I should have guessed that when I found the ‘Refine Location’ icon looking at me this morning, something else was up. Indeed, a closer inspection revealed that Apple Maps activated step-by-step walking guidance in augmented reality for the Tokyo area. No idea if other regions such as Osaka and Nagoya have also gotten it, kinda hard to check without being on site. I’ll update this post if new region details emerge.
It’s nice that Apple is finally doing something more with their Japanese image collected data than just Look Around and AR walking guidance has to be in place for iOS 16 indoor station maps. AR walking guidance is the perfect fit for a new kind indoor maps that navigate users through intricate, information dense underground station mazes like Shinjuku, Tokyo and Ikebukuro, the very places where Apple Image Collection backpacks are busy collecting data. We’ll find out at WWDC22. In the meantime it will be fun giving the new feature a good real world shakedown.
Apple Pay First up of course, is Apple Pay. After Jennifer Bailey’s WWDC21 appearance where she announced keys and ID for iOS 15 Wallet, and the separate Tap to Pay on iPhone announcement in January, I don’t think Jennifer will be in the WWDC22 keynote. She’s not going to appear just to explain that Apple Pay is not a monopoly, that’s Tim’s job with CEO level pay grade, nor is she doing to appear to just flesh out details of what’s already there. That’s what sessions are for, explaining things that I have been wishing for these past few years: an easier, more open Secure Element Pass certification process and/or new frameworks for developers to access the secure element for payments or use Tap to Pay on iPhone. There needs to a clearer path for developers who want to use the secure element for payments (Wallet) or iPhone as payment terminal (Tap to Pay on iPhone).
Apple needs to open up the NFC/Secure Element Pass certification process or clarify the process
The only possible ‘new’ Apple Pay Wallet feature I can think of is the ‘so long in the works it has gone moldy’ Code Payments. Lurking in the code shadows since iOS 13 or so, it has been around so long that Apple legal inserted official mention in a recent Apple Pay & Privacy web page update: “When you make a payment using a QR code pass in Wallet, your device will present a unique code and share that code with the pass provider to prevent fraud.” If Apple Pay delivers native device generated QR code payments without a network connection, just like all Apple Pay cards to date, it would be quite a coup but by itself, is not worth a Jennifer Bailey appearance. Other future goodies like passport in Wallet or My Number ID in Wallet are too far out to merit mention.
Apple Maps The only new Apple Maps feature that suggests itself is Indoor Maps for stations. That’s the conclusion I come up after examining the current (February ~ May 2022) backpack image collection in Tokyo, Osaka/Kyoto and Nagoya. It is highly focused on centrally located above ground and underground station areas. Stations like Shinjuku and Tokyo are entirely underground surrounded with extensive maze like malls.
This means Apple image collection backpacks are going inside for the first time. They are either collecting data instead of images, or doing it at pre-arranged times when people are scarce. This is hard to do at a place like Shinjuku station as there are multiple companies collectively managing the entire site (JR East, Odakyu, Keio, Seibu, Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, Tokyo Metro, just to name a few).
So far Apple has only used their image collection in Japan for Look Around, but the current version of Look Around doesn’t make sense for station interiors unless it is heavily modified with augmented reality place labels, directions for exits, transit gates and so on. The Apple indoor maps model for airports and malls is outdated and impossible to retrofit for information dense, tightly packed Japanese stations.
Apple needs come up with something new for indoor station maps to be successful on any level. The current version of AR walking guidance only works outdoors as the camera has to scan and match surrounding building profiles. A hybrid of stored Look Around images and AR walking guides might be a way forward. Station maps have special needs to seamlessly transition between indoor and outdoor guidance modes as users leave or enter stations on their walking route to the final destination.
Recent image collection suggests Indoor Station Maps might be coming in iOS 16Apple backpack Image Collection backpack is mostly focused on station areas
I’m not holding my breath but anything is better than what we have now and Apple is certainly up to something. A new and improved, AR enhanced “Look Around” style indoor map for stations would be far more useful for Japanese iPhone users than airports or shopping malls. Nobody does indoor maps well by the way, including Google Maps and Yahoo Japan Maps.
As most readers of this blog already know, I am not optimistic that Apple Maps in Japan can become a top tier digital map service. The local 3rd party map and transit data suppliers that Apple depends on to make up the bulk of the Japanese service are certainly not top tier and old problems remain unfixed. In the case of the main Japanese map data supplier things have deteriorated.
IPC was 100% owned by Pioneer supplying their car navigation system data, but was sold to Polaris Capital Group June 1, 2021 with a new CEO (ex Oracle Japan) named the same day. In January 2022 IPC was renamed GeoTechnologies Inc. Under hedge fund Polaris Capital Group management, GeoTechnologies has been busy inflating the number of cushy company director positions, never a good sign, and pushing out shitty ad-ware apps like Torima. The focus is leveraging assets not building them.
Apple’s Japanese map problem can only be fixed by dumping GeoTechnologies for Zenrin, or Apple mapping all of Japan themselves. Apple is not pursuing either option, the image collection effort in Japan is limited and its use remains restricted to Look Around. Until this changes, expect more of the same old Japanese map problems in iOS 16 and beyond. Apple Maps is a collection of many different service parts. Some evolve and improve, some do not. Let’s hope for a good outcome with the data Apple is collecting for indoor station maps.
Apple Typography TextKit 2 migration WWDC21 saw the unveiling of TextKit 2, the next generation replacement for the 30 year old TextKit, older than QuickDraw GX even, but much less capable. TextKit 2 marked the start of a long term migration with most of TextKit 2 initially ‘opt in’ for compatibility. We’ll find out how much of TextKit 2 will evolve to default on with an ‘opt out’. There are holes to fill too: the iOS side didn’t get all the TextKit 2 features of macOS such as UITextView (multiline text), some of the planned features like NSTextContainer apparently didn’t make the final cut either. We should get a much more complete package at WWDC22. Once the TextKit 2 transition is complete, I wonder if a Core Text reboot is next.
watchOS 9 Express Cards with Power Reserve? Mark Gurman reported that watchOS 9 will have “a new low-power mode that is designed to let its smartwatch run some apps and features without using as much battery life.” While this sounds like Express Cards with Power Reserve (transit cards, student ID, hotel-home-car-office keys) and it might even mimic the iPhone feature to some degree, I doubt it will be a full blown version. Power Reserve is a special mode where iOS powers down itself down but leaves the lights on for direct secure element NFC transactions. iOS isn’t involved at all.
Real Power Reserve requires Apple Watch silicon that supports the hardware feature, it cannot be added with a simple software upgrade. Until that happens, a new watchOS 9 low-power mode means that watchOS still babysits Express Cards, but anything that gives us better battery life than what we have now is a good thing.
I was surprised to see Japan listed for real-time transit in the iOS Feature Availability page. It’s a recent addition but nothing has changed in iOS 15 Apple Maps Japan transit directions, it’s delivering exactly the same transit info since the iOS 15 release, which itself was the same as iOS 14. Apple is slapping a new label on an old product.
It’s helpful to compare Japan so-called real-time transit with other regions that have had it for some time: Boston, New York, Los Angles.
On-timeDelayScheduled
Scheduled vs On-time departure It’s very easy way to tell when real-time transit is real: upcoming departure time will display a colored network icon, green for on-time, red for delay. There are other real-time departure time notifications for updated departure-times and cancelled trains. This is the basic ‘real’ real-time transit benchmark.
More advanced Apple Maps real-time transit locations also incorporate train positions on the map and in the time schedule sheet but not all real-time listed regions have this (Boston does, NYC does not, etc.).
the most advanced real-time transit regions display train position on the map
Apple Maps JP transit directions only show static scheduled departure times pulled from the transit supplier time table server, the same data since Japan transit launched in October 2016. Static ‘scheduled’ times do not update regardless of delay or stoppage warnings. The result is confusing, unreliable transit information that Apple calls ‘real-time transit’.
Google Maps JP, of course, does it real. Here’s a comparison of the different information presented by Apple and Google for the same delay on the JR Shonan-Shinjuku line. Google updates departure times, Apple does not.
Apple Maps JP does not incorporate the delay into departure timesGoogle Maps Japan does
Google incorporates live train positions and also include train car and station crowdedness information…all missing from Apple Maps.
Google Maps Japan real-time train positions
As Apple and Google both use the same transit information supplier Jourdan you would expect them to deliver the same service quality, but this is not the case. Why? Google Maps also incorporate real-time transit information from JR Group companies and private transit operators. JR East for example supplies live train position and individual car information (crowdedness, temperature) that they use for their own app to the Public Transportation Open Data Center (PTODC). Japanese real-time transit information is readily available but Apple Maps does not go the extra step of incorporating this information and advertise static scheduled transit times as ‘real-time’.
JR East App Chuo LineJR East App Yamanote LineJR East App Yamanote Line car info
UPDATE 2022-03-22: Apple has removed Japan from Real-Time Transit. A sloppy mistake or something else? Either way it’s in line with the Apple Maps JP ‘half progress, half incompetence’ experience.
Dear Apple Maps JP team: this cute rabbit stone lantern in front of Myohoji temple main hall is not the cemetery
In the latest Apple Maps Japan installment of how not to run a digital service, we can now add graveyards to the long list of things done poorly or incompetently. About a month ago I noticed new Point of Interest icons appearing on temple buildings close to traditional ‘manji’ Buddhist temple Point of Interest icon marks. The new POI is a western style gravestone with a flower, but the new icon names are in English, not Japanese. As they appeared to be duplicate Point of Interest information I reported them as duplicates which is not easy to do in the current Apple Map problem report mechanism.
Soon the new icons were everywhere and I realized that Apple Maps was attempting to mark cemeteries inside temple compounds but making a mess of it: randomly labeling temple halls as cemeteries instead of correctly identifying cemetery areas in temple compounds or nearby in separate plots of land. As you might expect there are also problems with the POI information, web links don’t always work, addresses are incorrect for contacting cemetery offices, etc. And then there are user ratings.
As a rule Apple Maps locks user ratings for public and religious institutions, limiting them to places of business (restaurants, etc.). This is the sensible and right thing to do. Unfortunately the new cemetery POI allows user ratings. I can only imagine this is a system error that needs to be fixed.
The whole affair is classic Apple Maps Japan: Apple signs up a new POI data provider but doesn’t vet any of the data quality, loads it into the system and boom. Duplicates and mistakes all over the place, literally, that can stick around for years. Currently Myohoji temple in Koenji has: 2 manji POI, one from Recruit Jalan that marks the temple office, one from another public based source that marks the cemetery, and 1 new English only cemetery POI icon that marks a nice little stone lantern in front of the main hall.
It’s a mess that could have been avoided with a minimal amount of data verification and vetting, not even checking to make sure the data is localized for Japanese. Wasn’t the new Apple Maps supposed to fix this? I guess Apple doesn’t consider it a problem. I say it again, the more I use iOS 15 Apple Maps, the less I like it.
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