Slashdot Mirror
Apple, Google: Battle of the Cloud Maps
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google has sent invitations for a June 6 event in which it will apparently unveil 'The Next Dimension of Google Maps.' Meanwhile, rumor suggests Apple is preparing its own mapping service for iOS devices. The escalating battle over maps demonstrates the importance of cloud apps to tech companies' larger strategies." I only wish my phone would hold by default the X-million data points that my outmoded (but cheap and functional) dedicated GPS device does, without quite so much cloud-centric bottlenecking, and leave all expensive data use for optional overlays and current conditions.
The reason they don't make it easy to download an entire map has nothing to do with storage or bandwidth. It has to do with *tracking*.
Location Based Services -- Since we know where you are, we can suggest you turn right and have a pizza at the restaurant that pays us to steer customers their way. etc... etc... etc...
Google has a talent for fooling people into thinking that they are offering all these great FREE services out of the goodness of their corporate heart. On the contrary, those services are very profitable, and the way they accomplish all that money making is by knowing a WHOLE HELL OF A LOT about YOU.
Anyway, it's up to you folks. But don't bitch about not getting the whole free map thing - now that you understand why it is not in Google's or Apple's or Microsoft's (or fill-in-the-blank-megacorp-giving-away-services) to provide them.
That's my $37.00 worth (I'm old and that's about what 2 cents used to be worth when I was a wee one)
You can already precache a 10km square area around any point (saved permanently) plus cache 150 Mb of rolling data. That's been good enough for me to travel everywhere I've wanted so far (including a five month backpacking trip last year).
Yes, it would be great to have continent maps available for download, but the current options are a lot better than nothing.