iPhone thread

[EvilBoris]

Google have it in the T&Cs that you can't download their data for offline use, you can cache a small amount but that's about it. If you try and mass download tiles, google blocks the connection

[Brad]

Google let you choose an area of map top cache. Still need a data connection to search though so still a bit crap. Ovi maps was the best thing about my Nokia.

[PeteJ]

Google have it in the T&Cs that you can't download their data for offline use, you can cache a small amount but that's about it. If you try and mass download tiles, google blocks the connection

Yeah I quickly found with my Andriod tablet that the 'satnav' feature was massively lacking due to this. With my nokia I can quickly select any country in the world and download their whole map in one go (hundred meg or so) and then use it for ever more offline. It's massively useful and works just as well as any dedicated satnav.

Surprised that Google and Apple haven't caught on.

[Nijo]

The apps that cache country data for you are hugely popular, so you'd think they'd get the idea and include it by default.

[_SD_]

Time to finally upgrade the 3G! I'll be getting a shiny white 5 as close to launch as possible....

[EvilBoris]

Yeah I quickly found with my Andriod tablet that the 'satnav' feature was massively lacking due to this. With my nokia I can quickly select any country in the world and download their whole map in one go (hundred meg or so) and then use it for ever more offline. It's massively useful and works just as well as any dedicated satnav.

Surprised that Google and Apple haven't caught on.

I think people underestimate just how much data there is, Google maps had about 8 levels of detail and they are all stored locally as images. Whilst my Tomtom map can store an entire UK map in like 500mb, To store the entire uk in google/apple maps format you'd been looking at terabytes of data. A 10square mile of tiles 6 levels of detail deep is over 100mb.

[smouty]

The LTE connection will currently only work on EE (Orange T-mobile) and 3.
Not a biggie for me but it has been mentioned that another version may be required for Vodafone etc in UK if they win the spectrum auction that is.

BTW - Regarding maps, Microsoft recently updated their maps with 215Tb of data which only included locations in USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Tokyo.

[Taka]

@Taka: I reckon the 5 will be a fair bit quicker than the 4S, seeing as the resolution bump is only minor despite the cpu upgrade. I found the 4 to be only marginally faster than the 3GS on account of the much higher resolution but the 4S is a lot better. Same with the iPad 3 - I find it's not much faster than the iPad 2 in use as it has to run things at such a high resolution.

True, true. Pixel density remains the same, just with additional space for an extra row of icons. The demo of that racing game looked pretty slick too from last night.

Other half wants me to get a 5 just so she can move over to my 4S...

[randombs]

Sounds like win-win to me!

As for maps, why not just let us download one or two levels and stream the rest?

[Brad]

Lol

[fishbowlhead]

Sounds like win-win to me!

As for maps, why not just let us download one or two levels and stream the rest?

I purchased navigon europe on wp7 (before the nokia phones came out with nokia maps) and the maps have multiple levels, and are relatively small in size, 250mb for uk, and 34meg for iceland. Thats full offline on the device turn by turn, with local point of interest data and other stuff, so it cant be that hard to make the data smaller and functional at the same time.


I mean how long is it going to be before carriers start charging an extra data plan for apple maps due to the amount of data it hogs? google maps at the start was the same too.

[randombs]

Well if it's vector-based then... hey, isn't it all vector-based? It can't be that huge, surely? I bet most of the data is those bloody satellite photos and whatnot that I never ever use except for fun.

They need to 7-zip that shizzle

[EvilBoris]

Well if it's vector-based then... hey, isn't it all vector-based? It can't be that huge, surely? I bet most of the data is those bloody satellite photos and whatnot that I never ever use except for fun.

They need to 7-zip that shizzle

I presume it's vector based based server side, but it renders and gets sent through as jpegs/Pngs/whatever.

I presume part of the way google uses it in this way is because it means they can get it working in HTML, I presume there is no HTML code that would allow for Vector files without using flash or java or somesuch.

[Dogg Thang]

Can iOS even render vector images?

[EvilBoris]

Who knows!

The plot thickens! I just installed it into my iPad3 and maps absolutely fly, I don't get the same blurring or pixelation I got on my iphone4 which behaves just like google maps always has done.

This leads me to believe one of 3 things

1: the maps come through as vector but get rasterised in tiles for memory purpose and my Ipad3 can do it without me noticing.
2: the maps are vector on faster devices and tile based on older phones for CPU/memory reasons
3: the maps are vector on faster devices and tile based on older phones for Apple being evil bastard reasons.

I think 2 or 3 are most likely.

The 3D maps are pretty cool too, much like google and bing.
My iPad now has Siri too!

As I have now installed it on my iPad which has no ties to dev accounts that means that IOS6 golden master can be installed on any device, so go track it down if you wanna have a look before its general release on wednesday