Yesterday we performed a Field Test of the turn-by-turn directions on both the iOS 6 Apple Maps app on the iPad and Google Maps on a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Both fared pretty well with getting us to our destinations, but Google Maps came out on top. As we pointed out yesterday, a number of people have been complaining about the Apple Maps app, from inaccuracies to poor directions.

Today, in part two of our testing, we did a number of searches for landmarks and other destinations to see how each app performed. After only a couple of tests, it was clear Google Maps was easily the superior app with much more information than Apple's replacement Maps app.

To test out the apps, we focused on four different aspects of local search results: info windows, generic search terms, accuracy of landmarks, and level of map detail. What becomes clear very quickly is... [Read more]

Apple's Maps.

Nokia has found a vulnerability in Apple's armor, and it's taking advantage.

The mobile company yesterday posted a blog on its site discussing the value of its mapping applications. Although some gloating might have been warranted, Nokia just couldn't help itself from taking a few swipes at Apple and Google.

"Unlike our competitors, which are financing their location assets with advertising or licensing mapping content from third parties, we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps," the company wrote. "In other words, we truly understand that maps and location-based apps must be accurate, provide the best quality and be accessible basically anywhere. That's been standard practice at Nokia for the past six years, and we also understand that 'pretty' isn't enough."

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Google Maps in the browser in iOS.

Google is planning to offer up its Maps application to iOS users, according to a new report.

The Guardian reported last night, citing sources, that Google is working on an application that will be available through Apple's App Store. That application will likely deliver the same Google Maps experience users had in previous versions of iOS.

Apple sent shockwaves through the mobile space earlier this year after announcing that it was removing Google Maps from iOS 6 and replacing it with its own Maps program. After iOS 6 launched earlier this week, Apple's software was quickly criticized for a host of errors and omissions, including missing cities, duplicated islands, and more.

That Google is working on a Maps application for iOS 6 seems to make sense. What doesn't make sense, though, are the rampant reports running across the Web suggesting Apple already has the Google Maps application in hand and might be slow to approve it.

The suggestion came from a tweet sent out yesterday by developer Steve Stroughton-Smith, who said that the Guardian's report "suggests they've heard that Google already submi... [Read more]

Welcome to Apple's maps

It's only been a day since iOS 6 went live, but the world has sounded with a Greek chorus of complaints over the new Maps app made by Apple.

In case you don't already know, iOS 6 makes a big change in your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch's mapping features. It removes the Google Maps app that you've long used and replaces it with Apple's home-baked mapping service. At first, you may not notice the change since the app's icon, and much of the interface looks almost the same. Once you try to use it, though, you'll see differences straightaway.

Maps woes in Apple iOS 6: How bad? (pictures)

• ... [Read more]

(Credit: Google)

The Android style guide was updated to include Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean Holo theme variations, and this is (thankfully) causing many apps to update their user interfaces. Change is good -- well, most of the time -- but what if you want to take a look at reviews that are only pertinent to your device? Or maybe you're only interested in opinions about the latest version? That's why the Google Play Store has filtering options, even though they're kind of hidden.

Here's how to access them:

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET) Step 1: Pull up an app in the Google Play Store on your Android device. Scroll down to the bottom of the user reviews on the main page and tap on See all.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

Step 2: On the next page that loads, press on the Options label.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

Step 3: In the pop-up window that appears, select the filters you wish to apply to the user reviews for the app.

Simple, right? The reason these filters are buried is unknown; putting them on the front page of the app's entry for Google Play would probably be more... [Read more]

(Credit: Spotify.com)

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The newest version of Spotify's mobile app now features a NFC (near-field communication) sharing ability. This new feature allows users to share albums, artists, playlists, profiles, or search results by tapping NFC-enabled Android devices together. However, it's worth noting that to get the best use of this feature, you'll want to be on a Premium Spotify membership so any shared music content can be played.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

To get started, you'll first want to make sure that NFC is supported and turned on for both devices. To do this, press the menu button and then Settings. When the menu loads, tap on More in the wireless area and check the box next to NFC. If you don't see this option, just look around in the wireless settings for the NFC menu item. Do this step for both Android devices.

[Read more]

Groupon Payments in action.

Groupon Payments, the daily-deals provider's answer to Square, is going nationwide.

The company announced on its blog yesterday that its merchants across the U.S. will now be able to sign up for Groupon Payments. Upon doing so, they'll be able to accept major credit cards by simply popping the Groupon card swipe accessory into an iPhone or iPod Touch and installing the associated iOS app. According to Groupon, payments processed through its service are deposited directly into merchant accounts overnight.

Groupon Payments users might find cheaper rates than they would with Square. The latter takes a flat 2.75 percent fee on all transactions. Groupon, on the other hand, charges 1.8 percent for Visa, MasterCard, and Discover. American Express costs 3 percent.

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iPhoto for iOS devices brings touch controls to photo editing.

Good news for all you Nikon D800 owners who have a third-generation iPad or are about to buy an iPhone 5: the new iPhoto 1.1 iOS app now can handle your 36.3-megapixel images.

iPhoto 1.0 for iOS, or version 1.1 on earlier iPhones and iPods, could handle only 19-megapixel images, which ruled out its use on photos from higher-end cameras such as Canon's 5D Mark II and Mark III and Sony's NEX-7.

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Solid Facebook support and links to webapps like Gmail are the key features of Opera Mini's "smart" Home page.

A single new feature called Smart Page is the capstone to Opera Mini 7.5 for Android (download), finally bringing to Android Mini fans a feature that iOS Mini got back at Mobile World Congress in February.

Launching today, the Smart Page is a single-serving site from which people can check their social networking feeds, news sites, and recommended links based on their region. The social networking feature works with Twitter, Facebook, and the European social networking vKontakte.

Opera Mini is best known as a cross-platform browser that offers "Turbo," a compression option that can reduce bandwidth use by up to 90 percent. It's a good option for people on rate-limited mobile services.

Somewhat confusingly, the Smart Page is actually labeled as the Home tab, and it resides next to the Speed Dial tab.

Dive into Cirque du Soleil's Web show, Movi.Kanti.Revo

Google Chrome and Cirque du Soleil have partnered to show off the potential of the modern Web with an all-HTML5 Cirque performance that's unique to the Web, called Movi.Kanti.Revo.

The name comes from the Esperanto terms for moving, singing, and dreaming, according to the official Movi.Kanti.Revo Google announcement, and the experience does go to great lengths to create a dreamlike world on the Web. During different scenes of Movi .Kanti.Revo (pronounced MOOV-ee CANT-ee REEV-oh), you can interact with the site by moving your body or speaking to your computer. If that sounds a lot like Microsoft's Kinect to you, you're not alone.

But unlike Microsoft's proprietary motion-sensing technology, Movi.Kanti.Revo is fully built in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript -- the same tools that power many modern Web sites and a growing number of mobile apps.

Cirque du Soleil's Gillian Ferrabee, creative director for images and special projects, couldn't recall precisely how Google and Cirque decided to partner, but said that she was instantly impressed with the first meeting between the two companies. "Interactivity and the [Webcam] reading your body were discussed in the first meeting with Google and Particle," which is the third-party company t... [Read more]

iOS 6 became available for download today, and if you want to get up to speed on what exactly is included with the update, check out my review here. Some of the major highlights are the completely redesigned Maps app, upgrades to Siri, and several other new features. But with iOS 6 there are more than 200 new features, and clearly I couldn't cover them all in my review.

Part of what makes this update a must-have for Apple's mobile devices are the numerous smaller tweaks that make using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch easier. I'm talking about the little conveniences that are an upgrade to previous versions that take away unnecessary steps or add a smart feature for your everyday phone use. I've rounded up four that I came across in my testing, but there are certainly many I could list here.

The Share button What used to be a simple list of buttons stacked on top of each other was functional, but it wasn't pretty. The number of buttons was also limited by screen real estate, and with new additions like Facebook integration, Apple needed to come up with a way to show more.

Now with iOS 6 you get a bunch of icons that spring into view when you hit the Share button. The look is a lot like the home screen and offers your standard share locations like Messages, Facebook, and Twitter, but you also have the new Shared Photo Stream button handy.

If you have been back in school and are still searching for the right note-taking app for your iPad, Notability brings a lot to the table, or desk in a lecture hall, as it were. This 99-cent app combines note-taking via keyboard of apps such as Drafts and Outline+ with the inking capability of a sketch app such as Paper. If your note-taking needs require both methods, I think you'll find a lot to like about Notability.

When you first launch the app, it opens to a document titled "Welcome to Notability." It's an interactive guide that shows how to navigate the app. In summary, a menu bar runs along the top of the screen. At its center are five tools buttons, which let you choose to type, write,... [Read more]

Along with Apple's OS X 10.8.2 update, the company has issued firmware updates for some of its latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models.

Apple's latest MacBook offerings are the 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and a 2012 revision of the older-generation MacBook Pro that does not have the Retina Display, along with the MacBook Air. Under some circumstances, these latest systems may experience hangs, or incompatibility with certain boot environments that prevent their hardware from running optimally, and these latest EFI firmware updates from Apple address these problems.

The updates should be available to relevant systems through Apple's Software Update service, but can also be downloaded from their respective Apple Support Downloads pages:

• MacBook Air EFI Firmware update 2.5 This update addresses a problem where the Turbo Boost feature of the Intel chips used in these systems may not work when using Windows in Boot Camp. In addition, it fixes a problems where NetBoot would not work when using an Ethernet adapter.
• ... [Read more]

Microsoft today released an update for Office 2011 for Mac that provides support for the Retina Display in Apple's latest MacBook Pro systems.

As explained in its Office for Mac blog, the update (version 14.2.4) gives the enhanced resolution support to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, and should give text and interface elements throughout the Office suite a sharper feel and look when used on Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

The update is available through Microsoft's AutoUpdate utility (from the Help menu in Office).

While this update may be beneficial for those who have Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro systems, Microsoft makes no note of the update offering any security or stability enhancements in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint for those who use the software on systems without Retina Displays. The only other enhancements and bug fixes in this update are to Outlook, which Microsoft has outlined in its Office 14.2.4 update page.

As always, be sure to back up your system before a... [Read more]

In addition to firmware updates for MacBook systems and updates for iPhoto, Aperture, iOS, and Mountain Lion, Apple has issued security updates for both OS X Snow Leopard and Lion.

The updates should be available via Software Update for systems running their respective operating systems, but they can also be downloaded from the Apple Support downloads pages for the respective updates:

OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Server Combo (1.99GB) OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Server (1.22GB) OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Client Combo (1.91GB) OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Client (1.14GB) Security Update 2012-004 Snow Leopard Server (276.45MB) Security Update 2012-004 Snow Leopard (2.36MB)

The security issues addressed by these updates include problems with Web sharing and DNS management services that could result in a denial-of-service attack on the system, and revocation of a compromised root certificate from TrustWave that could allow an attacker to intercept personal information.

In addition, updates to the systems' directory services, core image-handling libraries, kernel, and log-in window services fix bugs where attackers could sim... [Read more]

Following today's OS X 10.8.2 update for Mountain Lion, Apple has issued updates to iPhoto and Aperture, which bring the latest versions of the popular photo management suites to 9.4 and 3.4, respectively. The updates include a number of small bugs and fixes, along with new features and addresses several notable issues.

The first of these is both programs now support Shared Photo Streams in OS X Mountain Lion, which allows others to view Photo Streams you have set up in iCloud. In addition, the programs now support directly opening and editing a file from iPhoto in Apple's Aperture program and vice versa, if you have both installed.

More minor but significant features specific to iPhoto are the ability to add comments to photos that have been published to Facebook, and new card and calendar themes.

These updates requires OS X 10.8.2 to be installed, so if you have recently run Software Update and applied the latest OS update, be sure to check again and download the updates if you regularly use iPhoto or Aperture. The updates are around 757MB in size for iPhoto and 555MB for Aperture, and should not require a restart of your computer to install.

Besides being available through the App Store's Software Update routine, you can download a standalone updater for iPhoto 9.4 and for ... [Read more]

Long known for its DVD/media playback (PowerDVD) and disc authoring (Power2Go) tools, CyberLink also publishes a full suite of consumer-level photo- and video-editing software that includes powerful technology. In an exclusive release for Download.com, CyberLink's two flagship editing programs -- PhotoDirector for photography editing and management; PowerDirector for video editing and effects -- update to versions 4 and 11, respectively, including a new version of PhotoDirector for Mac. The company is also introducing two new video-production tools for audio -- CyberLink AudioDirector -- and color -- CyberLink ColorDirector, as well as a Director Suite that packages them all together for Windows users.

All of the CyberLink trials linked below last for 30 da... [Read more]

Some of the improvements coming to iOS 6.

Editors' note, 10:03 a.m. PT: Apple pushed iOS 6 live about 20 minutes ago. Get the full lowdown in CNET's review of iOS 6.

Apple's iOS 6 is definitely launching today. But when exactly? A new image that's popped up on the Web might just tell us.

Twitter user "JamesIsFierce" today posted what is purported to be a schedule of "release times for iOS 6." The image shows locations around the world with corresponding times. According to the image, the operating system will be made available to people in the U.S. and Canada at 10 a.m. PT. Folks in London will get their hands on the operating system at 6 p.m. local time.

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