[zabuni]

If you compare the article, the main takeaway is that Apple seems to be starting to use some of the improvements that Google has been adding to their map program the last several years.

-Satellite imagery to generate build footprints. -Lots of human intervention -Land based car imagery

[notatoad]

Which is both a good and a bad sign. It's good that apple is doing these things, but not encouraging that a year after a blog post highlights some of the more interesting things google is doing, apple starts doing them. Apple maps isn't catching up, they're just barely keeping up with Google maps. And their PR people are doing a big push to brag about it.

[toasterlovin]

TFA clearly states that these changes have been 4 years in the making. You can’t roll stuff like this out a year after reading some article on Hacker News.

[rickycook]

i dunno; their “street view” vans are purportedly far more advanced than the google cars, and their privacy features seem pretty damn excellent.

the article mentions being able to create a 3d, textured world and do some pretty interesting localisation (street signs that look like local signs, fonts that match local fonts etc) that shortens the gap between the real world and the map.

id say that from a UX perspective (even if their core data isn’t quite as good, which we really can’t comment on yet) they’re doing a lot of interesting things that google isn’t doing.

that’s not even to mention that they’re doing it all while respecting their users’ privacy... something that google will likely never do any more than obligatory hand waving toward.

it think they’re doing quite a lot better than google maps, but it’s just not data related.