Keep Running...

I moved to wordpress.

The new blog address is "https://yetanotherblogpage.wordpress.com"

I have migrated all these articles there. This blog will be deleted in couple of months.
See you at the new site!

Internet
Internet is that to data, what road is to goods.
But unlike most roads which are maintained by Govt, Internet is maintainted by Private operators (Telephone/Cable operators etc. These are called ISPs -Internet Service Providers). There are some roads maintained by Private operators (toll roads), but I am not aware of any Govt ISP. So to compare apple to apple, we should compare Private ISP to Private road operators.

Services
Apps/website (email, video, e-commerce, messaging, call etc) are services which carry different kinds of data over internet. These are analogous to various services (cabs, parcel delivery, packers and movers, ambulance etc) that carry goods/people over road.

The Argument
Net Neutrality is said to exist, when anyone(subscriber) having access to internet, gets uniform treatment from ISP for all Apps/websites they access.
i.e App owners shouldnt be allowed to pay ISP to provide free/high speed access to their apps from the subscribers.

Ok, now I need to coin a new term Road Neutrality :) to explain anologous scenario.
In line with Net Neutrality definition, it might sound like, "Road Neutrality is said to exist, when anyone(road user) having access to roads, gets uniform treatment from road operators for all services.
i.e Service provider shouldnt be allowed to pay road operators to provide better services to end customers.

Lets take a scenario. Lets say a Road operator "RO" has two road connecting city-A to "city-B". One is a low-toll road (LTR) and another is a high-toll road(HTR) which is a high speed road. There are two packers and movers (PM-premium and PM-economy). Both  move household goods from city-A to city-B, but PM-premium does it in half the time.

How is that possible? Because PM-premium takes the high speed HTR by paying higher toll but PM-economy takes LTR by paying lower toll.

So if I send half of my house' goods with PM-premium and the rest with PM-economy, some of my goods travel faster to destination but some travel slower! Oh crap! this is not Road-Neutrality

PM-premium also provides free transport on the third transaction. How do they do that. Because they pay the road toll from their pocket to transport my goods. Oh crap! again this is not Road-Neutrality.

So in a Road-Neutral scenario how will things look like.
Only I can pay road toll to transport my goods; Packers and movers cannot.
So to transfer half of my goods in HTR and other half in LTR, I will have to purchase toll for both, and ask the packers and movers to transport the goods.
Becuase I paid the road toll, packers and movers will charge me a lower tariff. So at the end of the day, I end up paying the same.

In Road-Neutral case, I have to pay road operator some amount and packers and movers some amount to get a service. In Road-non-Neutral case, I just pay the packers and movers and they take care of everything. In both cases I paid the same amount but Road-non-neutral looks more convenient  as I have to pay only one person instead of two.
Also, since packers and movers carry goods from multiple people at once, they can bargain for discounted road toll (economies of scale), which I as an individual cannot. So even there, non-neutral case looks more effecient.

The same line of reasoning can be applied to net-neutrality. So, it looks like net-neutrality or not, it is not going to impact the end customer in terms of cost of service. But allowing more flexibility for nuanced agreement between App owners and ISPs might make the service more effecient and make it more convenient for end user. What should be checked is monopoly! as usual.

It is kind-of free-market vs regulation argument. Click this link which explains it in detail. So as an end user, probably we shouldnt be spending much time on this. I spent enough time writing this article. Retrospectively, I think I should have spent this time listening to my podcast back-logs. I'm off for now. I am very much interested in hearing you out on this topic! Feel free to leave a comment.

Someday, I want to experience the gorgeous salt flats of "Salar di Uyuni, Bolivia". (Google for images if you haven't heard of the place! Its out of the world). Lets assume I am in Uyuni. When the dusk casts its cold dark blanket, how do I find the nearest shelter? Can someone help me out? Odds are that my phone would be more reliable and helpful, than its creators!

More specifically, I am talking about the creatures called Digital Navigation Assistants(ah! the short form sounds cool. Lets call it DNA from now) who dwell in these phones.


So, lets find out, which DNA is better in what aspect, and appeals to whom!

There are quite a few DNAs out there. But today, I will limit myself to "Google Maps"(GM) and "Here Maps"(HM). This selection is not based on any analysis, but just the simple fact that, I have spent time with only these two.

First, let us ask what are the basic qualities we would like to see in a DNA?

1. Point of Interest (Of course, I should be able to search the name of the shelter in Uyuni, my friend recommended)
2. Routing (I am too tired exploring Uyuni whole day. It should show me the shortest path)
3. Navigation (Cycling on Uyuni's salt flats would be memorable. Listening to audio navigation while cycling would be a nice touch)
4. Map (Today is done. What places shall I visit tomorrow. I need a map of my vicinity)

Point of Interest
This would enable me to search the shelter in Uyuni.
But for simplicity, let us search places in Bangalore now.

Search for nearby airports:


Search for a niche establishments:




Both GM and HM have scope for improvement here. Both seem to directly show the location, if search result has only one entry.
Notice that in the first case (Gopalan sports center), HM couldn't find the place and in the second case (Mandovi Motors), GM couldnt find the place.

Partial name search:


This is another high frequency need. Most of the time, I don't remember the full name of the establishment to search.
Though GM didn't report partial match, it did report contextually related POIs; which is nice, but only after reporting partial match.
And HM was able to provide search results even without an internet connection. (check Offline section below)

Overall, both seem to be neck to neck in POI search.


Routing
Get me my shortest route!

Alternate route list:


HM has a better interface with more efficient use of screen space. Notice that HM displayed three routes in the screen while GM displayed only two.
HM also reports possible traffic delay in minutes (though it is not accurate I heard. Shout out: Here team, you need to get more accurate on this)
I couldn' think of any use of GM's miniaturised map preview.

Selected Route overview:


Regarding interface, I find HM's reporting to be less noisy than GM's, with focus on the route.
GM's interface has redundant information too. Eg: It says, from "Your location" to "Airport". "Your location" is redundant. Of course I am going to drive from my location.
HM gives a polished treatment by saying just "To: Airport".

During the drive:




HM has both 3D and 2D route display, but GM lacks 3D

Like GM, HM too displays the next turn in large letters at the top, in driving mode. On zooming, HM removes the large display temporarily till we click back, but GM doesn't. The pictures shown here are captured when in zoom state.

In this area, HM has quite a few capabilities which GM doesnt


HM's Night Mode



You can ask HM to auto switch day/night mode too.
Above is HM's 3d night mode in action


HM's Route Options



You can configure HM to pick only specific kind of roads (e.g. don't take unpaved roads, or toll roads etc). 


HM's Speed Limit Alert

Photo courtesy: 360.here.com

HM knows your road's speed limit signs and alerts you when you overshoot the limit.

Overall, in this area of routing, HM beats GM hands down, with several capabilities missing in GM.


Navigation
Could you please provide me turn by turn voice guidance?

Both GM and HM provide equally good english guidance.
However, HM provides guidance in other languages too, and without internet connection too.



Hmm,so your grand-mother or grand-father could listen to the navigation in hindi, while travelling with you, and suggest some short-cuts or course correct you!

Again, HM has an upper hand in this area.


Maps
What does my surrounding look like?



HM seems to have a sleeker interface here.
In HM, traffic info is neatly embedded without calling for attention, whereas in GM it is almost on the face. Also notice that in GM, traffic lines appear over the road names, whereas in HM the road names are not clouded.

HM also seems to have a better progressive disclosure of info than GM.

Accuracy of traffic data(especially red lines and missing data from some roads), is better in GM. Regarding red lines, one possibility is that HM has a higher threshold than GM. Even if we discount that, there are couple of roads where HM doesn't have traffic data.

Indoor maps



Both have this capability, but HM seems highly polished in this area, including 3D rendering.

On zooming close to the shopping complex, HM shows a 3D view, whereas GM starts showing the floor selector, as seen in the image above.

Entering inside the building



Search Inside Building



Thanks to additional capabilities and more refined interface, HM wins in this area.


Exclusive capabilities

GM's POI search in voice
It is quite accurate, even for non-native english accents.



HM's offline capabilities
HM can search POI, recommend routes, provide voice navigation in many languages, explore indoor maps etc etc, all without internet connection.
It requires internet only to report traffic data.

In addition, these offline map data occupies very reasonable disk space. Eg: Data for entire Indian country would be just 1491 MB!



So, here we have the two DNAs shredded into pieces.
Now, you pick the one compatible with you, and lug it around.

PS: This comparison was on the updated versions of both apps, as available in google play on 14th - Feb - 2015