Look at Google Maps for Android, then the old Google Maps for iOS, there’s no comparison, the old iOS maps was getting stale. Most importantly the Maps app was/is no longer the app that people love the most about their iPhones.

Yes, turn-by-turn navigation is a big deal but it’s not the only reason the old app stunk.

Traffic

One of the features I use most is traffic data (we drive through LA so we have to) but it wasn’t accurate. So flawed that Google removed the feature from it’s web app, only to resurrect with improved data via crowd-sourcing in their mobile apps — mobile apps that exclude the iPhone [strike 1].

Now Maps has it’s own real-time crowd-sourced traffic data and with 400 million iOS devices (250+m iPhones) that crowd-sourced data will be on par (or possibly better) than Google Maps on fully supported devices.

Displaying traffic within maps has drastically improved but I concede that Apple could have made visual changes to the Google Maps add too.

Lack of features (like flyover)

I don’t believe that flyover is (or ever will be) a better feature than street view (a Google Maps feature that will most likely never come to the new Maps) but it’s an example of a feature that wouldn’t be possible without transitioning (away from Google Maps).

Flyover is (arguably) only a cool feature, it will impress iPhone owners and prospective buyers.

 …another feature Yelp!

Yelp being integrated into Maps is something you wont find in Google Maps and yelp is fantastic (in my experience). Google Place ratings (even with Zagat) can’t compare and I don’t think Yelp and Google are going to mend their relationship anytime soon after that fiasco a while back.

Turn-by-turn

First, we don’t know why turn-by-turn was never added to Google Maps for iOS but it’s clear without it the Google Maps on iOS was not “great” when it could be compared to Google Maps on the competition’s phones. It’s possible Apple just didn’t want to write the feature into their app but it’s also possible that Google didn’t allow it under their agreement; theories aside turn-by-turn is necessary to compete.

I’ve used Navigon since for years(?) now and I can count on one hand how many times I’ve used it — three times;  compare that to 10+ times I’ve used iOS6 Maps turn-by-turn in only a couple months. 

Navigon isn’t a bad app either, it’s credited as the best navigation app on the iPhone but it was never used because it lacked attention. Attention that a secondary app with only one purpose can never get.

Progress

Most arguments against the new maps app revolve around it being a “step back” without acknowledging or considering how progression sometimes must work.

The “re-write” needs to happen at some point, otherwise only small iterations occur and software becomes stagnant. Software devs. know this. In this case Maps introduced a fresh data store that is fully controlled by the developer (Apple) and not a competitor (Google). Data that they can by manipulated, tuned and accessed independently without a competitor’s API limits or agreements interferring.

It’s clear after 5 years of Google Maps for iOS with no real progress would have been worse for Apple’s consumers, and waiting to “improve the map data” would have made things worse because Apple’s data could (presumably) never catchup with Google’s without interaction. Interaction that millions of users will bring via iOS6.

Now Google is forced to make a Maps app for iOS that not only competes with it’s Android counterpart but iOS6 Maps. A Maps app that could disrupt Apple’s plans to improve the data that will make the new Maps app great. So blame Google for not releasing a new iOS Maps app at launch :), they made a good app to replace the default YouTube app..

Now

Now Maps for iOS can (and IMO will) improve to be the “killer app” for the iPhone (and iOS) that it once was.

Google Maps for iOS wasn’t “great”, maybe 4 years ago when it was last updated. And iOS6 Maps app is not great but its progress and can be.

— Dan Cameron (@dancameron) September 24, 2012

Here’s a quick hack to get that non-post content to be filtered.

Hope this comes in handy.

Skepticism enjoins scientists — in fact all of us — to suspend belief until strong evidence is forthcoming, but this tentativeness is no match for the certainty of ideologues and seems to suggest to many the absurd idea that all opinions are equally valid. The chimera of the fiercely independent everyman reigns. What else explains the seemingly equal weight accorded to the statements of entertainers and biological researchers on childhood vaccines? Or to pronouncements of industry lobbyists and climate scientists? Or to economic prescriptions like 9-9-9 and those of Nobel-prize winning economists?

via Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists? – NYTimes.com.

It’s rare that a movie can make fun of itself and still be funny, 21 Jump Street accomplished it multiple times: the cameos were fun, the explosions (or lack of) made for some humorous moments and the scene with the chief in the beginning was awesome.

Review Rating: 4.25

Reset your network settings

Settings App > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

There’s really not much to say, other than if you liked the other movies in this trilogy you’ll like this one. Maybe after I see it again, which I plan to do in IMAX, I’ll have more to say.

Review Rating: 4.75

Amazing Spider Man…”not amazed”. Yep, also the music and the American pandering was over the top. 3.27939847×3 (@jaredbangs @nstryker)

— Dan Cameron (@dancameron) July 7, 2012

Review Rating: 3.5

Review Rating: 4.6

iOS 6 – Obviously and confirmed. I’m guessing Facebook, ton of little features like an updated Mail.app  and the big thing will be Siri APIs.

Mountain Lion - Not much more than what we’ve already seen but with new hardware will come an announcement about how to handle retina apps. The big thing will be retina but we might see Siri APIs I don’t see how it’s possible.

New Macbooks - A lot of sites are predicting that they’ll announce hardware updates across the board here but I don’t think they will. What I see them announcing is a new “Macbook” that has a 15″ retina screen with a wedge design. This is the laptop that I want to buy and will need to be announced for Mountain Lion and OSX developers.

All other laptops will get simple spec bumps. Only until later this year (or maybe next) will we see all the laptops get streamlined where all the laptops will get the wedge (air) design and the Pro models will get dropped.

New Mac Pro - wont be announced, unless it takes 30 seconds of the keynote, but it will get a spec bump tomorrow.

New AppleTV – I think this will steal the show. Rumors of them making an embedded OS for TV manufacturers is awesome and will make everyone chuckle about how GoogleTV was supposed to be the dominant TV.

I believe this would be a smart way of “invading the living room” without doing much. Maybe they’ll sell their own TV hardware but it will be way overpriced compared to a Samsung at Bestbuy and if that Samsung could have Apple TV OS embeded Apple will still be able to sell media and apps.

I don’t think Siri is the big feature for a new Apple TV OS, instead it’s an app store and Siri APIs.

iPhone Pro - The new phone has to be announced tomorrow because developers need to plan for the  the bigger screens. I don’t know if they’ll be ready for order but if they are I believe we will see some kind of restriction to prevent everyone from ordering it. I don’t know what that restriction will be but it could involve developers only for the first 6/90 days or maybe it will be sold without a carrier subsidy and be super expensive.

The other idea: this new bigger iPhone will be iPhone Pro. 

I like the iPhone Pro idea because they could release this new phone at a premium (subsidy or not) and still sell the excellent iPhone 4s.

…wow, this was supposed to be short. Anyway, I’ll probably follow along on twitter throughout the morning and listen to 5by5 in the afternoon since I have a ton of work to do this week.

The only regret was planning too much outside of the resort because I ended up buying the Go Oahu Card before we left which made us get out three days of 8 day trip. We still had a ton of fun with the activities we had with the card but even with 5 days at the resort it felt as if we didn’t get to do everything there.

The kids loved Auntie’s Beach House, too much. It was hard to explain to the kids they couldn’t go back the next day because we’re spending time together; a great sign because I felt bad about checking them in for the day while I played golf and read a book by the pool while Sara spent a day at the spa.

The pools where awesome, Sawyer and Avery swam a lot. Almost too much because we didn’t hit up the beach as much as I would have liked, although the beach didn’t allow for drinks and those mai tias tasted better by the relaxing pool.

Some might be discouraged because it’s a “Disney thing” but I have to ask “why?”. Maybe because it’s not “real hawaii” but you can’t see much of the “real hawaii” in Oahu anyway. More importantly I highly doubt any other resort will feature the real Hawaii like Aulani tries to do, especially to/for the kids. Maybe when the kids are older we’ll plan a trip to Maui or some other islands but for a 3 & 7 year old I don’t think a better resort exists…I looked.

From the two fun slides, around the lazy river, wading in the rainbow reef (huge snorkeling area with a ton on fish), searching for these menehune statues, splashing in the kids water park,  taking on the Aunties adventure hunt and all well produced shows Aulani is the best.

We all can’t wait to go back.

Review Rating: 5

Review Rating: 3.75

aside: Trailors need to stop showing critical parts of movies because all I kept thinking is [when is that scene coming] and it was at the end, which ruined a little.

Review Rating: 4

I’ve watched it twice already and even after the second time I couldn’t find something to complain about. The writing was surprisingly good, they did a very good job sharing the film with all of it’s characters, the action wasn’t Michael Bay’ish (which is a great thing) and it allowed me to like Thor (since I hated the recent Thor movie).]

Review Rating: 4.5

Review Rating: 1.75

Damn, Jonah hill was big in this movie; glad he got in shape for Money Ball because he was great in that flick.

Review Rating: 3.5

side-note: Prometheus looks awesome.

Review Rating: 3.25

#

So the bottom line is, as a consumer, how much is one willing to tolerate this? If someone like me who is an astute observer of the industry has to do such intense research on which Android device to buy based on the potential for ongoing support and then ends up getting burned in the process, what is the average consumer to do?

John Perlow

… this is my reason now, why I’m hesitant against buying an Android phone before I absolutely need one for a dev project.

The bad

Cheap hardware.

They made the thing feel solid to hold but that’s only because it’s heavy and bulky.

The UI is awful.

This is the worst part, it’s not only confusing but it’s totally cumbersome.

A kid can’t use it

My three year old son can find his way around and start an app but when he needs to control the volume it’s a nightmare experience. I’ll admit his user experience for tablets is based on an iPad but I’m not talking about an icon grid on the homescreen; the kindle fire doesn’t have volume controls on the device or a home button, two things standard on any device like this — not just the iPad. The power switch is tucked away when you want to turn it on but it’s really convenient when resting one something so it can turn itself off.

The control panel thingy is badly designed.

Because the Fire lacks the hardware buttons to easily control the device the Fire puts a strip across every screen with a small arrow, you click on the arrow to get a control panel to manage volume, etc., it’s a good compensation to no hardware controls but the thing isn’t responsive. Maybe it’s the entire system not being responsive enough but clicking the arrow should bring up the control panel immediately, it shouldn’t take a couple taps and/or swipe attempts to make it work. This is also why I can’t force my son to use the Fire — it’s too frustrating.

The entire UX is frustrating

The hardware is cheap it has really bad touch accuracy. Like the Palm Pilots and Pocket PC devices of 15 years ago you can see the little sensor in a grid on the screen and since sensors are spread out so much you can’t just touch the device to use an app or shuffle through the general interface, instead you have to poke and prode your way through.

The good

• Even though it looks and feels cheap I like the texture on the back. It’s has a soft rubberized matte feel.
• Amazon Prime.
• I like Amazon, simple as that.

Review Rating: 2

Review Rating: 4.5