A Curious Phenomenon Called ‘Etak’ Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Or so said Steve Jobs when he announced iPhone in 2007. But I’m talking about a different revolutionary product. A foundational product that forever changed how everyone on this planet gets to where they need to be. Today, I’d like to tell you about the Etak Navigator, a truly revolutionary product and the world’s first practical vehicle navigation system. Here’s a picture of it: At the time, it was considered out-of-this-world. This is what Silicon Valley’s San Jose Mercury ..read more

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? So you think you know where you are? And how did you deduce that seemingly trivial fact, I wonder? Yes, dear reader, determining your location is no longer an arduous task. But you should quickly remember that for the average Joe or Jolie it’s only been that way for a very short while. It took the pervasive proliferation of those pocket computers we now all carry around to make it so. But only by 2016 did global penetration of smartphones cross 50%1, so you could argue that it’s only been 8 years since the majority of people on this planet have been able to quickly ..read more

Those Views from Above… To all of you young whippersnappers that take your many ‘entitlements’ way too much for granted: you simply have no inkling of just how lucky you are. To name just a few: The interweb Pervasive Wi-Fi (or ‘whiff-ee’ as those suffering from Frenchness have a habit of calling it) More than 128K of RAM or 1MB of storage space Abundant electricity Indoor loos In my day we had it tough. We were lucky to have a cup of tea — and a cup of cold tea at that. For those of us curmudgeons who’ve been in the mapping business for a while we should add one key item to this list: it’s ..read more

I’ve harped on about this before. In the last 10 to 15 years so called “mapping” organizations have veered more and more away from actual maps — in the true sense of the word — and have instead spent ungodly amounts of energy, time and money trying to recreate reality. And for god’s sake, why? No, I get it. It’s useful to help you get a feel for an unfamiliar neighborhood and perhaps its vibe. Unlike a simple aerial view you can swoop in, spin around and pretend you’ve suddenly morphed into some kind of acrobatic bird. Perhaps it all started when John Hanke got on stage at Tim O’Reilly’s ‘Wher ..read more

The Advent of Computer Based Mapping History is written by the victors. So said Winston Churchill. Or at least he is said to have said it. Whether or not he actually said it is up for debate. The background story is a tad more complicated. Regardless the quote is apropos to this week’s episode of Map Happenings. If do you a little research on the advent of computer based mapping all roads appear to point in the same direction. And that direction seems to be towards an English chap who in 1933 was born in Cambridge (England — not Massachusetts you fool!) His name is Tomlinson, Dr. Roger Frank T ..read more

Having followed (and worked on) the Apple Maps team for eons I’m always intrigued by the pace of Maps releases. Apple effectively has four versions of the Maps app: one for iPhone and iPad, one for Mac, one for Watch and one for CarPlay. As with many home grown Apple apps most of attention goes into the iOS version, although for Maps we’ve started to see more particular attention being paid to CarPlay and Watch. But if you happen to be anally retentive like me and take your time to dig into the iOS releases of Maps since 2012 you’ll find that the pace of announcements has been positively stutt ..read more

So back in August last year I wrote a post on the subject “Tsunami Warning: Indoor Maps“. In it I opined that for the last 30-40 years the mapping world has been missing something. 99% of the attention has been on mapping the outdoors and scant little attention has been paid to mapping indoors. As a consequence if you look at practically any popular map you’ll see it is peppered with little black holes — those black holes representing the many millions of building footprints around the world. And the boundary of every building footprint is like its own little event horizon: dare to cross the t ..read more

Well it’s not often I get interviewed. It’s also very seldom that I pay compliments to anyone suffering from Frenchness. But today, dear readers, both are true. Very recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the esteemed Maxime Lenormand for his excellent podcast, “Minds Behind Maps”. Somehow through expert and assiduous editing he even managed to make me sound somewhat coherent. Together we cover a lot of topics including the history of in-vehicle navigation systems, the dawn of internet mapping and lots of juicy gossiping about Google Maps and Apple Maps. So, if you’re prepared to ..read more

This jaded mapping curmudgeon has been in the industry a good few years and as a result has witnessed a few mapping epochs — the dawn of global digital street maps, the dawn of internet mapping and the dawn of mobile mapping to name just a few. Coupled with that I’ve seen the tools to make maps evolve too. Back when I was a wee spotty-faced lad there were no off-the-shelf software products that could be used to create maps bigger than a postage stamp. So you had no other option but to write your own map editing software. This stayed the same way for decades and is still much the case today. Th ..read more

So as many of you know I’ve been in the mapping business for a little while. Over the years I’ve come to experience many approaches and methodologies to map making. 1 When I embarked on my career at Apple Maps in 2013 I was already an avid Apple fanboy, having had my first exposure to Apple in about 1980 with the Apple ][ 2. So it wasn’t too hard for me to fit into the Apple culture. Apple ][ Computer from 1977 — Image Credit: Computer History Museum 2013 was a year after the disastrous Apple Maps launch and the Maps team was hiring like crazy to build a team that not only could build a great ..read more