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Apple Launches New App Store Feature Section for Alternative Maps

Big issue in UK is that maps ignores postcodes. Hence my house has "moved" to a similarly named road 9 miles away. No way to change it, hence geofencing and "direct me home" useless now.
Yelp integration bad as I tagged many locations here closed 3 years ago. Still in yelp and now in maps!
 
Sacird said:
Sony > Samsung any day of my week.

Samsung does make those amazing commercials,with those awesome actors and well written dialogue; something Nolan should be envious of.

Blonde Girl: "It's the Galaxy S threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" LMFAO

More wooden acting than the star Wars prequels, I didn't think it was possible.
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Last time I checked advertising had nothing to do with the quality of the product. There have been amazing ads about crappy products and crappy ads about amazing products.
 
The Telenav GPS is actually pretty good. I use it on my Samsung Galaxy S sometimes instead of maps. Didn't think of that until right now.
 
samcraig said:
Last time I checked advertising had nothing to do with the quality of the product. There have been amazing ads about crappy products and crappy ads about amazing products.
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Last time I checked I noticed that too. Crazy!!!

EDIT: I checked again..... yup the galaxy s threeeeeee is a nice product once you get touchwiz off there.
 
Not sure what to think about the dedicated page for Maps apps.

I'm not sure if it's damage control or if it's Apple admitting that this is going to be a much more time consuming job than they'd initially bargained for. I'm also not sure why they didn't realize the enormity of this task in June when they started getting feedback on the betas of iOS 6 from developers around the world.

Hopefully, the fact that Apple elected to put up a dedicated Maps category means that they're working that much harder to get the baked in Maps app up to snuff. It has to be embarrassing internally to all of a sudden be promoting third-party solutions for something the new phone/OS should do well out of the box.
 
Oracle1729 said:
The 4S and SGS3(for example), have a nice solid feel The 5 has a feel like a fisher price toy. If I grip it firmly, I can feel it flexing in my hand. Apparently the metal is so thin it dents super easily. I carry my iPhone around in a pocket with no case and it gets banged around a bit but the 4S looks pristine. The SGS3 seems like it will take the abuse just as well. The 5 feels like it will look like crap in a week and the posts around the web seem to confirm that feeling.
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Well, after 2 days my 5 still looks brand new. My 4S had plenty of dings in areas that were protected by a hard case not less.

It's a phone, carried around, it's not going to remain pristine. Again, my experience is that Samsung or Apple, 3GS, 4S or 5, they're all pretty much the same.
 
Why arent they just bringing the google app back???? As much as i travel, the is a debacle for apple.
 
macchiato2009 said:
in addition to apologizing for providing a crappy app, Apple should simply put Google Maps back

there's no shame about acknowledging failure and going back to what is best for consumers
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I'm thinking perhaps they should have made "Apple Maps" available as a downloadable app, spent a year or so improving it with real-world feedback, and then next year they could say "Last year we released our own beautiful Maps app on the App Store. In iOS 7, we are integrating it right into the OS."
 
KnightWRX said:
Well, after 2 days my 5 still looks brand new. My 4S had plenty of dings in areas that were protected by a hard case not less.

It's a phone, carried around, it's not going to remain pristine. Again, my experience is that Samsung or Apple, 3GS, 4S or 5, they're all pretty much the same.
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I think the people who are most obsessed with this idea are those that rely on resale of their phone to get the next upgrade.

Personally - I use my phone without concern for whether or not I might be able to sell it later. I enjoy the phone. That's not to say I don't treat it with respect or throw it around. But I use it. It will get dinged. It might get a scratch or two. That's life.
 
BigZ243 said:
Pretty sad. All Apple needed to do is call it a beta and keep the existing maps on there until an update when it was ready.
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Very true! Just like Siri and if people complain then just say it is a beta and there are many other options on App Store!
 
Keebler said:
I respectfully disagree. I think it's great they apologized. Most companies get arrogant when they get big and don't admit to any wrongdoing.
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Depends, not knowing something is wrong, and then apologizing is great.

releasing a crap app(for a lot of its users), knowing and even showing it off and then a week later apologizing, is bad. It shows either they didnt care and just underestimated how people would react or apple didnt have a clue how bad its own app was.

Both are not good .
 
srxtr said:
This is a new low for Apple...

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I love the new Apple maps, and while I'm sure there are lots of people affected negatively by the bad data their software is perfect and I have yet to come across a problem with it. In fact, I'm going to sell my Garmin GPS Navigation system and use the money to buy myself car accessories for my iPhone 5.

I feel this whole situation is overblown and Apple shouldn't have had to take this unnecessary step. I mean, aside from Google, who has decent map data? Garmin? TomTom? I've had problems with all of them.
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Amen - I think Tim Cook is waaaay overreacting.
 
Overblown

I think Apple is making too big a deal out of it. People have focused on the negative 1% of Apple's maps, instead of the good 99%. Google Maps didn't have voice navigation. I previously used MapQuest to get free voice navigation on iPhone, but the accuracy of Apple Maps far far exceeds that of MapQuest. At least in my part of the world, MapQuest could never find anything unless you entered the exact address including zip-code. Apple's map is a huge, huge improvement.

Leading customers to competitors seem a huge strategic misstep.
 
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samcraig said:
One of the reasons I also enjoy using my Samsung Skyrocket - I love the flexibility of controlling what apps I want to integrate with by default or one-offs. I even have one app that enables me (one example) to share a photo I just took with as many apps/etc as I want with one flick.
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Man...that would be nice. The one big reason I'm gonna stick with Apple instead of jumping over to Android is that I like the iPhone hardware a little better and I've already spent a metric ****ton of cash on apps. I'd either have to give em all up or carry around two phones with me if I make the jump.

I've been ecosystem'd!

Apple no doubt made the app market amazing (well the developers did) - but I was using app stores on my palm and other devices before Apple introduced theirs. Apple made theirs widely popular - but the model existed.
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I knew there were similar setups floating around the smartphone scene before the App Store showed up, but I think Apple made theirs a little more cohesive and a bit better integrated into the OS than previous efforts. Though I won't say they completely invented the idea from the ground up, I would say their implementation of it was a little more indepth than what's come before, and took a little more though to create than Apple's usual spitshine it, polish it, and call it magical efforts.
 
iOS6 and Apple Maps....

I made the mistake of upgrading my iPad 3 to iOS6 on a whim. Only after I upgraded to iOS6 did I realise I had lost all the photos and videos I took with my iPad. My bad, but I feel that a prompt should have came up, suggesting I first sync my iPad to iTunes, before upgrading, warning me I could lose photos, videos, date, ect.... Argh!!

I didn't realise I'd also lose the Google Maps app. The new Apple Maps is OK, but not great. For one, the 3D isn't really 3D, unless it is over a big city with tall buildings. My house is small, yes, but it sure isn't the squished-flattened house that the 3D image represents it as. Also, the Apple Maps doesn't have a street view, at least I haven't seen one yet. That blows.

Also, I have limited experience with Siri, but what I know of it so far is unimpressive.

Anyone know if I can actually retrieve any of my lost pics and vids off my iPad??

😡😡😡😡
 
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verniesgarden said:
I love that every one that touts android phones always has to add "when i completely redid the software"
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Maybe you you got out of apple's walled garden for a breath of fresh air, you'd get it. Or does your main computer also just have a stock factory OS install and no customizations?
 
Wow...seriously? I didnt fall in love with Apple's maps app, but i'm certainly not blatantly hating against it. Apple seems like they are fueling the fire at this rate.
 
KrakaJap said:
wow, ok sorry but I believe you've just contradicted yourself there. How can the software be perfect while at the same time contain bad data??? Maps would just be a cheesy icon on your home screen were it not for the data. Do you know exactly how many users are affected by this bad data? Do you know how many areas are inaccurate? You simply cannot just assume this is overblown because your own experience has been fine. However, you can easily assume that it is indeed a huge problem if it invoked a public apology from the world's most valuable company.
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Software can be perfect even if data was crap. The upside to that is data can be improved over time if Apple has a decent data operations team. But you're right, what's the point of a good app if the data that drives it is bad? My experience, alongside others I personally know, have been great so far though.

You're asking me how many users are affected by this bad data? I've been wanting to ask the same question.

I believe this situation looks worse than it really is because:
1) A lot of people who complain or criticize have actually not used the app, or is an Android loving/Apple hating dorks who just love bashing Apple no matter what.
2) Tim Cook mentioned there are 100+ million iOS users who upgraded to iOS 6, so it's obvious that not 100% of them will be happy with the switch.
3) Again, Google has been collecting data and improving their Maps for a decade. How does any company compete against that? Apple has to start SOMEWHERE.

Even Google's Android was klunky and crappy to use when it first came out, but now it's almost on par with Apple's iPhone. It took them a couple of years to get it right.
 
Jobs is just rolling over in his grave right now. Is there any way that shareholders can make their voice be heard that we need to fire Cook ASAP? This public apology is not the way the Apple does things.
 
Renzatic said:
Man...that would be nice. The one big reason I'm gonna stick with Apple instead of jumping over to Android is that I like the iPhone hardware a little better and I've already spent a metric ****ton of cash on apps. I'd either have to give em all up or carry around two phones with me if I make the jump.

I've been ecosystem'd!
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I thought the same thing when I switched (well I still have my iphone 4). But most/all of the apps I used on the iPhone were available on Android and many were even free. I do have TONS of apps that were either obtained via promo codes and/or when they were free which are now paid apps. But when I really examined my usage - I never really used them. So I have the best of both worlds now - have the iPhone at home (and iPad) but I walk around with the Skyrocket.

Both Android and iOS (to me) are great and each has pluses and minuses. And both phones are great as well with the same caveat.
 
I admire Tim Cook's move today, but the thing is though, apps that use the maps plugin will still use the default option.
 
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