Courtesy of Next Web 

MapBox, a service for designing and publishing custom maps, has launched version 1.0 of its iOS SDK. According to MapBox, this release marks the ”completion of the [SDK's] first stage of functionality and stability” since it made its debut last year.

We originally highlighted the SDK, which is based on OpenStreetMap, post-launch for its high quality, customizable maps that challenged Apple’s own MapKit. Now, MapBox has received a number of new features and fixes, including improved documentation and changes which allow for easier memory management.

More specifically, MapBox shares that it has added a new code examples gallery, support for Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), improved documentation, code cleanups and consistency tweaks. Additional changes below:

• Added delegate callbacks for annotation selection & deselection notification.

• Added a long press gesture recognizer for annotation layers.

• Added an API for setting an SDK-wide custom user-agent string for network requests.

• Added a convenience method for MBTiles tile sources to more easily find them in your app’s bundle.

• Allow selection of a nil annotation in order to deselect the current annotation.

• Added an API for clearing MapBox marker local caching.

• Map views now default to a watermarked MapBox Streets map instead of OpenStreetMap.

• User location accuracy circle now bounces when first homing in on coordinate.

• Compass heading path now adjusts width based on heading accuracy reading.

• Annotation clustering API is now much simpler and easier to use.

• Privatized some header files to reduce clutter during Xcode autocompletion.

• Latest upstream improvements, including constraints, annotation z-ordering, and bounding box fixes.

For more on the evolution of the MapBox iOS SDK, head here.

According to a report, Senior Vice President Eddy Cue is "prodding digital maps provider TomTom to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple."

Apple is said to be asking TomTom for help as it tries to improve its Maps app.

According to a Bloomberg report, Senior Vice President Eddy Cue is "prodding digital maps provider TomTom to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple".

It seems unfair to single out TomTom as that company is not the primary source of the point of interest (POI) data in Apple's Maps; that data is currently provided by a number of sources including Yelp.

However, TomTom's data is crowd sourced so increasing the TomTom data it uses may help Apple fix its POI data.

According to the report, Apple is also "seeking advice from outside mapping-technology experts".

As Macworld reported back in September: "The issue plaguing Apple Maps is not mathematics or algorithms, it is data quality," according to TeleMapics.

TeleMapics blames the third-party data suppliers, but also Apple for not recognising that this data would be insufficient. "The companies that it (Apple) has assembled to create its application is that they are, as a whole, rated C-grade suppliers," according to the TeleMapics blog.

The data used by Apple included "business listing data from Acxiom and Localeze (a division of Neustar), supplemented by reviews from Yelp," explained the blog author.

In that report TomTom wasn't blamed for the issues: "I suspect that the data and routing functionality that they have from TomTom, while not the best, is simply not the source of their problems."

TomTom signed a deal in June this year to supply mapping information to Apple, and quick to defend itself in the uproar against Apple Maps. TomTom issued a press release claiming that its maps data provides only the "foundation" of the Apple's mapping software, while Apple "create their own unique application, which defines the user experience", reports Business Insider.

Cue has dismissed Richard Williamson, the man in charge of the mapping software project, according to reports.

This post was originally published on Mashable.

Google Maps beats Angry Birds in the iTunes charts.

Google Maps became the top free app in the Apple App Store just a few hours after it was released late on Thursday. Now, we know just how popular the app has really been.

Jeff Huber, the SVP of geo and commerce at Google, revealed in a Google+ post that the company's new maps app for iOS was downloaded more than 10 million times in less than 48 hours after it was released.

"We're excited for the positive reception of Google Maps for iPhone around the world," Huber wrote in the post. "Congratulations to the Maps Team on the recognition for the passion and hard work they poured into it, for this release and over the last 7+ years."

Few if any apps have been as hyped as Google's new Maps application for iOS. Apple replaced Google Maps with its own mapping application when it released iOS 6 in September. Apple customers quickly criticised the company's maps app for being rife with errors, prompting CEO Tim Cook to publicly apologise for it. Meanwhile, rumours circulated for months that Google was working on a new version.

Early reviews of the new Google Maps app have been incredibly positive, with Mashable's own Samantha Murphy writing that it puts Apple's maps app to shame.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt said in an October interview that Apple "should have kept" Google Maps on the iPhone because "they're better maps". He also made a joke in an interview with Stephen Colbert just before Apple Maps were again available to iOS 6 users. He said: "Google Maps are phenomenal. Ask an Apple user."

Courtesy of Cult of Mac

The iPhone 6 probably isn’t going to come out for another 18 months or so, but seems how it’s so far away, now seems like a great time to fantasize about possible features Apple might throw into the device based on patent filings.

Yesterday the US Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that showed Apple is considering adding hidden audio sensors into the displays of the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and maybe even the iTV if they get around to it. What wasn’t detailed was how Apple plans to use those sensors,  but one crazy idea is that Apple might use them to create sonar-maps kind of like in the movie The Dark Knight.

Remember how Batman took Lucius’ sonar concept and applied it to every cellphone in Gotham to create a huge sonar-based live map to find The Joker? Here’s a refresher if you don’t, but yeah, the Apple concept is kind of like that High Frequency Generator idea, only on a smaller scale.

What the patent indicates is that Apple wants to detect audio waves through a display assembly. The display assembly may include a screen and at least one electromagnetic energy emitter configured to direct energy at an inside surface of the screen.

The patent also states that at least one sensor could be configured to sense the emitted energy after it’s been reflected back. Altogether this new technology will allow Apple to make thinner iPhones with more advanced sensors.

A more practical feature Apple might use the tech for – other than Batman sonar – would be for purposes of proximity detection to turn off touchscreen features when your iPhone is near your face. But because Apple’s also patented a method of using sonar with the iPhone, it is possible that the technology could be used to detect large objects and build a 3D generated map to assist people in the dark.

The Batman sonar could be a huge aid to the blind by alerting them of upcoming objects in their path. Or it could just be used to fight crime. Either way is fine with us as long as Tim Cook isn’t sitting in an evil lair watching all of our dirty deeds spill out in beautiful high-resolution sonar.

Courtesy of CIO Today

When iOS 6 emerged in mid-September, Apple's Maps app replaced Google's, apparently part of the ongoing competition between the two giants. But Apple's Maps has received so many complaints and bad reviews that Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a rare apology to customers. Whether Apple would accept a rival Google Maps app for its App Store is unknown.

Google is readying a gift for users of iOS 6 devices. According to news reports, the technology giant is preparing to submit to Apple its Maps app for that new operating system.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Google has distributed a beta version to testers outside the company, and is putting on finishing touches. The paper cited "a person with direct knowledge of the matter."

This could set up the Battle of the Map Apps, as Google's popular application goes head to head with Apple's new, poorly received one. But acceptance on Apple's platform is not yet assured for Google. Apple-originated apps cannot be deleted, so Google's app would have to co-exist. Additionally, Apple is under no obligation to accept Google's offering into its App Store, and has been known to reject apps that compete with its own.

Apple's Maps Fiasco

When iOS 6 emerged in mid-September, Apple's Maps app replaced Google's, apparently part of the ongoing competition between the two giants. Apple had also replaced the native video player for Google's YouTube video site. Apple has claimed that it replaced Google Maps with its own because Google had been updating the version for its own mobile platform, Android, but not the one for iOS.

But Apple's Maps has received so many complaints and bad reviews that Apple CEO Tim Cook formally issued a rare apology to customers. In a letter posted on the Apple Web site in late September, he said that "we fell short" of the commitment to "make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers."

And, although it's not clear if it was related to the Maps fiasco, Apple iOS head Scott Forstall recently left Apple.

There have been many complaints about Apple Maps' accuracy, visual quality, and functions. For instance, there simply is no public transportation component currently for car, bus or pedestrian routes. Directions cannot be edited, so that, for instance, someone might get directions to a destination and, on the way there, decide to change transportation types midway by getting out of a car to walk.

Real World Accuracy

Other examples of missing or inadequate data: One blogger calculated that, compared with Google Maps, street view in Apple's Maps has been removed from 41 countries, traffic information from 24 countries, and transit information from 51 countries.

A graphic depiction of freeways in Oakland, Calif., shows some parts of the roads going vertically, and the location of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. is misidentified. Search functions in the app have also been criticized, in that even large search targets -- say, Canada -- are ending up with "no results found" until Wi-Fi was turned off, for some unknown reason.

The maps space is also heating up with another major effort, from Nokia. Earlier this week, the Finnish handset maker announced Here, a new brand that includes a mapping service for mobile devices using Windows 8, as its new phones are, as well as ones based on Android or iOS.

Here draws on the company's extensive experience and data related to maps, is being propagated to cars and handheld GPS devices, and will offer new functionality, such as real-time data overlays on street scenes when the app is used on Nokia phones.