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Isn't the Report a Problem button in Apple Maps already a form of crowdsourcing?

No. It pretends to be crowdsourcing. In reality, it seems that all information entered there will just disappear.

Whereas, I live in the UK, have submitted dozens of errors/corrections over the past year or two.. received no update notifications, and all the errors are still present.
:rolleyes:

As you see, it _pretends_ to be crowdsourcing.

don't know why people keep complaining about maps. I been using it for a while with no issue. I live in the LA area and have used them in other areas with no issue. But then again I am only one person so who knows lol.

I looked at the map of my tiny village. It's tiny.

Maps has three points of interest: A hotel, a bar, and an off license. The church is missing, the pub is missing, and the village hall is missing. All three present on Google maps.

The hotel is in the right location. The bar is in the garden of a neighbour 100 meters away from me. That bar is actually part of the hotel and should be at the exact location of the hotel. So if you use Maps to find a bar in my village, not a chance. The off license is in the garden of another neighbour 60 meters away from me. In reality, the off license is 500 meters down the road. The place is at the crossing of two streets, and Maps recorded the wrong street. So if you are looking for an off license in my village, not a chance.

That's out of six POIs one correct, two absolutely misleading, and three missing.
 
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This. I think you are scary close to the truth. I've heard Apple's teams are typically small,tight knit, and handle lots of different responsibilities. That was probably fine earlier on, but the extreme multitasking required today is not sustainable. Too many balls in the air and one or two are going to drop from time to time. I think you're right about MS as well. They seem to be a more focused company lately, and they have no shortage of bodies to throw at problems.

Supposedly Eddy's reputation at Apple was "Mr fixit", that he would be brought in to fix things not working. But I wonder if he's a bit in over is head or has too much stuff right now. No one can honestly say maps and Siri are progressing as well as they should be. And we've heard rumors that both maps and iCloud are suffering from organizational issues. TV has stagnated, iTunes radio is meh (and still not rolled out internationally), iTunes match doesn't always work. I'd love to know what he's fixing because we're not seeing it.
 
No. It pretends to be crowdsourcing. In reality, it seems that all information entered there will just disappear.



As you see, it _pretends_ to be crowdsourcing.

I've actually seen a lot of my reports get fixed. :eek:

After almost two years of reporting the same old thing time and time again, I got a bit frustrated and sent a load of ultra sarcastic reports including Google Maps & Wikipedea links containing the correct information (including a couple of references to the Domesday Book). A week later most of them were fixed. :D
 
I've actually seen a lot of my reports get fixed. :eek:

After almost two years of reporting the same old thing time and time again, I got a bit frustrated and sent a load of ultra sarcastic reports including Google Maps & Wikipedea links containing the correct information (including a couple of references to the Domesday Book). A week later most of them were fixed. :D

Seriously, things should get fixed without sarcastic reports (but I can feel with you). My first suggestion would be an automatic system that sends you an email when your report a problem, that sends you an email when someone reads your report, and an email when a change is made or a decision was made to make no change, with a reason. Plus an email once a week as long as your report is stuck in the system.

Plus an automatic summary sent to Tim Cook (This week: 123,456 reports received, 100,000 reports not read for a week, 200,000 reports not read for two weeks etc., fixed problems for 200 really sarcastic reports, not acted on 1 million less sarcastic reports). I think that would create visibility and force change.
 
Oh, hey, we have an example where it worked. I'll forward this to Apple so they can stop wasting time fixing it.

Seriously though, this exact same story comes out every year since they introduced "maps": "Apple hiring so and so to fix maps"

At this rate, half of Apple's staff has been hired to fix maps. lol

...Oh, and don't forget that Apple's also been hiring people to evolve Siri these past 4 years! (Yeeeah)

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Seriously, things should get fixed without sarcastic reports (but I can feel with you). My first suggestion would be an automatic system that sends you an email when your report a problem, that sends you an email when someone reads your report, and an email when a change is made or a decision was made to make no change, with a reason. Plus an email once a week as long as your report is stuck in the system.

Plus an automatic summary sent to Tim Cook (This week: 123,456 reports received, 100,000 reports not read for a week, 200,000 reports not read for two weeks etc., fixed problems for 200 really sarcastic reports, not acted on 1 million less sarcastic reports). I think that would create visibility and force change.

Something is definitely needed, and anything sounds good about right now. Wonder if most of the dev teams are all-in on the Watch or perhaps an unnamed product for 2015?

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Yeah, I do wish there were more uses as well -- but at this point I would just expect it to eventually be rolled together with Apple Pay (which I can't use anyway since I don't yet have a 6)

(You're not missing much with Apple Pay, BTW)
 
When I’m not looking at a paper map (the UK Ordance Survey maps are by far the best for walking/cycling/horse riding), I use Google Maps because it has Street View. Maybe I want to see how suitable a country lane is for cycling along, maybe I want to see what a restaurant looks like so I’ll recognise it when I get there, maybe I want to check on-street parking regulations (when they haven’t been blurred out). For some reason or another, I always want to look at Street View. Being able to go back in time on is also fun.

Google Maps is also better for showing traffic info, for still still showing place names as you zoom out (Maps might hide the name of a medium-sized town but still show the name of a smaller town), for the satellite view being more up to date (and it tells you the date!), and for being able to measure distances with a ruler tool.

The Google Maps phone app can also save maps offline, although I tend to use maps.me for this purpose. Despite what technology companies seem to think, we don’t all have an internet connection all the time, let alone a fast one.
 
When you have millions of customers, you have millions of people who could give you information how to improve your maps. Crowdsourcing means taking advantage of the willingness of these people to help.

For example, I might be quite willing to have a walk through my village on a Sunday afternoon, note all the points of interest that are there, put a few house numbers down (on a long street, it would be nice to be able to navigate to a specific house number), report things that are not correct. Many people would. And if you add it together, taking that information would be a huge improvement. Apple doesn't seem capable of doing that.

Cool, thanks.
 
Until they fix the UI I'll stick with Google.


Try scrolling the map while navigating, can't do it without going into overview mode. Total pita when trying to adjust your route on the fly, for example if a street is blocked, and a total pain when trying to see where it is taking you or how far up the next turn is.

Google has it right.
 
Until they fix the UI I'll stick with Google.


Try scrolling the map while navigating, can't do it without going into overview mode. Total pita when trying to adjust your route on the fly, for example if a street is blocked, and a total pain when trying to see where it is taking you or how far up the next turn is.

Google has it right.

Yes, Google definitely has it right.
I also love the way you can zoom with one finger with Google maps, something I do a lot easily while driving and checking directions.
And I hate the traffic information on apple's map. It really looks like a preschool project.
 
Hopefully they will start spelling street names correctly. Many UK street names start with the word "St", but Apple lists them all as "Saint". That is how they are pronounced, but not spelt.
 
What a really weird coincidence. After not hearing about any of my reported problems being fixed for ages and then posting about that fact in this thread yesterday, I suddenly got a notification from the Maps app last night that one of my problems had been fixed. VERY strange timing on that one....
 
Shame Apple has ADD and can't focus on multiple things at once.

To be fair, Apple does make a lot of stuff. Desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, watches, mp3 players, headphones, a TV media box, a desktop OS, mobile OS, apps, accessories, a ton of cloud services (from email, to iMessage, to the iTunes store).

It just seems to struggle somewhat with the cloud services side of things... Siri and Maps being the most notable examples.
 
Would be nice to use Apple Maps to see traffic incidents, law enforcement, and weather during my daily commute, so I could finally replace Waze.


FWIW I tested out the traffic update the other day and it's pretty fast and accurate. At least within 15min, probably less. Now as for "Law Enforcement" and weather... That's probably a... Waze off... :eek:
 
Customers are suffering the mismanagement of this area (Maps, Siri Integration).

I blame Tim Cook and his 2 side kicks. Tim Cook is a good person, but failed in this area.
 
At this point Google Maps works too good for me to consider switching, its years ahead of AM. Although Waze is by far my favorite.
 
Hi? I actually use Apple Maps all the time, from navigating through DC and New York to Northeastern PA and almost everywhere between, with minimal issues. I haven't driven through any rivers or off any cliffs yet :p

I had heard about the Dulles Airport issue so I tried punching in "Dulles Airport" to see if it was fixed using my Mac's Maps app. Maps is smart(?) enough to suggest "Washington DC". I let it do it's thing. Where did it drop the pin? Dulles Airport Taxi- a miss by 28 miles unless I wanted a cab instead of the airport.

Having virtually arrived at the taxi hub instead of the airport, I tried again using driving directions from the taxi hub to Dulles. Zoom in on where the new pin dropped. It was much closer (certainly closer than missing by 28 miles) but still not at the airport itself. Instead it was a bit of distance south of the terminal- beyond the southern-most point of the runway (screenshot)

So then, I deleted driving directions and tried again in the main search box. This time it got the pin right into the terminal where it should be.

Had I actually been a Maps-trusting traveler and not knowing better, I'd had to go through 2 misses before getting to the intended target.

That said, Maps generally works pretty well for me. However, when it's critical that I get to the right place, I will either check it against google maps or just use the google maps app. I've had more than one scenario of Maps dropping pins right into the middle of Florida canals when searching for businesses as common as Walmart. Go right to the pin head and you'll be feeding (yourself to) the alligators. I've also arrived at many empty lots/fields where I expected to find a business.

It seems to me that Apple could get the coders to write some code that would run their own locations database against more reliable ones like Google and others and adjust the differences. For instance, if 5 other maps databases says that a Subway is on the corner of Elm and Main but Apple's database has it a couple of blocks away, maybe trust the crowd's and or adopt some kind of pin color or marker that would let the user know that this location has some probability of being off. It is pretty frustrating to trust the app, take a long drive to get to some particular site and find that it's one of those erroneous data points. I especially hate to be trying to get to a grocery store when out of state and arriving in an empty field, only to learn later that the store was actually 8-10 miles the other way.
 
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Customers are suffering the mismanagement of this area (Maps, Siri Integration).

I blame Tim Cook and his 2 side kicks. Tim Cook is a good person, but failed in this area.

Tim is just a typical CEO. Jobs was a hands on guy and people want Tim to be something that just isn't him.
 
Yep but a Siri API could be coming with iOS 9.

And they are only bad choices in your opinion. Apple seems to know what it's doing.

When compared to competitors Apple does not seem to know what it's doing with Siri.

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Customers are suffering the mismanagement of this area (Maps, Siri Integration).

I blame Tim Cook and his 2 side kicks. Tim Cook is a good person, but failed in this area.

Maps was underway when Jobs was alive. MobileMe didn't do what it was supposed to do under Jobs. Siri began under Jobs and where has it gone?
 
I had heard about the Dulles Airport issue so I tried punching in "Dulles Airport" to see if it was fixed using my Mac's Maps app. Maps is smart(?) enough to suggest "Washington DC". I let it do it's thing. Where did it drop the pin? Dulles Airport Taxi. A miss by 28 miles unless I wanted a cab instead of the airport.

For a good laugh, type in "Dulles Airport departure". It's just slightly more than 28 miles away. Everyone trying it, first make a guess where you think it will lead you.

On a side note, this whole thing is stupid. "Washington Airport" doesn't tell me that there are two airports in Washington. As a stranger in Washington, if I wanted to drive to the Airport, I would have no idea if I'm going to the wrong one. "Parking at Dulles Airport" and "Car Rental at Dulles Airport" actually give decent results (as far as I can tell), but if you want to pick up a friend at arrivals, are drop him off at departure, not a chance.
 
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WOW! :rolleyes:

Try "Palm Beach Airport" (which is commonly shortened to PBA and shows on tickets & travel sites that way). None of those are right- you have to add "international" in there if you want to get to PBA.

Try "Ft. Lauderdale Airport". That dropped about 20 pins on my map, none of which actually point to the Ft. Lauderdale Airport.
 
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