Speaker 2
I actually don't know when Google Maps started, but I'm sure you do.
Speaker 1
I was, I never worked for Google, but I think it was 2005.
Speaker 2
Okay, but that's a ballpark. That's enough. So 2005, Google Maps starts. That's way ahead of Apple Maps, by the way, right? The Apple Maps 2013? 2012. 2012 Apple. No, that's 2013 is when you, Jen. Okay, so 25 Google Maps starts. And I'm guessing like, this is me guessing at this point, but it's probably the same thing as like trying to do advertisements on like using kind of the whole Google monopoly, well not monopoly, but like knowledge of advertising and then putting it on a map. And I think that probably hasn't changed too much, except gotten better as in Google Maps is funded by an advertising business, the same way that Google, the search engine is. And then there's Apple. So we said Apple Maps starts in 2012. As far as I can tell, and from what I've read from you and what I see a lot, it's definitely not the same approach. It's not funded by advertising as far as I can tell. And so I'd love to get into those two maps because I think they're the biggest maps that we have today. I'd argue OpenStreetMap is actually huge but it's more underlying to both of those. If you ask someone in the street, what OpenStreetMap is, they probably don't know unless they're a software engineer or something. Most people, they know Apple Maps and Google Maps. First question, is that like a fair assessment? One is based on advertisement, the other isn't?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it's a fair assessment. I mean, back in the initial days when Google Maps first launched, I don't think there was any advertising but clearly they had
Speaker 2
that in mind when they launched it. Yeah, it's make it sustainable. It took them a few years.
Speaker 1
And so, yeah, you do see advertising in relation to Google Maps and in Apple Maps, you don't. At least you don't, yeah. I don't see any evidence of it. Let's rewind a little bit further to think about how Apple Maps came to be originally. Let's do it. And why did Apple get into Maps in the first place? Well, Apple actually initially got into Maps because of photos. Back in, oh, I don't know, probably the mid-2000s as well. You had the Photos app for your Mac. This was prior to the iPhone and you stored all of your photos inside the Photos app on your Mac. And you could organize those photos into albums, but Apple wanted it to make it possible to kind of see where those photos were taken. And it was just starting to be the era where cameras, everyone was using point and click cameras, or maybe if you were a pro, you were using a DSL camera or some kind. Those cameras were just starting to get GPS attached to them. And so, having that metadata associated with the photo about where that photo was taken was starting to become available. And Apple wanted to make that possible to see where those photos were taken on the map. So that's how they initially got into the mapping business. But of course, the real catalyst for getting into the mapping business was launch of iPhone back in 2007. And so when Apple was developing iPhone, I wasn't at Apple back at the time, but Steve Jobs was very adamant that when they launched the iPhone, it came with a set of apps that would be kind of relevant to what you did with this mobile device sitting in your pocket. And so there was music on there. There was camera on there. So there was photos on there. There was your calendar. There was email. There was web browser. And Steve said, OK, well, we need a mapping app, because you're going to be mobile. And when you're mobile, you need a map. So we need a map set. And so Apple didn't know anything about mapping back in those days. And so they went to Google and they said, hey, we'd like to use your data. And so they licensed the data from Google. The app itself was not developed by Google. The app was designed and developed. The whole UI was designed and developed by Apple. But the tiles, the map tiles that came in underneath that were Google map tiles. And so that's what iPhone launched with back in 2007. And it was part of the reason for the iPhone's success is because now you're out and about. And you could find out stuff. And if you look at a lot of the early ads for iPhone, a lot of the use case ads that Apple did back in those days to show you what you could do with an iPhone were use cases revolving around, I want to go out to eat or find a sushi bar. And so there were some great ads that kind of illustrated that. But as time went on post 2007, there were two things that Apple came to realize. Number one, with the Google Maps tile data, it really couldn't be in control of its own destiny. In terms of the experience, it wanted to provide to its end users. It was Google's map. And that was it.
Speaker 2
What was the let me interrupt you there? What were in practice some of the shortcomings? Why was Google's data not
Speaker 1
enough? So the map tiles back in those days were, I believe, raster map tiles. And so the rasters were developed with certain color schemes. And there was a limit to what you could do with that map data in terms of look and feel. And they wanted to do something different or add an extra layer of data. It would have been very difficult for them to do that. And so it was constraining in that regard. To provide a complete experience, Apple realized they really needed to own the whole stack. And they needed to own the map and the map data. The other influence on the switch was, listen, Google through the use of the app, through users' use of the app, knew everything about where you are and where you're going. And Apple didn't like that.
Speaker 2
Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 1
Their customers' location data going to Google so that Google could take advantage of it for advertising or some other use within their organization.
Speaker 2
In many ways, it's kind of like they own the. First thing that comes to mind is this analogy of the app store and the Play Store where Google and Apple own the operating system and what you can have on it. But this is the same thing, but for a map where Google would own the mapping operating system in a way. And so I see Apple wanting to remove that and own. So those two things kind of point towards the direction Apple wanting to do their own full mapping
Speaker 1
application. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, the analogy I always draw is it's very similar to the Silicon chip story with Apple, right? You know, Apple was dependent on IBM and then later Intel for the Silicon chips that it put in its devices. And, you know, it realized it had to get out of that so it could control the whole stack and create and then doing so, then be able to create the experience of one of the great parts users.
Speaker 2
So let me on that. I think there's one thing that comes from. I was like, every company probably wants to own everything. But there's a reason why every app on your phone doesn't have its own operating system or all the other computer OEMs like Dell and HP don't also create their own Silicon. These are incredibly costly and complicated endeavors. So there's like a trade off. If you're a Dell, like what you're going to try to focus on is creating, I don't know, a great experience for the user who doesn't actually really care about what's underneath it. So there's this trade off, right? Between we're going to own everything, but that's going to cost a lot of money. How do you justify that as well? That's
Speaker 1
an excellent point, Max. And one worth delving into. In the case of Apple getting into the Silicon business, I think when they dived into the Silicon business, they knew full well it was going to cost them a boatload of money to start, you know, building the domain expertise and, you know, to develop, design, develop, and get chips fabricated. I mean, they don't make chips,
Speaker 2
but... Yeah, the design. The hard
Speaker 1
work, the design and everything. So they dove into that with the knowledge that, hey, you know, this is going to cost us a lot of money and we'll need to invest billions of dollars in order to make this work. And you're right. There are very few companies on the planet that can afford to do that. And Apple was in a fortunate position to do that with chips. Maps, however, is a completely different story. When Apple decided to switch from Google Map tiles or Google Map data to its own map in 2012, I think there was a little bit of naive thinking going on. Yeah,
Speaker 2
I guess there's that. It's like, either you know it's going to cost a lot of money and you prepare for it or you're probably just naive and you
Speaker 1
go in it. Yeah, and I think, you know, think about the industry back in those days. So what was a round at Apple? So one of the most successful products at Apple back in those days was iTunes. And so you could not only upload your songs, but also there was the iTunes library and you could buy songs and, you know, pay 99 cents for a song or buy an album. And so they knew all about songs. And they thought, well, you know, maps that can't be too hard. It's kind of like iTunes. It's about albums and genres and artists and songs. And, you know, maps, it's pretty similar. It's about roads and streets and, you know, street names. It must be the same. Unfortunately, they forgot that, you know, maps change a little more frequently than albums and songs and artists. And, you know, the songs on an album stay the same. They don't change, you know, the songs on that David Bowie album, you know, don't change. Whereas a map they change. And so I think there was a little bit of, I wasn't there at the time, but I think there was a little bit of naive thinking going on. Oh, yeah, we could do this. It can't be too hard. And then, of course, they launched in 2012. And, you know, they got the black eye for those of you that don't know the story. In 2012, they launched it was not a good launch. It's one of the most embarrassing launches, product launches that Apple has ever done. Tim Cook had to issue an apology and tell users, you know, try these other apps and set of our map, you know, I'm sorry. I'm actually, I'm not familiar. I read that that
Speaker 2
happened, but I'm actually not familiar with what happened.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So what happened was quick, you know, they launched it with great fanfare and had a few cool features like a fly over features. You could fly over landscapes with satellite photography. And it all looked very cool, but the underlying data was not very good. And the underlying data came from Tom Tom and others. And it wasn't just about the data. It's about how you make use of the data. So just because you have data doesn't mean that you're going to provide good directions, you've got to create those algorithms to figure out what's the best route for me to be and do you take that road or this road and the algorithms that Apple had created, for example, for directions weren't very good. And they were sending people the wrong way. And the geocoding wasn't very good. In other words, the process of finding an address wasn't very good. Right. And so people quickly got frustrated and, you know, the media caught wind of this and there were all these stories of, you know, how bad Apple Maps was. And it quickly became a huge embarrassment. And that's what precipitated Tim Cook's apology. There was a guy who was responsible for for maps, a guy called Steve Forstall, who was essentially fired because of the debacle. And it was an interesting period. I think, you know, there was a lot of head scratching going on at the time, you know, this is this is terrible. We've had this big disaster. Should we get out of the mapping business or should we stay in it? You know, should we just go back to using Google Maps? I'm sure that question went around the corridors of Apple. But I think they quickly came to realize that, you know, maps and location have so much to do with everything you do every day that absolutely, you know, mapping and navigation has to be a core confident, a competence that we develop. And so it wasn't a question then of taking their foot off the gas. It was a question of putting your foot flat to the floor and getting the, the, you know, building the organization that they needed to build in order to build the product that you see in Apple Maps today. And it took him 10 years. It really took 10 years to do that. I think Apple Maps is, you know, in many countries around the world as it is, is at least as good as, as what you get from Google. In some ways, it's better. In some other parts of the world, it's not as good. Obviously there's still more work to do, but, but it, but it was a 10 year journey to get there.
Speaker 2
And in that, in that decade, it sends together, you, you've been at Apple for most of that decade, if I understood correctly. So you joined in 2013, like one year or a few months after the launch. What were you brought in to do and kind of what is the mindset at that point? Like after that launch?
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, I was brought in, I came in about a year after the initial launch. And, you know, the organization was still reeling from, from that initial launch. And it was, it was a case where I think Apple wanted to just, you know, they, Apple doesn't go into a business wanting to be number two. Apple goes into a business to be the, the leader in, in that business. And so that was the mindset that the organization had back in those days. And there was really, you know, no limit being placed on the organization to do whatever they had to do to, to, to, to build a map that was going to be an insanely good experience for their users. And so it was, it was, we were the underdogs, right? And in a lot of ways, it was fun being the underdogs, even being at a huge company like Apple.
Speaker 2
Compared to Google Maps, right?
Speaker 1
Yeah, we were the underdogs compared to Google Maps, obviously. And they were, um, it was, it was a source of great excitement and passion. And, you know, we're going to do this and we're going to build the world's greatest map kind of feeling within the organization. Um, everyone knew it was going to take a ton of work and, um, everyone knew it, you know, there was a lot of expertise brought in from other organizations. So within the organization, you know, if you look at the, you can go and look in LinkedIn at a lot of people who work in Apple Maps, you'll see their provenances from other mapping organizations like Navtech or here or, um, you know, Esri or other companies, Tom Tom that have been in the business. And so they brought in the, the, the, the people with the subject matter, expertise to really develop that organization into what it is today. Um, I was brought in to help with partnerships. So if you think about building a map, um, you know, obviously what perhaps not obviously, but what Apple had to do is what a lot of mapping organizations do. They have a fleet of cars, a fleet of vehicles, and they equip those vehicles with sensors, cameras and LIDAR and all sorts of, um, you know, high accuracy GPS sensors. And they drive that fleet around the, around the, the country, uh, to collect data. And you've probably heard of or maybe even seen the Google Maps cars that have driven around. You may have seen ones from Tom Tom. You may have seen ones from here too. Um, and Apple developed its own fleet. Now the great news about those vehicles with all these sensors is you can collect a lot of data, right? You can collect information about the streets and you can collect information about the street signs and the traffic lights and the stop signs and the turn restrictions. And from the, you know, high resolution imagery, you can even collect data about, you know, lane information and, um, you know, highway signs, information and stuff like that. So there's a lot of data that you can get from driving around those vehicles.
Speaker 1
a lot of data you can't get. You can't get zip codes from driving around a vehicle. It's not going to tell you where the zip code boundaries are. It's not going to tell you really where the city boundaries are. Um, yeah, you're going to pick up some addresses from, you know, you know, where addresses are displayed, but actually it's very difficult to get all of them. Um, you're going to pick up some information about street signs, but it's not necessarily going to get all of them. You're not going to pick up any information about public transit networks from driving around cars. You're not going to pick up information about parks or schools or points of interest or, um, indoor maps or any of that stuff. And so the, the maps team, like any other mapping organization needed a team to get that data from other organizations. In other words, we needed a partnerships team that would go and source that data. Um, from other organizations, a lot of them were government organizations, but some were third party commercial organizations. And so the team that I was privileged enough to work with, uh, while I was at Apple was, was tasked with, um, sourcing that data and forming, uh, partnerships with the organizations that could provide that data that we could layer on top and pour into the map and create experience that you see today. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I read you were working, uh, on some of the indoor mapping as well, which I think is not something people think about a lot when thinking about maps is like the indoor mapping as well. Can you talk a little bit about what that entailed?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, indoor mapping had been tried before a number of organizations had tried, uh, indoor mapping and they've been, um, people have dipped that toes in the water. Um, you know, by the time we got thinking about indoor maps, uh, and on the Apple mats team, we obviously had, um, routing and navigation. If you're driving a vehicle and I think the public transit, transit directions were in there as well. Um, so we started, we started to think about indoor mats when we got started with public transit. And so if you think about taking public transit, particularly in the large city, when you're using a, uh, you know, one of those, um, um, subway, you know, broad subway networks, like in London or New York, how many times have you taken a subway or the London underground? You got to your destination station and then you can't figure out which exit should I take? Um, you know, do I go out this exit or that's it? And you got the exit. You get, you make your best guess and then you find yourself, you know, on the wrong side of the street or, you know, a quarter of a mile away from where you really need to be in. Had you had just taken that other exit, you would have realized where you were. Um, well, when, when Apple maps got started on doing public transit directions, they realized, okay, this is a common problem. You need to know which exit to take. And when we guide you from point A to point B, not only do we want to tell you, um, which trains to take, but when you get to your destination station, we want to guide you to the right exit of that station, um, to, to be closest to your destination. And so they went to the public transit agencies and they say, Hey, have you got this data? And, um, all of the agencies said, no, we don't, we don't capture that kind of information. Sorry. And so what Apple had to do, and this is kind of typical of the way Apple thinks about stuff is they said, okay, well, that's fine. We'll just go and survey every station and we'll collect all that data ourselves. And so they literally sent out teams of people to survey every subway station in the cities where they provide public transit directions and, um, to collect all of that exit information so they could give you directions.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that sounds like it's still a little bit the approach. What about what Apple is doing today with some of the more recent updates to maps with like 3D buildings and things like that. It seems like it's still a lot of crafted rather than automated at scale approaches, which is like, we're going to do it for 50 cities at first and then kind of learn in the way and try to do it everywhere. Compared to Google where it's photogrammetry, for example, for the 3D maps, which is we're going to take satellite images and we're going to try to reconstruct them with an algorithm. It seems like, yeah, it's more of a philosophy as well than like just for that.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, there's there's some things. I mean, I've talked about this in, you know, in stuff I've written about. I have an industry blog called Map Happenings where I write a lot about about this stuff. And I think it is a difference in philosophy. And the way I like to characterize it is I think if you distill it down, I think Apple is more about curated experiences. Yeah, so you wrote about that. And whereas Google and perhaps others are more about crowdsourced experiences where they crowdsourced information and they try and process that crowdsourced data in an intelligent way to, you know, keep the good stuff and drop the bad stuff. And give people a good experience that way. Certainly with the indoor maps or the indoor directions for public transit, it was very much a if you like a very expensive manual approach to collect all that information. But I think it paid off. I think that curation paid off for the indoor maps that Apple was later to do for airports and shopping centers. Yes, it was very much a similar effort in that, you know, the indoor maps were manually created from floor plans. But I think a lot of effort was was put in place and Apple actually invented a lot of the technology and and and and standards to do this to make creating indoor maps easier. So if you think about. So I guess the point I'm trying to make is it's not just that, you know, kind of very expensive curating approach. You know, in the indoor map side, Apple created a, you know, we found that all of the maps that we were getting from organizations from airports and shopping centers commonly came in floor plan format and CAD drawing format computer aided design format. And everyone digitizes their floor plans differently. And so it made it very expensive to convert those floor plans. You know, some people would call a space a space. Some people would call a space a unit. Some people would call a space a room. Some people would digitize the the walls with a single line. Some people would digitize the walls with two lines that don't thickness the wall. So converting those floor plans to an indoor map was very expensive. And so in order to try and automate that. The maps team invented a data standard or a data specification, which later became a standard called IMDB or the indoor mapping data format. And they later kind of pushed that to OGC, the open geospatial consortium. And got the the members of the OGC to to vote on that and that's now become. An industry standard for indoor maps. So that whole process of training IMDF, which which Apple really pushed helped the industry and it helped raise the tide for all boats. To make indoor mapping just a much easier thing to do and make data or exchange for indoor maps a lot easier.