiting in line in San Francisco, said he was concerned about the new maps, particularly because he was visiting the city from Chicago on business.
But the difference is that Apple Maps has only been in existence about a month, while Google Maps has been around for a decade (and even still it has lots of errors and missing data).
So owning maps is about more than directions and easy access to Facebook is about more than status updates.
At that size, about 15 of the maps could be wrapped end to end long-ways around a strand of human hair, by our math.
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Unfortunately, I've grown increasingly hesitant about relying on BB Maps as my sole navigation option for my trip to Spain, so I've been playing with two other options: an older APK of Google Maps sideloaded from my computer -- it's sluggish, but usable -- and Nokia Here on the BB10 browser.
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Mr McClendon stresses they will still be able to access Google Maps via their devices' web browsers, although he would not be drawn about the idea of offering a rival Maps app.
Last year the University of Central Lancashire in Preston introduced an application for freshers, with maps, information about services and local transport.
His comments came a few days after Apple was flooded with complaints about its switch from Google Maps to its own location-mapping software.
In reporting earlier this year about how Google builds its maps, I stumbled upon a massive operation requiring vast amounts of human labor.
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So, after a short ride downtown on the Q train and wandering about with the help of maps on my iPhone, I finally spotted the art off in the distance.
Once it gets the answers from friends, Uptake adds that information to its pages for each destination, which include maps, information about the places and reviews from TripAdvisor and other sites.
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More recent projects include a mobile guide to the street murals in Philadelphia, using tagged maps and information about the artwork, and online educational software so teachers can post questions and assignments, and students can help in teaching each other material.
You can add events to your personal schedule and set an alert to remind you, and get details about facilities using interactive, searchable maps.
Another tweak involves auto-generating maps to accompany posts about specific locations.
Much has been written about the forthcoming 3-D maps that could leave Google Maps in the dust and score points for Apple in the simmering rivalry.
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The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges once wrote a story about an empire so obsessed with maps that its cartographers constructed a map as large as the empire itself.
The second is that accurate global DNA maps exist only for about 20 species of tree, and the tests are no use unless you know what you are looking for.
Last week, SAP and Google made an announcement about a partnership based on Google Maps that is reflective of a refreshing new openness at SAP to doing things that were essentially unthinkable under past management regimes.
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Lauretta Burke who heads the project for the World Resources Institute is enthusiastic about the way in which interactive maps have enabled her team to gain more information and show it in an informative and engaging way.
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