Apple Testing Maps Notifications to Inform Users of Fixed Problems

If the info is on the server, why would you need iOS 8 to get a better mapping experience?

Are they keeping incorrect/incomplete data just for users who won't upgrade to iOS 8 when it's released?

I am fed up with Maps tbh. The traffic information is fairly accurate but since day 1 there have been major innacuracies that despite many reports have not been sorted.

What really gets me is pins in the wrong location. This needs to be a lot more open source allowing users to alter information and move pins.

Mac Fly (film) said:

Wrong. What they mean by place does not exist becomes painfully clear if you choose that option and hit next. You get two options for location has moved and pin is at incorrect location. My options are far more clear, obvious and useful.

If I see a location is missing in Maps I want to drop and pin, report a problem and hit add new location and be done. I'm trying to help Apple out and they are making it difficult for us now. This is embarrassing for them and is very annoying for me because I'm trying to help.

Click to expand...

Well then they should change their followup options - there needs to be an option for "What are you talking about? There's never been a [whatever] anywhere near here!"

It amazes me that people rather use an inferior product that has inaccuracies than one that is close to 99% accurate due to brand loyalty.

Do people enjoy getting incorrect information or being lost?

While I've submitted corrections before, I've dropped another dozen today to see what happens.

(I honestly don't know if my original corrections took or not, it was a while ago and I've forgotten what corrections I sent)

dallardice said:

I think the other mistake that they made was dumping GMaps completely for Apple Maps. They took a service that was heavily used and trusted and replaced it with something that wasn't up to scratch. Initially they should have given people the option of GMaps or AMaps until Apple was satisfied that AMaps was up to scratch. Just slapping a Beta logo on it would still have materially degraded the iOS experience for many users.

Click to expand...

Give users a choice and they'll always stick with what they're familiar with. Apple needed to move away from Google Maps and they had to pull the pin at some point and commit to a wholesale changeover. Unfortunately the point they chose was a bit early, and they underestimated how hard mapping really is.

Not necessarily a choice

I would much rather use Google maps but Apple maps is the default app and so I get directed there when using Siri and other apps. If I could make Google maps my default I would.

bawbac said:

It amazes me that people rather use an inferior product that has inaccuracies than one that is close to 99% accurate due to brand loyalty.

Do people enjoy getting incorrect information or being lost?

Click to expand...

MAPS STILL SUCK!

Need to do this NAAAOOOOWWW!

I keep having to switch to Google maps because of the dozens of local of errors I find in Apple.
Especially new roads that still do not shop up over year since they where built! Google Maps had it within the month!


Oh, and Apple Maps shows roads that are not there.


Yeah, Maps is STILL a miserable joke.

/rant
/rant
/rant

----------

Reason077 said:

Give users a choice and they'll always stick with what they're familiar with. Apple needed to move away from Google Maps and they had to pull the pin at some point and commit to a wholesale changeover. Unfortunately the point they chose was a bit early, and they underestimated how hard mapping really is.

Click to expand...

dallardice is right, give users the choice, or not release it until it was reliable enough, in 2015!

When the CEO of Apple has to apologies, something it really, really, REALLY bad, and from my experience Maps deserves deletion in the worst way!

SBlue1 said:

I have to admit Apple fixed my home street name. After two dozen reports and 18 months though.

So finally friends can use their iPhones to get directions to my place.

Click to expand...

I want Siri to learn how to pronounce Spanish and Native American street names correctly. I've noticed she doesn't understand some of them until I pronounce them in super-butchered gringo-speak, and that is how they are pronounced when she gives driving directions.


Usually, the spelling is correct though.

Wait. More people complaining that the almost brand new Maps isn't equal to or better than the industry leader Google Maps?!???

Nah that can't be right. That wouldn't make sense.

I hope they finally create self sustaining fusion. But since it can't be plugged into your microwave the whole world stones and kills the men who know how to create it.

When Maps for iOS came out, I submitted a few changes. Nothing happened. When Maps for OSX came out, I submitted the same changes and a few others. Took me about an hour, since I wanted to get it just right; looking up phone numbers and correct addresses, dragging pins for a few miles. Still nothing.

While I realize that Maps is newish and has some growing pains to go through, I'm not going to put any more effort into making any changes.

elmateo487 said:

Wait. More people complaining that the almost brand new Maps isn't equal to or better than the industry leader Google Maps?!???

Nah that can't be right. That wouldn't make sense.

I hope they finally create self sustaining fusion. But since it can't be plugged into your microwave the whole world stones and kills the men who know how to create it.

Click to expand...

Well a company the wants to be the leader in any sector they enter should not release a half-backsided pile of crock and think it is worthy of use. As a cartographer I can find things wrong with almost every page I have seen on Maps. In the small town I live, there are at least 30 mistakes which any cartographer would notice. That is without the incorrect information for business' etc. Most of them are things you learn in the first term at University.

Anyone who thinks this is a valid piece of cartography doesn't know what the hell they are doing. So either Apple lied when the claimed to have employed cartographers or those they imployed are incompetent.

It's a joke. If they had put the true effort required into this it could have been a close rival to Googles offering. Given the current rate of improvement it'll be a decade before it is on par with what Google are offering now.

Okay, I’m from Moscow and I’ve been filing maps bugs for 18 months and none of them have been fixed. None.

I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again. It’s impossible to fix the data they have for some countries (like Russia). It’s like buying a dilapidated, crumbling house and then trying to improve it by changing a doormat and some lightbulbs. It’s still a dilapidated, crumbling house. If you start with such a low-quality dataset, it’s impossible to improve it on case-by-case basis. It would require millions of fixes.

When Apple Maps launched 18 months ago, one of the main Moscow streets, Tverskaya, has been labeled ‘Gorkogo’, which is an old name that has been used more than 20 years ago. That particular error has been fixed, but it’s obvious some map provider sold Apple a really outdated and buggy dataset. Improving on it is impossible. They should throw it out completely and start with a blank slate. Buy the best, highest-quality, most up-to-date dataset available and proceed from there.

The POI data is even worse.

There’s something very wrong with it, some kind of systemic error. Like POIs in the middle of a river. It’s obvious they have some problems with coordinate systems or something like that. Maybe they’re combining several datasets and they’ve got the math wrong. With almost all POIs off their true location, you just know there’s a math error somewhere. And the categorization of POIs is just trash. Serbian embassy marked with a “hotel” badge. German embassy is a “shop”. It looks like there’s no one responsible for this data at all. Having POIs that have consistently wrong metadata and are consistently located in the wrong place is much worse than having no POIs at all. I would suggest they simply remove all POIs until they’re able to place them at least somewhat accurately.

When are they going to show exit numbers? It baffles me that that is not in Apple Maps.

dallardice said:

Does this mean they will actually start to make changes? Apple Maps still has a McDonalds at the end of my road. It's actually half a mile away. I told them the first day I had access to Apple Maps as a developer. There are numerous changes I've reported more than once that have still not been made.

I guess we don't have "ground truth" experts in the UK. One walk down one of London's primary shopping streets would fix most of the errors I've reported.

Click to expand...

It still shoes a parking lot at a burger king near my work as an actual road.

----------

HMI said:

I want Siri to learn how to pronounce Spanish and Native American street names correctly. I've noticed she doesn't understand some of them until I pronounce them in super-butchered gringo-speak, and that is how they are pronounced when she gives driving directions.


Usually, the spelling is correct though.

Click to expand...

I asked Siri for direction to Mace road.

She kept giving me "Mesa" and other non-Mace roads.

----------

PracticalMac said:

dallardice is right, give users the choice, or not release it until it was reliable enough, in 2015!

When the CEO of Apple has to apologies, something it really, really, REALLY bad, and from my experience Maps deserves deletion in the worst way!

Click to expand...

The catch was Google apparently wanted more of your phone's data than Apple was willing to give. The reasoning behind the move is in part Google's fault.

Danindub said:

It's not just that. Google take very seriously users corrects, and they should - it's a free resource money can't buy.

Report issue with Google maps, and you not only get receipt and update once completed (24 hours turnaround for my corrections!) but also occasionally get personalised reply, which is really encouraging.

Click to expand...

No offence to you, but I've had a different experience with Google. Near my office, there's a business named "Nails Etc." It closed 3 years ago, but it's still on GMaps after it was reported. There's an ATM in the "Galley Sports Pub" - with the Pub shown in the middle of a street; there's no business by that name here on the Island. And, the cream of this crop is the "Montgomery Ward Vision Center" (again, in the middle of a street) - Montgomery Ward closed up shop over a decade ago.

All reported, all still there today. There's at least a dozen legacy businesses near my office that closed up shop 2-5 years ago that are still on GMaps. Google just doesn't give a fsck.

dallardice said:

I think the other mistake that they made was dumping GMaps completely for Apple Maps. They took a service that was heavily used and trusted and replaced it with something that wasn't up to scratch. Initially they should have given people the option of GMaps or AMaps until Apple was satisfied that AMaps was up to scratch. Just slapping a Beta logo on it would still have materially degraded the iOS experience for many users.

Click to expand...

I agree and disagree. I just posted that Google has several errors here on the Island where my office is. I am a civil engineer, often working with surveyors and agencies that incorporate data that surveyors generate. Google and Apple are not very progressive in incorporating current data - it's VERY expensive to stay current. Mapquest is years behind on aerial data, and so is Apple. Google lists over a dozen businesses within a mile of my office that closed up shop 5-10 years ago, and Apple has their flaws too - both have ignored my input (I beta tested iOS 6 for months before it came out and Apple has ignored my input for almost 2 years; I gave up).

Where I disagree? At least we have a choice over the NAVTEQ (now part of Nokia) and Teleatlas (now part of TomTom) duopoly that drove GPS unit prices near $1k for years. I'm sure most of this forum's readers have no idea of what an aerial photograph costs, let alone what the local jurisdiction charges to subscribe to their GIS data (spoiler - it ain't cheap).

Apple, Google, and others are attempting to automate importing data and making a user-friendly GUI out of all of this data. It ain't going to happen - ever. If you saw the data I see, you'd understand - there's no standard to GIS data collection, and I'm better at parsing raw data than 99.9% of the rest of the world. I'm surmising that both Google and Apple are figuring out how to make this nightmare work too.

At least we have a choice now...

I wish they'd fix traffic reporting in Portland

AFAIK, both Apple and Google rely on Sigalert. My office is near the OR/WA border, and I've had clients tell me "there's an accident" and have bailed on meetings or ask me to meet them. They're using their iPhones and Android phones. I've attached two images - screen shots from the Apple Maps app and Google Maps from Chrome, both showing a traffic incident on the I-5 Bridge. A client just bailed on me, telling me that his iPhone's Maps navigation rerouted him. Sigh.

The "incident" is actually in Everett WA - 195 miles north of my office. I've been asking Apple to fix this for 18 months. And, I've been asking Google to fix this since they moved to Sigalert, as the errors show up in GMaps for both the iPhone and Android phones. I've sent dozens of reports to Apple and Google - it's costing me time and money, and a few other business owners near me aren't happy about these errors either...

MikhailT said:

There's a very good chance they have more than one team working on the Maps since it requires various data sources to blend it in well.

Click to expand...

For a while, at the height of the bad Maps publicity, Apple had "secret" teams of Retail employees working on corrections to mapping. They were assigned areas in the local area that they knew well, and had an internal site to submit corrections.

IIRC, each individual on this team was to dedicate 10 hours of their week to Maps work.

Not sure what the game plan was for countries/states/regions without an Apple Store.

Edited to add link to a story at the time: http://appleinsider.com/articles/12...il-employees-with-reporting-ios-6-maps-errors

The actual amount of people working on that project at the time was very small, certainly not all 40,000 Retail employees. It lasted for a few months then quietly ended.

petsounds said:

... it's a bigger pain to read and delete an e-mail (especially with Gmail accounts on iOS 7)...

Click to expand...

I'm confused on this, having not used a Gmail account on iOS 7. Do they behave differently in the Mail app than iCloud accounts and other IMAP accounts do?

SeaFox said:

I'm confused on this, having not used a Gmail account on iOS 7. Do they behave differently in the Mail app than iCloud accounts and other IMAP accounts do?

Click to expand...

On iOS 7 it takes a long time for the Gmail server to acknowledge an e-mail has been read. In fact, if you read an e-mail and back out of the Mail app, it won't clear the unread messages indicator on the icon. From what I understand, Gmail has an incorrect implementation of IMAP and Mail on iOS 7 doesn't play nice with it.

Poor Apple just doesn't have the money needed to make their Maps app as good as Google Maps.