New iOS Update: Upload Profile Pictures!

I was gonna suggest this very same thing!!!

Hate this new look

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:frowning:

What do you mean by “look”, this is not a new look but a different set of functionalities, right?

I personally don’t immediately like the change. However I trust that these guys know what they are doing. There are going to have to be some major changes to the app when current accounts are here so I imagine (hope) that this change is the start of some very cool features that are only really going to make sense when Monzo is operasting a full current account.
What I would say is we haven’t had any major ‘sneak peeks’ in a while. There must be loads you could show us to do with how the app is going to run when in current account mode. This might help people who don’t like the changes understand the rational behind them?
Ashley

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That’s a great idea. We’ll share a few things over the week :slight_smile:

Thanks!

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Sorry dude I meant functionality, the do da at the top, just not keen on it.

I was actually going to suggest @nathanvoller did below

I’m glad I’m not alone with the dislike of the new look! You’ve set the standards too high for yourselves, Monzo :slight_smile: It’s hard to accept “OK” when we’ve had beautiful! :smile:

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I don’t always find the graph being there all the time useful, I would personally like to see more screen given to my payment details so maybe an option to turn the graph off / hide it? Best of both worlds then.

It was indeed so bad when it launched that the company itself put an apology out. Since then though it’s become my only map app. Integrated transit directions which I find much easier to follow than Google’s, far more pleasant on the eye, and excellent integration with the iOS calendar app when suggesting the next place I need to be and how long it will take to get there.

Obviously Google’s maps app can do integration with their calendar app but I wish to avoid having a Google account.

In respect of the Monzo app, I would find it much nicer to see Apple’s cartography. Just my preference :slight_smile:

But instead of supporting two separate maps across two different OS it is better for Monzo to have one single unified database and one map program across both

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Oh I’m sure there’s sound technical reasons for the decision, it’s just the announcement was made without any explanation, that’s all. It’s a shame, but not the end of the world.

I do hope though that no location information is collected by Google as a result of using their mapping product.

Here’s the explanation for the change -

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Thanks Alexs. I’m interested in your comment that [quote=“alexs, post:55, topic:8120”]
Google is far and away the best source of accurate data we can get for merchants, by an order of magnitude.
[/quote]

I may have misunderstood your technical explanation of what is actually happening when you pull in mapping data from Google.

I read your post as: the app draws the pin onto a ‘copy’ of a map obtained from Google’s servers, cached locally onto the device. In other words, Google doesn’t get to ‘see’ that I just visited a particular merchant.

If this is the case, what is the relevance of Google’s superior merchant database, if all that’s happening is a pin is being dropped onto a map based on my latitude and longitude, and the merchant info comes from the transaction detail rather than Google?

I have likely not understood your post correctly, so any clarification would be welcome :slight_smile:

(It might sound overboard, but I go out of my way to avoid using Google’s products due to a deep distrust of the company, so this issue is quite important for me)

Hey - yes @james clarified this for other concerned users.

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I guess then I remain confused as to why there was a need to switch to Google Maps? Alexs’ comment suggests that one of the benefits is their more complete merchant data… but if all that’s required is dropping a pin onto a map, what is the value of Google’s merchant data in this process?

Having picked up the user’s location, Monzo still needs to match that with the correct merchant.

Edit - I’ve double checked that this is correct with Tristan.

I guess then I remain confused as to why there was a need to switch to Google Maps?

To use Google Places data, we need to show it on a Google Map :slight_smile:

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Hmmm. Ok, I think I’m getting there slowly (and sorry if I’m coming across as a bit thick here)… but what is the result of matching the user’s location to Google’s merchant data? Isn’t the merchant identified as a result of the transaction?

I guess what I’m getting at is, and if I look at a transaction example in the app, I see a number of things:

The location, marked with a pin on a map (in this case one cached from Google), which is achieved through the LON+LAT info;
The merchant name, which is derived from the transaction data itself;
And the merchant’s logo, which I believed is pulled from their avi on social media (twitter?) if it exists.

What specifically requires Google’s merchant data?

OK. So, I’m by no means an expert in this but:

  1. User makes purchase
  2. We get some information from Mastercard — things like a garbled merchant name and partial postcode
  3. We use the Google Places database to make that into a full merchant — proper name, exact location etc.
  4. We also use a few other services to enrich this (Foursquare, Twitter) etc. to bring in logos
  5. We cache that info on our servers
  6. On device, we draw Google Maps to show that info we’re now caching

That’s my understanding anyway. @james or @matt can correct anything I’ve got wrong :slight_smile:

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If this was an option, I’d also expect to see the option for giving old Ordnance Survey map grid references as an alternative too. :joy:

Google Maps > Apple Maps :smirk:

I would imagine that nothing currently NEEDS Google’s merchant data in the iOS UI but in the future they’ll be able to get the UI to show the place, rather than just the location.

This means you’ll be able to get all the enriched Google Places data in the client, such as opening times, contact details, current busyness of the location/expected future busyness, Street View and other photos, reviews, integration with menus, ordering and other custom business information such as what it’s good at and other related businesses/competitors, etc., etc.