Apple Fixes Australian Map Error That Caused Police Warning, Issue Traced to Official Gazetteer

[Marlor]

Originally Posted by BRLawyer

So if even the Australian Government can't get it right, why should Apple? And who would care about Mildura?

The "Australian Government" got it right. The "Mildura" region (marked on the Gazetteer with a "DI" district code) is indeed centred on the forest.

The Mildura township (marked in the Gazetteer as a "City") is centred on an urban centre.

So the Gazetteer is right. It lists the geographical location of the city, and the geographical centre of the district. As it should.

This stuff-up is like someone searching for "New York" and being lead to the geographical centre of New York State, instead of to the city of the same name.

Apple integrated the data, but they didn't even think about filtering out geographical markers such as district centre-points when doing place-name searching. This is GIS 101. It's an elementary error.

[SounderAU]

Every town name on the Eyre Peninsula, SA, is a fair distance from the actual town.

[pgiguere1]

Originally Posted by coolspot18

Why in the world did Apple ditch Google Maps? Was it a case of "Not Invented Here Syndrome?"

Seriously strange - I mean does Apple have a YouTube site, a Facebook clone, or what else? It's strange that they decided to ditch Google Maps.

Or why not just purchase a company like Garmin?

Google wanted more control over branding, ads, and user data to be willing to provide any new data necessary for new features (turn-by-turn navigation, vector maps, voice navigation).

As Apple wanted to protect their users' privacy and not have big Google logos and ads everywhere while offering turn-by-turn navigation as a standard feature, they though about doing it themselves.

They probably expected the data to not be as accurate as Google's for a little while (although not as bad as this) but though it was worth it in the long run. They may have done things differently now seeing how it turned out.

Apple doesn't make competitors to Facebook or Youtube because those are not services expected to be preinstalled on a smartphone as they're mainly for entertainment purpose.

I doubt buying Garmin would have done anything. They already use TomTom's data and apparently it's not very good. Funny how you never heard about TomTom having bad mapping data before.

I guess people make a bigger deal out of it now because:
1) It's cool to hate Apple and generate a lot of attention in media
2) They're more easily being compared to Google Maps which has better data than any dedicated GPS company

[shortcrust]

Wow. So people are still saying:

- What a lot of fuss over nothing! Despite all the evidence to contrary I refuse to believe that this is really a problem for anyone.

- What fuss over such a little problem! Despite all the evidence to the contrary I refuse to believe that this is really a problem for many millions of people.

- A problem where? Who cares about [insert region here]? The only people who really matter are people like me who live in [insert region here].

- So there's a problem. Isn't the real issue that people are actually using maps to find their way to destinations? They're using it wrong.

Big sillies!

[Bezetos]

Even though they've fixed it, it doesn't mean that Apple Maps should be relied upon.

Originally Posted by pgiguere1

As Apple wanted to protect their users' privacy(...)

Buahaha yeah, keep telling that to yourself... Apple marketing infused fear mongering at its best.

Originally Posted by pgiguere1

I guess people make a bigger deal out of it now because:
1) It's cool to hate Apple and generate a lot of attention in media
(...)

Cool to hate Apple? Mate, Apple Maps are an absolute disgrace, my friends keep calling me and ask for directions before we meet because 90% of the time they can't find the location on their phone (I'm currently not using an iPhone as my main phone). Even though I don't use Apple Maps they are already driving me nuts.
People are making a big deal out of it because it is a big deal. Deal with it.

[gtg660w]

C'mon Apple. Don't you know that using VLOOKUP returns the first item in the list for the match ? you should have loaded the data with Excel, lol

[mazz0]

Originally Posted by WestonHarvey1

Headline isn't fair. "Traced to Official Gazetteer"... if you mean, traced to Apple's misinterpretation of the Gazetteer's totally accurate data, then OK.

I thought that, put a bit of Apple biased spin on it didn't they?

[Marlor]

Originally Posted by SounderAU

Every town name on the Eyre Peninsula, SA, is a fair distance from the actual town.

Apple Maps is atrocious in Australia.

Maitland Airport in the Hunter Valley is mis-labelled as Cessnock Airport. The actual airport in Cessnock is actually 20km away.

It's an absolute disaster for tourists, who turn up at the wrong airport and then have to drive 30 minutes through back-roads to get to the correct one in time for their booking.

[theluggage]

Originally Posted by simps100

Whilst i agree with what people are saying, that people should use abit of common sense when using these things, especially on long journeys to places they've never been, i do find it hard to defend apple with the maps service.

There's no law of conservation of responsibility. Not everything reduces to "victim and villain".

Is Apple Maps rubbish? Yes.

Is slavishly following any GPS directions without applying any road-sense, to the extent of assuming it knows better than the road signs, stupid? Yes.

Is slavishly following GPS directions - in a continent-sized country full of genuine get-you-killed-without-the-right-equipment wilderness and centres of civilisation more than one tank of petrol apart - double-stupid? Yes.

Is doing that - using a specific bit of freebee navigation software that has been widely lambasted in the popular press as being full of errors - triple stupid in a clown hat with "Stpuid" (sic) written on it in yellow bananna-shaped sequins? Yes.

Have I ever done - or might I ever do - anything stupid? Yes, but the responsibility was all mine.

[Bezetos]

Originally Posted by BuckusToothnail

For all of Apple's talk about "innovation" and "invent your own stuff", why is it then that Apple is blatantly RIPPING OFF Google Maps, and quite badly at that?

Although Apple did copy a LOT of stuff from other companies, it's a bit silly saying that they've "ripped off" Google Maps.

[mazz0]

Originally Posted by pgiguere1

They already use TomTom's data and apparently it's not very good. Funny how you never heard about TomTom having bad mapping data before.

You used to hear about GPS routing problems quite often. Do you know that TomTom actually have this problem though?

[210]

What frustrates me is that I constantly report problems to Apple for them to fix since the app came out and none of them have been fixed yet. I don't know how many people at Apple are working to fix the app. Or maybe mine are just way down the to do list

[Bezetos]

Originally Posted by 210

What frustrates me is that I constantly report problems to Apple for them to fix since the app came out and none of them have been fixed yet. I don't know how many people at Apple are working to fix the app. Or maybe mine are just way down the to do list

I'm guessing this is the order they fix errors:

1. Errors reported in the news
2. Errors in bigger cities in the US
3. Errors in smaller cities in the US
4. The rest of US
5. The rest of the world

[bushido]

yet the errors i reported like 100 times already remain

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Bezetos

Although Apple did copy a LOT of stuff from other companies, it's a bit silly saying that they've "ripped off" Google Maps.

The poster meant that as a form of sarcasm. Some people like to say "Google ripped off iOS for Android!" and really, the level of "ripping off" is the same. If you think Android is a rip off of iOS, then Apple Maps is a rip off of Google Maps.

Of course, most sensible people understand that neither scenario is a "rip off". Mobile OSes pre-date iOS/Android, the concepts in the them come from much everywhere else in computing, etc.. just like Online maps don't belong to Google and Apple is ripping them off when rolling their own.

[locust76]

Originally Posted by pgiguere1

As Apple wanted to protect their users' privacy and not have big Google logos and ads everywhere...

Don't make it out to be what it's not.

Apple doesn't want Google making money off their iOS products. End of story.

It's got nothing to do with ads or privacy, so long as Apple is the one collecting private data and serving ads.

[everything-i]

Originally Posted by coolspot18

Why in the world did Apple ditch Google Maps? Was it a case of "Not Invented Here Syndrome?"

Seriously strange - I mean does Apple have a YouTube site, a Facebook clone, or what else? It's strange that they decided to ditch Google Maps.

Or why not just purchase a company like Garmin?

Google were being commercially difficult with respect to their mapping data. They would not allow turn by turn navigation without Apple giving them more control over the iOS platform being one example. Apple knew that maps gave Google leverage over them and as a business you can't allow competitors to gain that kind of advantage over you. Apple however badly mismanaged the introduction of maps and this has caused significant problems and a lot of bad press. Managers like Forstall who was in charge of the project have been forced out and hopefully the rest of them have learned from the experience. In a few years when Apple have sorted their maps out they will be in a much better position than if they had continued to rely on Google for this functionality. As for YouTube this is not seen as major feature for a phone so Google have no leverage over Apple in restricting access to it in fact quite the opposite they actively benefit from providing access to YouTube to as many devices as possible with all its advertising. Facebook similarly benefits from allowing access from as many platforms as possible.

[Bezetos]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

The poster meant that as a form of sarcasm.

Touche, I'm usually good at reading sarcasm.

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

Some people like to say "Google ripped off iOS for Android!" and really, the level of "ripping off" is the same. If you think Android is a rip off of iOS, then Apple Maps is a rip off of Google Maps.

I concur, the two examples are indeed not that different.

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

Of course, most sensible people understand that neither scenario is a "rip off". Mobile OSes pre-date iOS/Android, the concepts in the them come from much everywhere else in computing, etc.. just like Online maps don't belong to Google and Apple is ripping them off when rolling their own.

Unfortunately Apple started playing the "everyone tries to copy us" game and now their loyal fans fight their fight. However they've had and will be tasting their own medicine. This has been equally misjudged as the launch of Apple Maps in their current state.

[shortcrust]

Originally Posted by 210

What frustrates me is that I constantly report problems to Apple for them to fix since the app came out and none of them have been fixed yet. I don't know how many people at Apple are working to fix the app. Or maybe mine are just way down the to do list

I suspect it's just the sheer quantity of them. I was thinking about my city of around 500,000 people. I think 500 user corrections from here is a reasonable guess (not many people will submit, but some will submit a lot). Scale that up to all the territories where apple maps is used and you can easily imagine over a million submitted corrections in total. You can argue about the numbers, but it's clear that the numbers are BIG! Because it's messy data it's just too much data to process. A large country on a war footing would stuggle with the task! Apple has no chance.

I personally can't see apple maps ever catching up with google. They're not racing towards a finish line where google is catching its breath - google are still running.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by everything-i

Google were being commercially difficult with respect to their mapping data. They would not allow turn by turn navigation without Apple giving them more control over the iOS platform being one example.

More control. The reality is not that Google wanted more control, it's that Apple wanted the control for themselves. People seem to imply here that Google would have been doing nasty things to iOS devices. Guess what, Apple is doing those nasty things instead and that's how they wanted it.

As a consumer, Apple getting the data rather than Google doesn't seem better to me, nor worse. It's the same situation. Someone is profiting from my data for their advertising metrics.

BUT, since Apple's position in taking "control" of that data resulted in me getting a sub-par mapping experience, then yes, I'm starting to care about their boneheaded move. I've lost a ton of functionality and accurate data, but I've gained nothing for Apple to gain something. And that is really something to be denounced, that Apple would lessen the experience of its users for its own corporate benefit. I don't care about Apple's bottom line. If it hurts me as a consumer, then I'm not going to sit there and call their poo gold.

In the end, Google wanted more branding so that you knew you were using Google Maps and not some Apple app with mapping data that could come from anywhere else and they wanted Apple to implement Google Latitude instead of going for their own "Find my Friends" (both services are pretty much the same). Reasonable demands for the level of services they would have been getting (vector maps, much more accurate mapping data, READABLE maps graphics (the part of Apple Maps I despise most, the things are nigh unreadable), and yes, turn by turn navigation (I personally don't see what's the big deal about this, on any platform)).

----------

Originally Posted by Bezetos

Unfortunately Apple started playing the "everyone tries to copy us" game and now their loyal fans fight their fight. However they've had and will be tasting their own medicine. This has been equally misjudged as the launch of Apple Maps in their current state.

Yes they did, but some people will still say that "Apple rips off no one!" and that patent infringement, when it's an Apple patent is "BLATANT COPYING!" but when it's Apple that's guilty is "It's just a patent troll attacking people because they're a big target!".

Most people that can't hold a consistent position in their view of the world but always twists things to be on Apple's side just deserve to be ignored if you ask me. Responding to them only promotes their behavior and valides it. It took a while, but people started getting a clue with *LTD* and he had to go overboard to "get heard", resulting in his... dismissal. The forum has just been much better ever since. It's hard to promote high level discussions about issues involving Apple and its competition when people try to dumb it down to levels of "Apple Good! Rest Bad!" all the time.

[alvindarkness]

Originally Posted by mrxak

Yup, according to people in the last topic about this, the roads are clearly marked with signage in that part of Australia, correctly directing people to the real Mildura. So everyone who got lost in the desert specifically ignored the road signs, and basic common sense about the type of road they were being directed onto, and the terrain.

It's the Milgram Experiment all over again. People listen to the authority (their phone) telling them what to do, and ignore the gut feeling that something is terribly wrong.

Im not sure what the road signs are like in your neck of the woods, but having driven across much of Australia, I can tell you that there are usually short cuts to most destinations - that involve ignoring those signs and taking alternative routes.

You are right though, you'd think once someone reaches that ridiculous dirt road they'd start breaking out a street directory.

I recently drove from Melbourne to north of Cairns (to view the total solar eclipse), which was a 3000km drive (approx 1900miles). I almost exclusively used iOS apps to get me there (mostly Sygic, but always referenced to google maps on an iPad and occasionally tomtom), but I sure as hell wasnt going to trust a single app, and I kept paper maps as a backup. Its just common sense.

[theanimaster]

Originally Posted by annirowe

Don't get too excited.. The rest of Australia is still incorrect.

They are still using the central location of the Council/Shire as the pointer. so whenever a town name is the same as a Shire name, you still get the problem..

I just tested Whittlesea which is the Shire I live in, but also contains the town of Whittlesea, and its completely wrong...

Take that Bilbo and Frodo Baggins!

[iphoneclassic]

While we continue to improve our world class, feature rich Maps application, we recommend our customers to purchase a portable GPS navigation device. There are several models available at both online and B&M stores, some of those are free after rebate.

Cook

[theanimaster]

Originally Posted by shurcooL

Have you noticed how much better the map interaction inside Find Friends app became? Or how Siri can now give you turn by turn directions.

That was not possible before cuz Apple had their arms tied by the limiting Google maps contract.

Also, Apple Maps basically has Google Earth built-in. Sometimes it's pretty neat to see some place in 3D.

There are problems with the new maps, but there are improvements too. Most people seem not to notice them.

True, turn-by-turn navigation here in Thailand is FANTASTIC! We just used it last weekend to get home from a vacation trip that was a 5-hour drive. It was pin-point perfect, no jumping around like how it was on Google Maps.

Their map is horribly dated in places though. It still thinks the 3-year old condominium next to our house is a flour factory and the aerial is indeed the old aerial when it was : ( However it shows our new school building which is just 2 years old!! How is that!?!

[iThinkIt]

when are they going to fix the issues in my area... I have sent in the changes that need to be updated.... still nothing.... in my area it shows roads that do not exist, roads in the wrong place , roads that connect and shouldn't.. names of body of waters that are not even close.