Sympathy for iOS 6 Maps: Apple

There’s a been a lot of discussion this week about Apple‘s (AAPL) decision to replace Google (GOOG) maps with its own in the update of its iOS software. I don’t think the decision is the “disaster” or “catastrophe” some suggest.
I appreciate the former application. In fact, it was one of my favorite in iOS. I lament the loss of Google Street View, especially.
And certainly the many errors hilariously chronicled by TheAmazingiOS6Maps are terrible.
Mapping is, yes, hard to do, and Apple is playing catch-up where Google and Nokia (NOK) and others have spent years investing serious effort. Apple will get better with time. Probably the decision came long before Steve Jobs passed away. And so I don’t think this is a sign of Apple “peaking,” as Joe Nocera writes this week in The New York Times.
(Just as an aside, Nocera’s article is a good one, but it omits the many times under Steve Jobs’s leadership that Apple received mixed reviews or seemed to fail. “Antennaegate” is just one example. The MacBook Air received limpid praise when unveiled on January 15th, 2008, not having enough plugs, lacking an optical drive, being too pricey etc. Today it is the model for every modern laptop. The iPhone 3GS was heavily derided as a retread but went on to sell millions of units long after newer models were introduced. Steve Jobs’s leadership is thus, sometimes, mischaracterized as being one of explosions of innovation that were all wise, perfect, and all instantly appreciated. In fact, the truth is more complicated.)
No, this is a development that is the delayed consequence of a major stand-off between two companies that were once partners and are now enemies. Under Jobs, Apple might have waited longer, rather than rushing out something that sacrificed the user experience. But it’s not a fatal flaw, it’s a mistake.

And so it goes. Hopefully, Apple will work doubly hard to resolve the mess.
Here’s one thing to consider in defense of the program. Despite all the bugs, where Apple’s three-dimensional renderings actually work, they work rather well, I think.
Growing up, I was a big fan of the classic perspective map of Manhattan, of the type made by Herman Bollmann and those that followed in his tradition. The evolution of such maps is brilliantly chronicled by Jim Hughes in a post at Codex99 from November of 2011.
The iMaps, we’ll call them, remind me a bit of those printed perspective maps. To see parts of New York City, or towns, rendered in three dimensions, really gives one a sense of being oriented in a particular place, more so than over-head satellite imagery used in Google maps. At the same time, Apple could learn from the design and the cartographic techniques used by Bollmann and his successors, which balanced detail with clarity.
I like the 3-D views, and I hope that Apple will press on and fix The Brooklyn Bridge and other grand mistakes in the program, and realize the venture’s true potential.