Why doesn’t “Look Around” cover more areas?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maps.apple.com&#x2F;imagecollection&#x2F;privacy&#x2F;uk&#x2F;en&#x2F;privacy.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maps.apple.com&#x2F;imagecollection&#x2F;privacy&#x2F;uk&#x2F;en&#x2F;privacy...</a> has this comment on the historical image collection:<p><i>To ensure that Apple was applying the best image blurring technology possible, Apple conducted an entire year of test drives through the US and Europe in 2015, where it did not publish any of the imagery collected during these drives but used it instead to improve Apple’s technology such as image blurring techniques on such objects as faces and license plates.</i><p>This might explain some part of the delay between the earliest data collection and publication.

I love this type of article, and the effort put into it - but the main thing I can&#x27;t help but do is wonder what kind of person is driven to exhaustively research Apple Maps over a 5+ year period.

Another great article from this blog!<p>2017&#x27;s article from the same author [1] about Goggle Maps&#x27; use of photogrammetry and other building scanning techiques was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting HN submissions ever (its comment section[2] is also worth a read).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justinobeirne.com&#x2F;google-maps-moat" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justinobeirne.com&#x2F;google-maps-moat</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=15965653" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=15965653</a>

&gt;<i>...seem to suggest that Apple might be having issues algorithmically identifying POI information in its imagery. And if that’s the case, it raises interesting questions regarding Apple’s overall mapping effort...</i><p>Really? The quote sounds grandiose, but what &quot;interesting questions&quot; does it raise, aside from &quot;it&#x27;s not perfect&quot; (who would have thought) and &quot;what else might be missing?&quot;?

Didn&#x27;t realize so much of Canada was mapped. There&#x27;s some really good imagery of northern Canada and the rockies there.<p>I also noticed that the images don&#x27;t distort as much around the edges of the screen when rotating the view as compared to Google Streetview.

Seems like the vehicle switch could be well explained by a big expansion in the number of vehicles (so move to something that has lower lifetime cost).<p>A big expansion in vehicles might be motivated by trying to have fresh imagery for most of the country.<p>The POI issue could just be that they just don&#x27;t have a good POI database (because they all have problems).

Did anyone else misinterpret the title and think it was about the educational &quot;Look Around You&quot;[1] series?<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;60825116" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;60825116</a>

Did anyone actually finish this article? It felt like it was building towards something really interesting but could have used just a bit more editorial discipline.

One small nitpick<p><i>&gt;&quot;Nor did it explain why, a week later, most of Southern Canada (a predominantly English-speaking region) also shipped without POIs&quot;</i><p>is followed by a snapshot of Quebec City (the french-speaking capitol of the french province) as evidence.

TL;DR since most people (understandably) didn&#x27;t have the patience to read through the lengthy, drawn out, repetitious build-up of false-endings in the article:<p>It looks like Apple threw away all data collected by their first (van-based) Look Around driving effort in the US. All released imagery is from their most recent Subaru-based re-driving of the US.