When Apple launched its Maps back in 2012 it quickly became the laughing-stock of the internet. Streets and town were missing, famous landmarks were misplaced or distorted… Apple proved to the whole industry that creating a really good global mapping service is harder than one can expect.
Today Apple Maps is a different story. After a terrible start in September 2012 the company hired hundreds of people to its maps department. It gradually fixed most of the errors as users submitted them. But most of the Apple Maps technologies and features come from acquisitions…
Here is a list of all mapping start-ups acquired by Apple and why Apple needed it:
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Last Thursday on #GeoChat, Chris the CEO of what3words joined us to discuss the need for a better addressing system.
What is #GeoChat again?
What is #GeoChat and why you should participate! https://t.co/z8jQbbaW3G pic.twitter.com/O5JjRs1I7a
— Geoawesomeness (@geoawesomeness) April 7, 2016
Lets get it started!
@geoawesomeness All ready 🙂 #geochat
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Why does the world need a 3 word address?
@geoawesomeness The world needs a way of simply communicating locations, a version of lat/long that everyday people can use #GeoChat
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
And that twitter poll comes in handy
@ChrisSheldrick2 Well isn’t that why we (still) have those long postal addresses? At least some think so – https://t.co/PH7lBX5v8E #GeoChat
— Geoawesomeness (@geoawesomeness) April 7, 2016
Postal addresses don’t work as well as we might think they do!
@chrissheldrick2 @geoawesomeness #geochat I think also non-urban applications seem likely – agriculture or recreation for instance?
— Will Cadell (@geo_will) April 7, 2016
agricultural applications are a good example of the limitations in our current postal system.
@geo_will @geoawesomeness Absolutely, rural areas are almost always badly addressed. Large farms often only have one address #geochat
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
What3Words across the world
@maptiks #geochat we are used in 170 countries. Businesses/apps/sites who struggle with addresses are embracing w3w: https://t.co/oztObqmHAv
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
And its going to be available in many more languages
@lovikovy #geochat newest are Mongolian, Hausa, Hindi, Bengali, Wolof, Polish, Finnish. Great to learn about all these languages.
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Speaking of Greek 😉
.@what3words in #Greek? Wonder if we’ll have a alpha.beta.gamma location 😉 Off-topic #GeoChat https://t.co/W8oO5UpMpa
— Geoawesomeness (@geoawesomeness) April 7, 2016
Industry talk!
@geoawesomeness #geochat w3w not to help #geogeeks personally as lat/lon is 2nd nature, it helps their non-geo users – which helps everyone
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Indoor addresses?
@geoawesomeness #geochat Possible but limited benefit until ind pos, ind maps, ind nav improves – we'll look to add opt. z param in future.
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
The API model
@geoawesomeness @what3words #geochat Yes, API model with free tier so it's easy and free for low volume users.
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Interesting use cases
@geoawesomeness #geochat 1:Favela delivery https://t.co/IxjrFtfmDq 2:Festivals: https://t.co/pJEnkPwFck 3:UN https://t.co/mhS08teG5c
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Isn’t this cool?
Haha, how #Geoawesome is this!! Tables.Empty.Workshops @what3words is your gallery name? #GeoChat https://t.co/hAtBzJXTSy
— Geoawesomeness (@geoawesomeness) April 7, 2016
Okay, how about writing a song?
@geoawesomeness #geochat Yes. Lyrics would be long. Today someone made this: makes a w3w song for you as you walk: https://t.co/iG8DgeJP4W
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
The Vision!
.@geoawesomeness To make a positive difference to people's lives through providing addresses people can use – everywhere. #geochat
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Oh and one last thing
@geoawesomeness unfort not as we don't use homophones (piece/peace). And we only do 3m x 3m. Otherwise yes 😉 #geochat
— Chris Sheldrick (@ChrisSheldrick) April 7, 2016
Until the next #GeoChat
Thanks for the interesting #GeoChat questions everyone! Its been a great evening 🙂 Until the next #GeoChat 🙂 pic.twitter.com/gxNQGEjFLR
— Geoawesomeness (@geoawesomeness) April 7, 2016
