Re: How About Google Maps for Mobile for the IT?

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On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Aniello Del Sorbo <anidel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 2009/3/19 Mark <wolfmane@xxxxxxxxx>:
>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Matan Ziv-Av <matan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 18 Mar 2009, John Holmblad wrote:
>>>
>>>> All,
>>>>
>>>> here is another app that would be nice to have on the IT:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps.html#
>>>>
>>>> At the end of that www page they put in the following teaser:
>>>>
>>>>>    Of course, if you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or Android device,
>>>>>    you’ll already be familiar with Google Maps right there on your
>>>>>    home screen.
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What does Google Maps application do that maemo-mapper does not?
>>>
>>
>> Routing. Maemo-mapper requires you to be online and gets directions
>> from - can you say: "Google Maps"?....... (Not that I've been able to
>> get that to work in Maemo Mapper.)
>>
>
> Google Maps also requires you to be online for maps and routing, doesn't it?
> I still don't see what Google Maps does more than Maemo Mapper.
>

Google Maps *does* routing. Maemo Mapper *doesn't*. Maemo Mapper
*tries* to use Google Maps for routing, but it doesn't work, at least
not well or reliably.

Google Maps is online in the first place. Maemo Mapper is essentially
an offline application, so requiring you to be online to do routing -
or even more importantly to download maps for an area you didn't
foresee needing in an area where there is no cellular coverage, much
less Wi-Fi - is less than optimal. Ultimately, anything GPS-enabled
that requires you to have Internet access for critical functionality
is severely crippled.

As long as Maemo Mapper relies solely on bitmaps, there's really no
possibility of it ever doing native routing. That's one very big
strike against it. Ultimately, vector data is the only efficient way
to do street maps. It enables all kinds of things that are not
possible using bitmaps, and requires *much* less storage space.

Satellite images are nice as overlays, but - especially for the
regular street maps - having to store multiple images for the exact
same data at different zoom levels is insane.

> The only thing I can think of is shop search, but that is not in the
> todo list of Maemo Mapper, probably.
>
> --
> anidel
>

You're really comparing apples to oranges. Not only are you comparing
an online application to an offline one, you're also comparing an app
that has the full potential of Google with one that never can on its
own. Sure, it can interface with Google to get the most of the same
functionality, but why would anybody use a limited third-party app
when going straight to the source is easier, faster, more efficient,
more powerful and just as free?

If you want to make a more reasonable comparison, you need to compare
any IT mapping application with any standalone GPSr. After all, the
tablet is basically the same form factor and has far more
functionality built in. As yet, there's no IT mapping app that comes
anywhere near the features, ease of use or practicality of a
standalone GPSr.

Mark
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