Où allez-vous?

Two French tourists look over a map of San Francisco while
at the San Francisco Visitor Information Center near
Union Square (Chronicle photo)

Our glove compartment used to be stuffed with maps. Part of travel planning was deciding which additional maps to take and whether we had to run to the Auto Association to pick up one that was not in our library. On solo journeys I pulled over when lost, because wrestling with a large sheet of paper while driving was even more hazardous than peering at a 6-inch screen.

The joy of maps, like newspapers, is inexplicable to the young. Clumsy to handle and non-interactive (you had to look for Broadway, not enter it in your search bar and have Broadway come to you), maps aren't around much anymore. They still can be found at visitor centers, but it's only a matter of time...

I'm Watching You Watch Me

At the local Mickey D's the Google driver was on lunch break. In San Mateo County condos, townhouses, and apartments are springing up on every privately owned patch of dirt, accompanied by a few new roads that need to be mapped from above and from the street.

Despite the expensive electronics, the car is totally theft-proof; everyone knows it's watching them watch it.

Proud of Something Trivial on Friday Afternoon

The usual route to the South King St. destination was to head northwest on Kapiolani, make a right on Piikoi, then right on South King, a driving time of 8 minutes. (On the map, start in the bottom right corner, go left, then up, then right, on streets marked in gray.)

Google Maps was smart enough to incorporate announced road closures from President Trump's visit and propose a circuitous route (pictured). However, the first recommended step--right on Kapiolani--was a non-starter; traffic on Kapiolani Blvd. was at a standstill.

And so it was that your humble blogger embarked on a journey that resembled a maze---winding roads, walls (i.e., police cars) that blocked promising routes, and going back in order to move forward.

Fortunately the GPS Navigator in the Nissan had no feelings, because I ignored her instructions 90% of the time (no, turning left leads to a closure, Nissan, so I'm turning right). The Navigator was useful in bypassing little neighborhood streets that had become one-way--yes, traffic is that bad--during the past 40 years.

It took 20 minutes to travel the 3 miles (normally 1.4 miles) to get there, but at least I wasn't stuck like the non-kama'ainas. Betcha I would have beaten the driverless cars, too.

The Solution to Driver Fatigue

Syncing up their smartphone's address book
proved a little daunting for some of the grayhairs.

When we last bought a new car, all the controls could be figured out without consulting the manual. The advanced features were airbags and a CD player. Now there are volumes to read and classes to attend. We are not averse to technological change: recent close calls have revealed the importance of innovations like blind-spot monitoring and back-up cameras.

The Google driverless car (CNN photo)

However, the electronics seems to have been bolted on top of and not fully integrated with the automobile framework.

Until we get to the next generation of "smart" automobiles (some of which will be autonomous), driving will be complicated and messy, much as wireless phones were before the iPhone. The Apple Car and the Google car can't come soon enough.

[Note: every car we've owned we've held longer than 10 years and 100,000 miles. Due to rapidly changing technology, however, the next one will be a 3-4 year lease.]

Ubiquitous Presence

Spotted near SFO today on Hwy 101

A familiar sight on Bay Area roads--and in many towns across the country--is Google's Street View Car. Street View has been criticized for showing what the front of everyone's house looks like, but that's the point, isn't it? Google also has not been forgiven by vehement critics for scooping data from unprotected wi-fi networks 4-9 years ago but seems to have weathered the public relations storm.

Because the benefits of Google Maps and Street View far exceed the costs (zero out-of-pocket for most people, who aren't very concerned about privacy because "they have nothing to hide"), those applications have expanded rapidly in popularity. Someday, acceptance could even grow into universal love.

O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Google. -- With apologies to George Orwell

© 2014 Stephen Yuen

Apple, Bitten

Apple's market cap has fallen $118 billion since Google Maps was removed September 19th.

Other companies (GE, Microsoft, Cisco, AIG) have fallen further in market capitalization, but Apple's recent drop is nonetheless remarkable in a non-crisis year. A scant 44 days ago AAPL had been rising on the heels of the iPhone 5 announcement and the rumored iPad mini. Then the new operating system, IOS 6, was released.

The premature removal of Google Maps was one of the greatest blunders in Apple's 36-year history. Apple knew that it was taking a chance but underestimated the negative reaction:

in breaking with Google and giving iPhone users worse maps than before, Apple has gambled on three things. First, that users will like its maps’ embedded content. Second, that it will be able to improve fast. And third, that the allure of the iPhone and the loyalty of Apple’s fans will buy it time. After all, people do not buy smartphones for the maps alone, and queues for the iPhone 5 were every bit as long as for previous incarnations of the revered device. But Apple has more catching-up to do than it expected. In a market where brands can rise and fall fast, it may also have less time than it thought.

The removal of a single app, important as it may be, wasn't the reason that the market values Apple $118 billion less. Now that Steve Jobs is gone, Apple is beginning to look like just another good but not extraordinary company. The revolutionary product in the pipeline may well be a myth.

It's going to be an uphill slog back to $700 per share.

[Disclosure: I am long Apple.] © 2012 Stephen Yuen

Cheap But Not Stupid

The car wouldn't start because the battery was drained. (I was in the City, 30 miles from home, so solutions were limited.) I called AAA, and the tow truck came in less than an hour. The driver took less than a minute to jump-start the engine and five more minutes to fill out the paperwork. I was soon on my way.

For most of the 38 years that I've been with triple-A I mainly used the membership to get free street maps. Now that paper maps are obsolete, I had briefly considered canceling the membership, but common sense prevailed. A person whose cars average 15 years of age needs to have a roadside assistance plan. It's okay to be cheap (see reference to 15-year-old cars in previous sentence) but not stupidly so.

Raising the hood not only signals the tow truck but invites birds to perch.

Left by the Side of the Road

Hard to miss a turn with Apple's Maps

Apple's new-product releases introduce technologies that become industry standards. Nearly as significant are the technologies that Apple stops supporting along the way. Apple was one of the first to discontinue built-in floppy disk drives, then optical drives, on its computers. Steve Jobs provoked a furor when he explained "why we do not allow [the widely used Adobe] Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads."

The iPhone 5, set to be released on September 21st, has at least two "left behind" features amidst all the cutting-edge hoopla. The iPhone 5 has a new connector that doesn't work with ancillary equipment built for the iPod, iPad, and old iPhone. Some Apple customers have to spend thousands of dollars upgrading or adapting their equipment.

Google Maps has more detail.

But the most criticism seems to have been reserved for the abandonment of Google Maps in favor of Apple's own Maps application.

The criticism poured in world-wide as users of the new maps found misplaced labels for businesses and landmarks, cities with missing roads and erroneous features like a fractured river in Ann Arbor, Mich. A search for the Golden Gate Bridge yielded a marker roughly four miles away in San Francisco.

Apple has a history of gauging just how much inconvenience its customers are willing to tolerate without jeopardizing sales of its latest offering. I suspect this controversy will blow over as well, especially as Apple Maps is improved in later versions of the operating system.

Note: Google Maps is far from perfect either. Yesterday a colleague had a meeting at NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara. He typed in the address, 2701 San Tomas Parkway, Santa Clara, and Google Maps sent him to a location north of Highway 101.

If he had just typed "NVIDIA," Google Maps would have steered him straight. He would have exited south from Hwy 101 and gotten to the meeting on time.

© 2012 Stephen Yuen