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Apple maps still has issues

I've noticed today when reporting UK issues, you can now choose to receive a notification when the issue is fixed. It must have been activated today as I didn't see it before.

I believe the notifications were previously USA only. Hopefully this means UK issues will be fixed quicker.
 
I still prefer the apple maps. Apple could have as stellar product with just a little more effort.
 
I like the Flyover feature of Apple Maps. It's useful getting a 3D perspective of buildings in large cities. Street view in Google sometimes blurs the top of the screen and makes getting a good idea of a buildings perspective nearly impossible, unless you Zoom out and manually move around, which is slow.
 
apollo1444 said:
Apple is the one venturing on to the "maps business" which requires businesses and POI's that shouldn't excuse them from criticisms
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I didn't say it did. I just pointed out you'll get better results that way.

Personally I'd rather use something that works then criticize something that doesn't and be late for my hair cut. 🙂
 
lmao I also get this and it gives me cairo for:
hair
hair salon
haircut
barbershop
(all 4 were recommend searches by the phone lol)

BUT
if you do "barbershop near me"WORKS
same if you "haircut near me" WORKS
etc

so the maps app knows more barbershops than the ones in Cairo, it just recommends those in Cairo as first choice, I guess they give you a great shave there! 😀
 
campyguy said:
I saw this thread a few days ago. To the OP, I laughed it off as sheer, utter BS. I didn't have time to try it out for myself, so I didn't dismiss it but it was good for a laugh.

So, yesterday I got a haircut - from my friend Dan, who owns a small shop here in Portland named "Hair on Broadway", even though he's not on Broadway any more. So, I talked with him again today, and again this thread came to mind so I searched for "hair" as you did with some time to kill, and was hoping to find Dan's business - but, I was transported to Cairo as you were.

I also tried it out on my iPhone 5 that has iOS 8 installed on it, and the results are similar, but the results are even better - located near the intersection of Abd El Salam Aref and Mohamed Sedqy Basha. I'm submitting a bug report to Apple. But, I have to run - I need a trim of my beard, but I guess I have to catch a flight first... 🙄
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Yeah, that's really odd. I can confirm the "hair" goes to Cairo, too. But "hair salon" gets me a barber.

Also, Dan! I used to get my hair cut there, when I worked a couple blocks away. Not often (I tend to go 3-6 months between hair cuts,) so not a "regular", but that was my usual downtown hair cuttin' place.
 
Winona Northdakota said:
I like the Flyover feature of Apple Maps. It's useful getting a 3D perspective of buildings in large cities. Street view in Google sometimes blurs the top of the screen and makes getting a good idea of a buildings perspective nearly impossible, unless you Zoom out and manually move around, which is slow.
Click to expand...


I find 3D flyover pretty, but not useful. A gimmick for me if you will.

I use street view as a tool, for example I know this isn't an entrance to this parking garage, I can clearly read the sign saying so.

7aqe3aqu.jpg


Apples 3D fly over, not so much.

e3agyra8.jpg


Using street view gets me a first person view of what I'll actually see. Where entrances and exits are and usually the signs displaying hours of operation, address numbers and cost of parking or tolls.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
Yeah, that's really odd. I can confirm the "hair" goes to Cairo, too. But "hair salon" gets me a barber.

Also, Dan! I used to get my hair cut there, when I worked a couple blocks away. Not often (I tend to go 3-6 months between hair cuts,) so not a "regular", but that was my usual downtown hair cuttin' place.
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Regarding timing, there just ain't that much up there anymore, searching for "hair" anything for me is an effort in near-futility.

As for Dan, we're having lunch tomorrow. He and I have been friends for 30-odd years, lived a few doors down from each other as kids in The 'Couv (or, as one of his other customers, former Gov. Ted K, calls it: Vantucky). 🙂
 
I did a bit of a background check of my own after seeing some pretty old aerial imagery in Apple/Google/Bing Maps after wanting to check on a couple of local sites for a client, and now I'm cutting those companies some slack. I've been out of the land development consulting "game" for about 3-1/2 years now, and I used to have access via paid subscriptions to data/information on GIS sites - not just the free access we all have. Local to the Portland metro area is "Metro", which covers the tri-country area - and the GIS source is named RLIS (Metro’s Regional Land Information System), and I knew the GIS techs by name. Their data is available via subscription - it's about $500 per year, and used to be $1k per year for quarterly DVDs - and we returned the old DVD as we couldn't keep it.

I started working for the local transit agency in '94, two blocks from Metro, and moved into consulting in late '99. Metro aggregated (from private and public flyovers every 6 months to show tree cover and no tree cover) made available aerial imagery every year that was updated starting in '94, coincidentally.

I checked the RLIS dataset list today and was a bit surprised to see that their "yearly" aerial datasets stopped in 2011, just after I got out of land development. For me, now I better understand why Apple/Google/Bing Maps are so out of date in my area - the source aerial data hasn't been updated since 2011 (http://rlisdiscovery.oregonmetro.gov/?resourceID=6#). That's why the Mall near me still shows up on Google Maps (2010) and the graded site shows up in Apple Maps right after the Mall was torn down (2011) - but all of the new businesses don't show up at all in the aerials or the POIs. Parts of King County (Seattle and surrounding area) also are lacking newer details.

Aerials aren't cheap - a flyover of a site I worked on in 2006 cost my client $16k for 1-foot detail of a 40-acre site. Heck, I used to be happy with 5-foot or 10-foot detail in an orthophoto. Our latest Metro 10 foot regional orthophoto was aggregated in 2010, and I know several areas that are out of date.

So, I'm off to Cairo tomorrow to have lunch with my friend Dan, who cuts hair for a living (see above). Above isn't quite a rant, but I've got more perspective into why some of those aerials aren't quite so accurate anymore and I thought I'd share...
 
campyguy said:
Regarding timing, there just ain't that much up there anymore, searching for "hair" anything for me is an effort in near-futility.

As for Dan, we're having lunch tomorrow. He and I have been friends for 30-odd years, lived a few doors down from each other as kids in The 'Couv (or, as one of his other customers, former Gov. Ted K, calls it: Vantucky). 🙂
Click to expand...

Yeah, Vantucky - or now "Vansterdam".
 
Antgb84 said:
They're outdated compared to Google, shame. I thought I had faith.
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Google has had Google Maps since 2005. Apple has had Apple Maps since 2012. So give them time to catch up?

The hair vs cairo situation is really just an algorithm phenomenon. Hair has "air" and cairo has "air". I reported it as an issue so hopefully we will get a fix anytime soon. But the workaround is to be a little more specific for what you are searching for.

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cynics said:
I find 3D flyover pretty, but not useful. A gimmick for me if you will.

I use street view as a tool, for example I know this isn't an entrance to this parking garage, I can clearly read the sign saying so.

Image

Apples 3D fly over, not so much.

Image

Using street view gets me a first person view of what I'll actually see. Where entrances and exits are and usually the signs displaying hours of operation, address numbers and cost of parking or tolls.
Click to expand...

Street view is incredible useful yes! But Apple Maps is really just supposed to be there to give you a quick default maps application that Google wasn't going to deliver at the time. If you want the extra features? Use 3rd party mapping applications. Even iOS 8 apple maps will let you look up locations and open them in other apps.
 
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