Maps
Maps
[Cueball is holding his hands up and is staring down at his open palms. Megan and White hat is looking at him.] Cueball: You look around one day and realize the things you assumed were immutable constants of the universe have changed. Cueball: The foundations of our reality are shifting beneath our feet. Cueball: We live in a house built on sand.
[Caption below panel] The day I discovered that Apple Maps is kind of good now

The term "map" carries a double meaning within this comic. While it refers to an actual map, it also refers to the concept of "map and territory," where your map is your model of the universe, and the territory is the universe itself. Cueball has a map of the universe where Apple Maps is bad, and is surprised to discover that the map no longer fits the territory, and thus has to update his map.
The title text mentions OpenStreetMap , an open-data crowd sourced geodatabase, which has also improved since Randall has last checked, potentially moving it from a "pretty good" score to a "really good" score. He also adds two examples on how the Apple Maps service has improved: zooming in on cities, like London or New York you can see features like trees and road markings, the latter usually not visible on other mapping services at all. He marvels at the number of "good" mapping options now!
Google Maps itself, and especially its satellite coverage outside the US, was considered quite bad when it launched in 2005. The maps displayed back then led to mockery among "real" cartographers that the service couldn't really be considered a map, either: It was called "map-like", with casual digital maps being so new at the time. However, Google's popular mapping approach revolutionized how maps were perceived all over the world. The approaches Google uses are explained in How Google Maps is Made . This approach blurs the lines between traditional paper maps, GIS (geo-informational systems) and digitally rendered maps on screen. The process of "mapping" - as it is referenced here - has since moved significantly into the digital realm.
[Cueball is holding his hands up and is staring down at his open palms. Megan and White hat is looking at him.] Cueball: You look around one day and realize the things you assumed were immutable constants of the universe have changed. Cueball: The foundations of our reality are shifting beneath our feet. Cueball: We live in a house built on sand.
[Caption below panel] The day I discovered that Apple Maps is kind of good now
