🗺 (Who will be) America’s Next Big Mapping Company?

Paul Ramsey considers who might be in the best position to challenge Google as the next mapping company:

Someone is going to take another run at Google, they have to. My prediction is that it will be AWS, either through acquisition (Esri? Mapbox?) or just building from scratch. There is no doubt Amazon already has some spatial smarts, since they have to solve huge logistical problems in moving goods around for the retail side, problems that require spatial quality data to solve. And there is no doubt that they do not want to let Google continue to leverage Maps against them in Cloud sales. They need a “good enough” response to help keep AWS customers on the reservation.

Because of mapping’s criticality to so many other technologies, any player that is likely to compete with Google needs to be a platform — something that undergirds and powers technology as a business model. Apple is kinda like that, but nowhere near as similar to an electric utility as AWS is.

👨🏽‍💻 Apple is Listening

With the release of the amazing new Mac Pro and other things announced at WWDC, it’s clear that Apple recognizes its failings in delivering for their historically-important professional customers. Marco Arment addresses this well here across the Mac Pro, updates to macOS, iPadOS, and the changes that could be around the corner for the MacBook Pro.

📱 iPadOS: Initial Thoughts, Observations, and Ideas on the Future of Working on an iPad

I’m excited to get iPadOS installed and back to my iPad workflow. This is a good comprehensive overview from Shawn Blanc, someone who has done most of his work on an iPad for a long time.