Jeffrey Van Camp/Digital TrendsApple wants to improve Maps — but it needs your help. The company is expected to unveil a program that allows freelancers to be compensated for checking and correcting Apple Maps results, according to a report by French blog iGeneration via 9to5Mac.
The program is called TryRating, and thanks to the interface developed by Apple, it is quite easy to use. Workers enter a search query and are presented with a series of Map results. They must then analyze the results, answering questions about the accuracy of names, addresses, pin locations and other details.
From there, Apple aggregates the results of many individuals interpreting the same query, reaching a consensus on how to update the location. And, unsurprisingly, the company is very clear about how workers should judge each listing, supplying them with a 200-page guidebook.
Workers will reportedly be paid 54 cents per task, although they are limited to making up to 600 cents per week. The system is not entirely different from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk model, which connects clients with a network of freelancers to solve a series of what it calls human intelligence tasks.
Apple Maps may have been in the doldrums when it came out in 2012, but the service has thrived in its first five years. However, it is still weak in usage compared to Google Maps, which may explain this initiative. While Google relies on millions of users to drive improvements, Apple employs only hundreds of independent contractors. And, ironically, the company instructs them to verify these results by any method available — even if that means using Google Street View.
While Apple could and probably does use artificial intelligence to improve the Maps experience, there are certain judgments that only real people can make. The iGeneration report gives the example of French users searching for “Brest,” and Apple Maps returning a result for a city in Belarus, instead of a French port city. Apple later fixed that issue in an update. In such cases, AI alone cannot determine relevance. Human input is required to some degree, which means the TryRating program should ultimately make Apple Maps a much more reliable navigation resource.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn