There’s now quite an array of alternatives for on-line Singapore street maps, hopefully we’ll soon start to wonder what was so great about streetdirectory.com.

Google Maps for Singapore has been available now for around 18 months, the most popular posting on this blog is this one from December 2006 (there must be a lot of disappointed Singaporean kids out there who failed in their search for Santa…). Google were late to Singapore and their progress has been slow. They’ve always provided the slickest user experience by far, but have been hampered by the quality of their data: outdated streetmaps, limited geocoding, no building footprints, no transit information and no local search, to name just the most glaring failings.

But slowly and surely Google are building a great product. New roads are appearing where they ought to be (for some reason in a different shading), more labeling of locations exists and building footprints have started cropping up in the strangest places, like Woodlands…..

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Google Maps for Singapore now supports some features to allow users to improve the quality of data displayed in the maps. Local Business Centre now works in Singapore so local businesses can add details about their operations. Also users can now add locations to the maps. Do a search, and then at the bottom of a search result, you’ll see a link to let you add a place. These are moderated for spam or other kinds content that break the terms of service and other users can correct other people’s additions.

Using the crowd to the build their data is clearly going to take time, but Google aren’t going to be running out of cash anytime soon. In other countries where mapping data is extremely poor they’ve even gone so far as to open up their street data to user editing. Though unlike openstreetmap.org this data does not become public domain. If Google can combine rich, user-generated data with a great user interface, then add building footprints, full geocoding and transit data, the guys at SLA StreetMap may as well pack their bags and go home.

Popularity: 2%

I’ve just launched a web based application for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) that lets you find stuff near you in Singapore. The intention is to provide location data and maps for people on the move around Singapore, primarily either using Public Transport or walking.

The application allows users to locate themselves either using Yahoo’s FireEagle service (still in private beta) or using various input locations (street address, MRT Station, Bus Stop number, Hotel or Shopping Mall). Once the user has located themselves they can choose from a variety of things to be displayed on a map, together with their own location. The application uses Google’s static maps or the iPhone’s Google Maps application to show the search results. Typically either the closet 3 or closest 5 results will be shown depending on the search.

In addition to all the geographic data the application also integrates with Yahoo’s cinema schedules, iRis real-time bus information and the excellent Cinepura from Hamish Mallipedi. Once the new iPhone is released I hope to incorporate the device’s native location facilities (GPS, wi-fi and cell-towers).

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch you can use the application at http://isingeo.com. That link will also work with desktop browsers, but will look a bit strange. You can read more about it and view some more screenshots here. You can also access iSinGeo via the Apple site where it’s been made a staff pick. Currently there is no cost, registration or advertising involved, but I will accept free beer….

I hope to have some FireEagle invites to give out soon, please email me if you’d like one. And please let me know what you think of the application and how it could be improved.

Popularity: 4%

The Singapore Bus Stops and Bus Services Map available here, has now been updated, it now includes all the bus services in Singapore from:

and a whole lot more bus stops, there are now over 4500 bus stops on the map (the previous version had around 3000). This has necessitated a change in design.

To enable quicker loading the bus stops are clustered into groups at high (as in high in the sky) levels of zoom. So at the top level each icon represents hundreds of bus stops. At the two lowest level of zoom all bus stops are visible. The easiest way to get to an area of interest is to type it in the search box or use the drag and zoom tool (highlighted in the final screenshot below)

Once you’ve zoomed in to a bus stop level the usual pop-up is available showing the services from that stop, click on a service to get information on it. The pop-up now also includes an iRis form to allow you to get real-time information on bus arrivals (SBS Transit buses only).

Also new to the map is a “Link to this page” feature. Click on this to get a url to a view of the map to send to a friend or post on a web site.

Summary of new features:
- SMRT stops and services added
- more accurate placement of some bus stops
- link to a view of the map
- iRis integration
- more sophisticated clustering of markers
- cute new bus icons

I’ve tested the map extensively in Safari and Firefox and it performs well in both, particularly once the maps been loaded once and the stops are cached. But I have seen some performance issues in Internet Explorer. If you use Internet Explorer and the map doesn’t perform for you, you can still access the old version here. Or do yourself a favour and install Firefox.

If you have performance issues, please let me know in the comments. Any other comments would also be good, I’d really like to know if people find this map useful and useable.

Popularity: 27%