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comment by rrrrr
rrrrr  ·  2289 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post:

    look

    It's not that hard.

...

    So google is synthesizing:

    - overhead aerial imagery

    - oblique aerial imagery

    - 3d radar imagery

    - hand-assembled solid construction based on human interaction (exemplars and data)

    - parcel data

    - ownership data

    But wait, there's more. Because this is Google, and because every time you use it to look up an address and go there with your phone, it also has

    - ground truth verification of GPS coordinates

    - travel paths

    - perimeter verification

    But wait. If you're using your phone to take pictures there it also has

    - imagery within

    - imagery without

As someone who works in software, synthesizing all of that into a global 3D map actually sounds really hard.





kleinbl00  ·  2289 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Compare and contrast with literally driving every road in the United States.

dublinben  ·  2289 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Which Apple hasn't done either. The Google Maps data is a huge competitive advantage for Google, against more than just Apple.

kleinbl00  ·  2289 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, but it's the data they collected nine years ago. Google won this war when they decided to calibrate every other source they could get by putting boots on ground. That boots-on-ground period is over - they've got a real-world reference they can compare against that is now almost a decade old. Everything that came after that is just data manipulation and Apple could do it too - but it wouldn't matter because their data is uncalibrated so they can't iterate until they get it right the way Google can.

There is no way for Apple to catch up because they gave up on the calibration step. Google is no further ahead than they were nine years ago because everything else is just the icing on top.