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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Since the release of Apple's in-house Maps app as part of iOS 6 back in 2012, Yelp has been the company's sole partner for integrating customer reviews of businesses and other points of interest. In recent days, however, Apple's Maps app has begun including reviews from TripAdvisor and Booking.com on select hotel listings.

apple_maps_tripadvisor.jpg
It is currently unclear what the criteria are for determining whether a given hotel listing includes reviews from Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Booking.com, but based on a spot check of several cities, the vast majority of hotel listings in the United States continue to display Yelp reviews. Other types of business listings also continue to use Yelp reviews on Apple Maps.

Internationally, Booking.com in particular seems to be more strongly represented, with brief surveys of London, Paris, and Sydney all showing reviews from that site on a majority of hotel listings viewed.

apple_maps_booking.jpg
Apple has yet to update its Maps acknowledgements page to note it is now sourcing TripAdvisor and Booking.com, citing only Yelp as a data partner for reviews.

Apple has been working hard to improve Maps since its rough launch in 2012 that saw Tim Cook issue an open letter apologizing to consumers for not meeting their expectations with the new Maps app. The company has since improved its directions and three-dimensional imagery, although other changes such as transit integration planned for iOS 8 last year were pushed back as Apple's mapping efforts have reportedly been hampered by internal politics.

One major improvement that appears to be in the works is street-level imagery similar to Google's Street View and Microsoft's Streetside for Bing Maps. Minivans outfitted with sensor arrays and apparently leased by Apple have been spotted in several areas around the United States, with the behavior of the vehicles on residential streets and in parking lots suggesting they are collecting street-level imagery.

(Thanks, Aaron and Ram!)

Article Link: Apple Maps Now Includes Hotel Reviews From TripAdvisor and Booking.com
 

JCrz

macrumors 6502
Sep 12, 2014
459
1,326
There's still no reason to use Apple Maps over Google Maps, other than maybe Flyover.

#GoogleMaps #Flyover #choices
 

jread

macrumors regular
Sep 17, 2012
190
0
Austin, TX
Cool. I still find Google Maps to be so much better and more useful. I'm glad Apple Maps is improving but are people really using it? I'm definitely not.
 

soheilk

macrumors member
Feb 19, 2014
80
71
There's still no reason to use Apple Maps over Google Maps, other than maybe Flyover.

I travel for business to China a lot and because of Chinese government filtering access to all Google services, I have to resort to other solutions: Bing or Apple Maps. I've found far better results with the latter especially since it has a dedicated app.
 

coltman75

macrumors regular
Jun 22, 2010
117
163
Cool. I still find Google Maps to be so much better and more useful. I'm glad Apple Maps is improving but are people really using it? I'm definitely not.

I'm using it all the time.

I live in one of the top 10 biggest cities in the U.S., and Google maps is a mess. It puts my address down the street, it sends me to the wrong part of town for my work, and it tries to route you through the airport to get to the other side of town, which easily adds a half hour to your travel time.

Apple maps hardly ever steers me wrong. It's not as good at searching for POIs, but once it knows where's you're going, it's way better at giving directions than Google maps.
 

friedmud

macrumors 65816
Jul 11, 2008
1,415
1,265
Apple Maps has been getting better recently. I'm basically down to using either it or Google Maps about 50/50.

I like Google Maps a bit better when there is a lot of traffic... seems to do better at routing around traffic problems. Also: I love how Google Maps shows you lane selection information.

All other times I tend to be using Apple Maps more and more. Siri integration is awesome ("I need to go home" or "I need directions to John's house") and I think the "3D" view is much smoother and easier to read than Google's implementation.

Anyway... choice is good. We're all winning while these guys compete!
 

1800AirTAG

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2014
246
592
There's still no reason to use Apple Maps over Google Maps, other than maybe Flyover.

#GoogleMaps #Flyover #choices

I use Apple Maps for EVERYTHING other than traffic. Including GPS. I have used Apple Maps and Google maps for GPS and one massive thing I noticed Google lacks is final destination, it just says "arrived" without specifying "left" or "right" side.

But nothing beats google for traffic reports.
 

MikePLP

macrumors 6502
Sep 23, 2014
253
112
Cool. I still find Google Maps to be so much better and more useful. I'm glad Apple Maps is improving but are people really using it? I'm definitely not.

Apple Maps has improved SIGNIFICANTLY over the last couple of years and it's pretty much on par with the google maps in terms of accuracy. In fact, when i'm in my car, I use Apple Maps for the turn by turn directions INSTEAD of the built-in GPS in my car. I've used it in MANY cities when I did a cross country travel couple of months ago. I have not had any problems.

The main reason I use the Apple Maps is the integration with the iOS, OS X and Safari.
 

henzpwnapple

macrumors regular
Feb 13, 2009
147
8
I used to believe that the Apple Map will turn out to be as good as Google Map.. but seriously, I won't be here leaving a message if I use Apple Map for car navigation (either lost or dead).

I know one day it will overcome the "turn left to hit the wall" problems. In the meantime, I will use Google's so I can be there when that day comes. :apple:
 

rohitp

macrumors regular
Oct 9, 2003
156
25
Austin, Texas
I prefer Waze for my maps app. The add'l info such as police locations, accidents, traffic, etc., just seems superior in my experience. One of my big pet peeves with Apple Maps is the inability to permanently "avoid tolls" which is important to me. It also occasionally puts me in the wrong place by a bit but I'm guessing just about all the apps do that to some degree.

Wish there was a way in iOS to specify a default maps app. :(
 

Mashurrab

macrumors regular
May 30, 2014
196
7
I use Apple maps all the time now and rarely resort to google maps, but I keep the later in case something seems wrong, but recently all is good. Google maps actual sent me to a wrong address which was not showing up on Apple maps.

The thing I would love to see is an integration between the photos app and the maps app. When I see a place were I like and I want to go back to, I just take a picture and the photos app will do a nice thing of showing where this picture is taken, but there is no way for me to, for example, press on that picture and tell it to take me to it. What I do now is run maps app and start trying to get the location and ask it to navigate. If this integration happens it will make the life of tourists and those who moved to new cities much easier.
 

japanime

macrumors 68030
Feb 27, 2006
2,916
4,844
Japan
Glad to see Apple enhance its maps. However, I wish they had gone with a more trustworthy reviews aggregator.

I have very little faith in TripAdvisor. Too many five-star reviews that are clearly fake. And yet, TripAdvisor will remove legitimate one- and two-star reviews at the request of the business owner.
 
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