Take A Closer Look At The Icon For Apple's Terrible Maps App

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Take-A-Closer-Look-At-The-Icon-For-Apple-s-3898650.php

by option_greek • 14 years ago

11 10 14 years ago

mc32• 14 years ago

The app has many shortcoming sure. But criticizing an icon is getting petty. Icons are abstractions of items, not the item. So, while it could be used as representative of the problems of the map in an editorial way, it's not really a problem.

swighton• 14 years ago

Precisely. The maps icon has basically taken the on-ramp for the highway and abstracted it away for simplicity. Because there actually is an on ramp that you turn left onto after the overpass this icon is accurate.

If they had included the amount of detail shown in the second accurate picture on the link it would look completely cluttered and amateur.

krrrh• 14 years ago

Bashing Apples map app has jumped the shark.

eyeareque• 14 years ago

This is funny, but I think that apple maps is just fine. I like the new maps app and don't understand the huge deal people are making this into.

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

Presumably you live in a place where they haven't completely mucked everything up...

bonzoesc• 14 years ago

The icon is rendered in a quarter of a square inch. Making it abstract and not directly representative is for legibility and visual reasons. Anyone navigating based off the icon for a navigation app deserves to drive into an overpass piling, because they would undoubtedly endanger others if they were on the road.

sambeau• 14 years ago

Now I see that all icons are lies!

A calculator with four buttons isn't useful.

Why is my letter flying off into the sky.

This minute hand is 20 minutes to the hour but the hour hand is clearly at 10.

Why hasn't this little green Android's arms fallen off?

jcfrei• 14 years ago

steve jobs would have never allowed this! is this the beginning of apples demise?! etc.... a funny find though, made me chuckle!

pettazz• 14 years ago

When did it become "terrible"? It has some problems that are a result of being brand new and behind Google's years of experience, but I don't think any of this warrants being "terrible."

We saw this criticism of the icon when the beta came out as a "lol, that's mildly entertaining" months ago. It's just an icon. It's not supposed to be used as literal directional advice. Do these people really expect them to put the very slight angle of the on-ramp in an icon?

This is starting to get really painfully ridiculous.

mattparcher• 14 years ago

Note: the linked article was not originally written by SFGate or the San Francisco Chronicle, but rather republished from Business Insider (the small logo to indicate this seems a bit subtle to me).

I would argue that this is a worthwhile distinction, in that Business Insider is generally regarded as being closer to the inflammatory and attention-grabbing nature of a tabloid than a traditional news publication—though I recognize that they are simply one of many popular outlets using similar tactics.

Take A Closer Look At The Icon For Apple's Terrible Maps App

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