And after the map fiasco, Apple started releasing public betas

Have you ever wondered why Apple started releasing public betas for its operating systems? The problems between those of Cupertino and Google for the copy of iOS made Apple begin to treat those of Mountain View as one more. For this they had to eliminate two applications that until iOS 5 had been installed by default: YouTube and Google Maps. The problem was that apple maps they did not start off on a very good footing.

What was the solution to that problem? Well, at first, Tim Cook had to recommend alternative applications, such as Waze, but they also took another measure: start releasing public betas so that any user could help improve maps and the rest of the iOS operating system, something that Steve Jobs would never have allowed. This was recognized by Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Software and Services, in an interview with Fast Company. The first public beta released was iOS 8.3 in early 2014.

If you like testing iOS betas, thank Apple Maps fiasco

We made significant changes to our entire development process for Maps. For all of us who live in Cupertino, the maps here were very good, right? So the problem was not obvious to us. We were never able to bring it to a large number of users to receive that feedback. Now we do it.

Cue says that Apple's maps were tested internally, but that its engineers did not test in an area large enough to allow them to anticipate errors or loss of information. To fill these gaps, Apple had to sign agreements with other companies, such as TomTom. On the other hand, there were very few people working on the project, when Google had hundreds on Google Maps and thousands of location specialists.

It must be recognized that since then it has rained a lot. Apple maps are almost a guarantee, but in my opinion they still have something to improve: their searches. I have tested their maps in fairly remote areas and they are reliable, but we still have to be precise when carrying out searches - for example, sometimes you have to put the name of the streets in the language of the area - in order to find an address. . When they achieve this, perhaps we can begin to say that Apple has put its maps on a par with Google Maps. Until then, what we can say is that we can install public betas ahead of time.