Apple scrambled to hire iOS 6 maps engineers DAYS before launch
Apple posted job adverts for six iOS map engineers within the past ten days, perhaps preempting the storm of criticism over the controversial new map app in iOS 6. Any effort to boost the software's team could be seen as too little, too late after fanbois and fangrrls across the world branded the new satnav-like service as …
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Lies....
So if it's OK for Apple to lie on their adverts is it ok for me to lie on my job application?
Re: Lies....
Not if you are applying for a job at Apple as a Map Engineer.
@Richard Ball: Re: Lies....
"If you're the boss, yes it is."
I upvoted your post, not because I like it, but because it's true.
Re: Lies....
I think the advert was done by the cleaning person, the original boss got lost trying to read a map on the way to the office.
Re: Lies....
...they found out that the touted "best mobile map app" is a pile of lies...hence the job postings =)
So glad my iPod Touch is obsolete
Stuck on iOS 4.2.1 and glad they cant fuck things up by installing 6.
Re: So glad my iPod Touch is obsolete
It's not a good trend for Apple when their older hardware is widely considered to be better. iPhone 5 was REALLY underwhelming. Look at pictures that show it side by side with Galaxy S3. Apple has done quite a few underwhelming products in the past, or products that lacked features. However, they've never released something that was so half-baked and a giant step backward as iOS 6 Maps.
I think this may be the turning point in their meteoric rise and it's going to be downhill from here. I certainly don't want Apple to disappear, but it would be splendid if they get taken down a peg or two.
Re: So glad my iPod Touch is obsolete
Apple do this thing where they change the connectors/ports thus making aftermarket devices obsolete. Anyone remember nu bus?
I almost bought a 3GS so I could use it as a phone and a sound recorder using various third party addons that used the analogue stereo line in that was provided in the dock connector. iPhone 4/4s? removed the analogue stereo requiring various bodged ways of getting audio in from good quality mikes. Google Hindenberg Field Recorder and iRigMic for the current bodge.
Re: So glad my iPod Touch is obsolete
"Look at pictures that show it side by side with Galaxy S3".
I can do better than that, as I have both. The iPhone is 'better' for me in almost every way. Are we looking at the same products?
iPhone Maps is dire though. No doubt Google will be along soon enough.
Hindenberg field recorder
Is that is that related to the huge bag of gas that went down in flames?
Re: So glad my iPod Touch is obsolete
"Apple do this thing where they change the connectors/ports thus making aftermarket devices obsolete. Anyone remember nu bus?"
Indeed, I had a NuBus-equipped Mac way back in the day. I'm sure glad that other companies don't make their connectors and devices obsolete, and that computers today still use the same VESA LocalBus standard the PC I had at the same time used...oh, wait. :)
on going for your job interview, just don’t rely on apples mapping service!!!
Why are you late? Because you haven't employed me yet.
*points to iPhone running iOS 6*
Re "on going for your job interview.............."
It is certainly very tempting to amuse oneself and I for one am having a quiet chuckle. However, I have to confess that because online maps/navigation really matter to an awful lot of punters (unlike Siri whose limitations do not matter (currently) in the greater scheme of things) I am absolutely astonished that Apple let this product out of the door in this condition. I am convinced that Jobs would never have permitted such a high profile and important part of the software services on any smartphone to be released in this condition. Cupertino really have taken their eye off the ball with this one. A certain Finnish phone producer with a very widely admired maps/navigation package must be laughing their gonads off about now!
Re:"A certain Finnish phone producer .........." .......has in fact been even quicker off the.......
................ mark with this one than I was anticipating. They must have worked nightshift in Espoo this time.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/21/nokia-stacks-up-its-maps-next-to-apple-and-google/
The wage negotiation will be easy.
I want 200K a year.
Ok then.
Megabucks.
I see Microsoft is still going despite Win ME and Vista. What does it take to bring down a mega corporation?
Re: Megabucks.
Not enough donations to a major candidate. That is what keeps the Justice Dept from looking at your business model.
Re: Megabucks.
Try and offer an alternative or choice?
This is something Fandroids don't seem to get. They would rather Apple, Microsoft/Nokia, RIM and anyone else doing a smartphone would just die and the only choice to be Android.
Except that Android would stagnate just like Microsoft did until Apple really started to challenge them in the consumer market.
Re: Megabucks.
Seriously? You're saying that 'Fandroids' are the ones that want this? I think you mean 'iFans'. You know, the ones who are in love with the company that's hell-bent on blocking the import of everyone else's phones?
Re: Megabucks.
Re: Try and offer an alternative or choice?
Toadwarrior your posts are so obvious, why do you even bother posting anonymously?
Re: Megabucks.
What are you even talking about? Only 11 year olds jumping up and down in their chairs high on sugar actually think removing all competition is a good idea.
I use an Android device, but I think it's healthy to have many choices.
People don't have a problem that Apple exists, people have a problem that Apple acts like a huge bully, stealing ideas when it suits it, suing everyone when they think anyone has done the same.
They also have this impenetrable air of smugness surrounding them and everything they do, but that's a possibly subjective viewpoint.
So how are software engineers going to help
When the problem is with the data? MS Leach is letting her prejudices run away with her as usual.
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
Tell that to the millions of users who don't give a rat's butt where the problem is but care quite a bit that there is a big problem. Most will just install google maps anyway after a few days of pain.
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
NM wow ios 6 doesn't allow you to install google maps. That will change in the next few weeks. Until then smart people won't upgrade or if they do will use the google maps through Safari.
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
Steve, you are quite the Apple apologist. Like others have said, there is no excuse for releasing an app this bad. It was billed as something ready for primetime, and it simply isn't. Whether or not it's the data that is to blame doesn't matter: either way, Apple has clearly neglected to do proper quality control and testing.
Keep drinking the KoolAid.
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
In my day job I deal a lot with data management, import, conversion and merging. And I'm a software architect. I imagine Apple's problems include multiple data sources with incompatible coordinate systems, multiple formats, and identifying obsolete data. I also suspect there's an army of drones in China or India entering stuff manually, and systems will be needed to improve that process - speed, accuracy, reliability, cross checking.
I''m just completing a simple little job to merge and cross-compare a few tables in two databases, using multiple lookups to identify common keys. It's taken a good month of work and the application to allow user interaction is just about ready for evaluation. I imagine merging mapping data must be hundreds of times more difficult. So yes, the scale of the engineering team looks about right. But don't expect quick results.
I also suspect that if Jobs was still around they wouldn't have been trying to get the turkey to fly by firing it from a cannon. Perhaps that's where he'll be most missed.
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
Agree about drones. But don't get why drones were needed.
If you have a few years to spare, a big pile of cash, all the software engineers you can eat, and some big data sets, why not - I don't know - use exciting modern computer technology to do the translation for you?
The idea that Apple paid for manual data entry to convert one electronic data set into another is WTF on a stick.
And the fact that apparently no one noticed there were showstopper issues until a few weeks before launch makes my head explode.
Maybe it was manudjmentitis -'Let's do the fuck-off stupid thing because it'll be cheaper, amIright?'
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
This would be the data that Apple are using from Open Street Map? The data that it looks like they haven't credited and you can bet your life that they are not submitting any changes/updates to that data back to the project..
Re: So how are software engineers going to help
"trying to get the turkey to fly by firing it from a cannon"
I would pay good money to see Jobs fired out of a canon.
Oh Dear!
I think it is back to Apple not talking to you again! :)
google value add
I guess Apple is learning the hard way why Googles projects sit in beta status for years. If there is one thing Google rules at and will always do better than Apple its data aggregation. Apple maps may someday be as good as but I highly doubt they will ever be better than Google's absolutely massive geolocation program. Google considers this critical to their business model and have had vans driving around snooping and taking pictures world wide for years.
Re: google value add
Google's stuff stays in beta all the time so they can avoid any warranty issues. If you aren't claiming to release a finished product it is a defence against people suing etc.
If Google are so wonderful why is their money stream still largely advertising? 96% in 2011.
They seem to be to be producing adware, products funded by advertising.
Re: google value add
"Google's stuff stays in beta all the time so they can avoid any warranty issues."
Google give (most of) their stuff away for free and you basically sign away any warranty on your free service when you register. Keeping something in beta for a long time is not an issue so long as those using it know it and have a choice.
"If Google are so wonderful why is their money stream still largely advertising? 96% in 2011."
What does wonderful have to do with anything? They're a business, a particularly successful one. All of their tech products are built to support their advertising business - I don't see why this is an issue, we get free e-mail etc. Google get ad revenue. If you don't like that, use Hotmail etc.
"They seem to be to be producing adware, products funded by advertising."
Really it's the other way around, Google create the products to get people online and show them adverts - that is what Google Search was/is, an ad platform with a reason to visit it - it's good at what it does.
Re: google value add
If television series are so wonderful, why is their money stream largely funded through advertising?...
- Surely if TV programs were better they wouldn't need to be funded through advertising? Doesn't that mean all ad funded television is rubbish?
"If you aren't claiming to release a finished product it is a defence against people suing etc."
- And yet here we are, talking about how bad a non-beta product is. What a crazy world.
Re: google value add
Not if it is a free service and you are warned that you are using it without warranty. Look at what it says on most free software licences: "supplied absolutely without warranty". Yet some of those projects, like Tomcat, are absolutely rock solid business critical reliable.
Re: google value add
>> Google's stuff stays in beta all the time so they can avoid any warranty issues.
Oh deary me, have you ever actually READ a software EULA? Most of that legalese is the vendor saying in overtly complex terms that their 'warranty' covers sweet fuck all and you as a user can't blame if anything goes wrong.
All software vendors try to avoid warranty issues. At least Google are kind enough not to charge us for the software and services and as always, you have a choice. You don't have to use Google.
Too little too late!
- The Register notes that Apple has hired 15 peeps into the maps team this year, starting on 5 July with a call for a "maps engineering project manager, iOS SW".
- Since 11 September Apple has posted six job vacancies for iOS software engineers in the maps division.
Looks like they sacked almost half the team when they saw the sh*t they'd produced!
Pity they didn't postpone the launch or issue the maps change as an update in 6 months time.
Re: Too little too late!
Perhaps they don't understand that even if you hire 9 women you can't make a baby in one month. Worse yet, adding so many people that late in the game usually just means the project will slip further behind even faster while everyone is busy trying to get on the same page. Had they been honest with themselves that update in 6 months might have been a wonderful publicity event, now it will look like a sheepish apology regardless of how they try to spin it.
Re: Too little too late! (@ Eddy Ito)
" even if you hire 9 women you can't make a baby in one month"
Probably, but even just trying would be fun.
Tim Cook fail
As so the slow decline into mediocrity begins. Steve J was a douche and cheapskate (where's the Steve Jobs foundation to help humanity?) but no way he releases a half baked maps service before its ready. And so it begins.
Forget the humanity, check open source
One may be against donating money to poor, or may hide it perfectly so nobody knows.
Check the stuff they use starting with latest, open street maps. Gnu stuff, Apache stuff, independent developers, bsd. Did they donate a freaking CENT to them?
I use open cycle maps personally and will buy offline maps just to donate and I hope one day we can easily contribute from our devices.
Re: Thumb down this, sheep.
Downvoted. Not because I disagree but because your comment is so badly written I can't understand the point you're trying to make.
Re: Tim Cook fail
Where's the asdf foundation to help humanity?
What voluntary work does asdf do?
To what charities does asdf contribute, and how much?
What proportion of asdf's time and income is dedicated to serving or helping the less fortunate?
Feel free to prove me wrong, but I suspect asdf is the usual "all mouth & trousers" arrogant child...
Re: Ted Treen, 13:58
I believe asdf was comparing Steve Jobs to Bill Gates, both of whom are/were incredibly rich. Bill Gates is trying to use his massive wealth to do good (however misguided and inept he may be at it) whereas Jobs didn't, or at least not as publicly.
I would imagine that an asdf fund to help humanity wouldn't have the same financial clout as Bill's, we don't tend to have too many mega-millionaires on here (though judging by some of the recent posts there are a fair few rich boys...)
The thing with Gates and Jobs is they could both give half their fortunes away and still be minted. So it seems fair to call Jobs a cheapskate and qualify it with a reference to Gate's charitable foundation.
Re: Tim Cook fail
but no way he releases a half baked maps service before its ready.
=====
hah !!! Steve's companies had multiple half baked products, people only remember the ones that worked. Newton, Lisa, neXt, Mobile Me etc. No one who recalls Newton's handwriting recognition (or more accurately, non-recognition) would ever start a comment with " no way he releases a half baked .."
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