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Apple Acquires GPS Start-Up
An anonymous reader writes: Apple is still sprinting to catch up with Google with its navigation software — the company just acquired Coherent Navigation, a startup focused on GPS tech. Its navigation services are reportedly more precise than most commercial-grade systems. Their system "combines signals from the traditional mid-earth orbit GPS satellites with those from the low-earth satellites of voice and data provider Iridium to offer greater accuracy and precision, higher signal integrity, and greater jam resistance." They've already worked with Boeing and the U.S. Department of Defense. Apple didn't disclose the terms of the deal or explain any specific plans for the GPS technology.
Apple is still sprinting to catch up with Google with its SPYWARE.
yes because you are really so very significant and important that multibillion dollar corporations want so badly to spy on you!
So does this mean Apple Maps will stop guiding people out into the middle of nowhere, off cliffs and into lakes?
If so that's too bad. As a society, why do we hate natural selection? Do we _want_ Idiocracy? Natural selection is your friend! There are network effects, after all. Ergo, a moron falling off a cliff is a GOOD moron!
The people with a shred of sense are capable of saying "hmm that can't be right, time to try something else" when a navigation system tells them to drive off a cliff or into a lake. Those are the people we want to keep. Best of all, both groups self-select so you avoid all the nasty politics of allowing anyone to choose who is who.
So does this mean Apple Maps will stop guiding people out into the middle of nowhere, off cliffs and into lakes?
Do you mean like every other nav system in the world also does?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It strikes me that Apple and Google are two companies competing in different market niches. Apple being hardware, and Google being user information (for advertisers). How does Apple "monetize" its userbase information right now?
Why does Apple feel the compulsion to plow money into an inferior map service? It only benefit their iphone niche until they can't sustain a lower end iphone market.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I can see why Apple is interested in this technology, I am also interested to see better precision of GPS signal for our systems. What navigation systems have to do with the poor quality signal is not great. Using map information to correct for bad signal that bounces around due to reflection and such is not a perfect solution, having a better signal is much better, though I wonder whether map based correction takes less energy than GPS signal correction based on more GPS sources. In any case hope it leads to new and better mobile phone GPS tech.
So was it really kickass ganga, or mediocre acid, dude?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The Iridium project bankrupted Motorola (it was motorola right?). Are they putting up new satellites to the Iridium constellation? Did they ever completed it and put up all the planned satellites in orbit? How long are these satellites going to last?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
- What big GPS you have, granny!
- The better to track you with, my dear.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
AC: you are so very insignificant that you're basically a single drop in a limitless ocean.
Corporations: What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
No, but the bodies will start piling up with greater accuracy.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Sounds like GNSS jamming is becoming more common or something? Pretty much every vendor has jamming resistance as a selling point in their literature now for some reason.
Parent is actually a really good point. Apple Maps' problems have nothing to do with GPS accuracy and everything to do with terrible maps and entirely missing features.
Both the road I live on and the road where I work are misplaced in Apple Maps. This means attempting to use Apple Maps to navigate starting from either location doesn't really work, because it attempts to route you through roads that don't exist in reality. (At home, this includes a bike path that apparently Apple Maps has decided is really a road that you can drive cars down.)
Then there are the missing features. Apple Maps doesn't take traffic into account when generating routes. It doesn't offer an "avoid tolls" options for routes. It doesn't do biking and walking navigation (which might explain why it thinks a bike path is a real road) and it doesn't do public transportation. It doesn't do lanes like Google Maps does. It's just worse in every way.
And that's not counting the misplaced place marks. Even ignoring all the above, chances are, if you attempt to use Apple Maps to navigate to a specific location, while you're likely to end up geographically near it, you may not end up on the correct street and there's no chance the route ends where the place really is.
Improving GPS won't help with any of that. Apple desperately needs better maps and new features. As it stands, the advice remains "throw Apple Maps into your 'Apple shit I never use' folder and just download Google Maps so you can get to where you're trying to go."
I was never an Apple Maps user, but I was always of the persuasion that the map data and the routing logic was the problem, not whether the GPS had a six-foot margin of error instead of a six inch margin of error. Without good routing logic and accurate street maps, all the accuracy in the world won't help with navigation.
Then again, I'm still waiting for Delorme to release Street Atlas for Android.
> ganga
I'm curious on two points -- do you live in the US or overseas, and have you used the app lately? I have found that apple has taken the strategy of incremental unannounced improvements, so that things get better over time without a big release.
Second, there's something that apple maps does really well that google maps can't do at all, at least in the iphone -- siri and apple watch integration. It is soooo simple to hold down the home button and say "siri, how do I get home?" and have it automatically pull up the route. obviously, no help at all if it takes you to the wrong place!!!
On android google maps is pretty cool. You can say "ok google, take me home/work/xxxÂs house" without pressing anything. You can also say things like "take me to the nearest bar/pizza/ATM" etc. The navigation itself is pretty good and can use public transport if you want it to.
AppleÂs problem when competing with google is that their apps only work on Apple systems. Doing what google has done with street view is a huge undertaking if you are restricted to a smallish percent of the market.
I do understand that Apple wanted to get away from relying on Google for maps but I donÂt think they have succeeded.
How does Apple "monetize" its userbase information right now?
It doesn't, because it doesn't need to (see: Stock Price, cash on hand).
Why does Apple feel the compulsion to plow money into an inferior map service?
Apple maps are superior to Google Maps at this point. They are more readable for one thing (true from the outset) but also I have noticed more errors lately in Google Maps than Apple Maps (and Google Maps always had errors to begin with).
The reason Apple continues forward is because that way they do not have to worry about how users are monetized by other map providers... which you are if you use Google Maps.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So instead of The Internet of Things , it'll be The Internet of Apple Things.
Seems logical.
(e.g. moving from platforms to ecosystems).
I'm just happy with my +/- 12 ft or 3M accuracy. But I know when Apple put this in their Iphone 8 or 9 and advertises improved GPS accuracy, people will be complaining the pre-orders should have started already I need to buy one today....In a mass market mobile device, I still wouldn't expect accuracy greater than 6ft. Commercial gps units, like used by surveyors, can be accurate with in 2MM, but that requires the device to be rock steady and not moved for 45+ minutes.
but not a battery company? Why didn't they buy the battery company, instead of poaching their engineers?
> not ganga
iOS/Apple Maps can do all of that, except for the public transit part.
Google has a walking/biking path near my house listed as a road, just like every other mapping service. No maps are perfect.