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If they need months to go from the Bay Area to Northern California, I don't wanna know when they'd cover Australia or Hong Kong or South Africa or Argentina. Years to come.


You need to understand how a phased roll out works. The first updates are slower as they are testing the new app versions, getting feedback, etc., once they know it's solid, they will accelerate roll out rapidly.
 
We have been working on trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step.

Apple can't really compete with Google at Big Data or AI who is 5-10 years ahead in this space (and only getting better).

I live in Mexico and here not even Apple fan boys use Apple Maps. It's either Waze or Google Maps.
 
Been using Google Maps. I only use Apple maps when other apps open a location and it defaults to Apple maps.

Is there a way to change this where everything will open in Google Maps instead of Apple maps?

No... but as developers, they can essentially read if you have Google Maps installed and give you the option. You should request the feature from the developer.
 
Apple Maps is yet another thing that Apple ruined. In London, you can't even see the tube stops easily, you have to zoom in and then slowly search for them. In the old version, they were significant and really stood out from a distance.

It's bizarre isn't it? You have to zoom in insanely close (like the maximum possible zoom) to see bus stops as well, and this is with public transport view enabled. Other problems include:
  • It's not easy to plan routes to or from places that aren't your current location
  • It doesn't use real-time availability
  • It sometimes provides unreasonably long walks in its routing (such as over 2 km) when this is completely unnecessary, alternative routes exist with next to no walking that are certainly much quicker (this happened to me the other day)
And those are just some of the problems with transit and routing (for the cities that have it). The base maps themselves are still quite poor and these improvements are long overdue; even longer by the time they get implemented. One feature I'd like to see added is when in transit mode to plot the bus routes available from a stop when you click on it.

I like the speed of Apple Maps (being entirely vector and all) but I still find it far too minimalistic with nowhere near enough contextual information to identify surroundings, and quite drab to look at as well (and I live in a big city). Personally I'm not at all interested in aerial photography or street-view and I think Apple should be putting more (even all) effort into its vector maps; making those as detailed and beautiful as possible. Nothing beats a finely crafted and detailed thematic map for information retrieval, but this is much, much harder than uploading ortho-rectified images.

Apple also seems to overly prioritise business and there seems to be no particular method to which ones display at certain scales over others. It's fine to have the business POIs in the database and available via search, but I rarely need to see random business POIs over-populating the map.
 
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Good, because the current Maps app is AWFUL. In my city, it still thinks there's a location that, in reality, hasn't existed for over 10 years. It's ridiculous.
 
Apple maps doesn’t properly locate my house. Google doesn’t either!

I have had zero issues with Apple maps. I will never allow google, Facebook or amazon **** on any of my devices.
 
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Other problems include:
  • It's not easy to plan routes to or from places that aren't your current location
  • It doesn't use real-time availability
  • It sometimes provides unreasonably long walks in its routing (such as over 2 km) when this is completely unnecessary, alternative routes exist with next to no walking that are certainly much quicker (this happened to me the other day)
While real-time data would be nice, being able to remove a part of the route that you know is closed would be nice. I know the route that I usually take, but when one part was closed, I couldn't make Apple Maps find a route around it. Had to guess. And I don't know why they cannot make use of the compass. When you leave an underground station that you don't know you usually have no idea what direction to walk. You see the map with streets, but you don't see any street signs. You have to walk 20 meters, see on the app that you are going in the wrong direction, then walk back.
 
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What ever happen to the old Apple where they just did it and surprised everyone when it was ready. Now they advertise it 12 months early, then fail to deliver. Apple has lost all credibility.
 
Apple Maps is my primary, Google maps is my secondary. Apple Maps has changed a lot over the course of five years and I find it to be just as reliable, if not more than Google maps in my city. The fact that they are talking about rebuilding Apple Maps shows they are not willing to allow Apple Maps just to be stagnant, and they’re trying to consistently improve it. I should just delete google maps, I never use it.
 
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I live in the bay area, so looking forward to trying out Apple Maps new (and hopefully more accurate) look. You can all thank me for being the guinea pig. ;)
 
This doesn't sound good. I guess I'll have to finally learn to use Google Maps . . . although the first time I used it (to find a new house in a new residential area), it put me 4 miles away in farmland. Apple Maps got it right, though, so there's that to be said in Apple's favor. But it was years ago....
 
This is exciting. Apple Maps started out disastrously, but has steadily been improving to the point where it is an already great app. It's now by far the most used mapping app with iOS and is used by hundreds of millions of people a month, to the tune of many billion times a week.

The increasing importance of mapping is not well appreciated by most folks, but there's a reason Apple has been investing billions in AM and has thousands of people working on it-- technology is making it feasible to map the interior of every building, so if you use Google maps they will have even more data about every single place you go to, where you stop, shop, who you visit, etc. For example, now Google Maps collects and stores the data that you went to an office building, but soon they will be able to add to your "Universal Identifier" that you went to a particular doctor's office, or a particular particular apartment in a building.

Thankfully, Apple Maps will continue to be an alternative if you don't want Google to know and control every intimate detail about you. Keep in mind also, that the dossier that Google is amassing on people is available to hackers, law enforcement, intel agencies, successor companies that Google might want to sell it to, and of course, indirectly to marketers, advertisers, etc.
 
Excellent news. This also explains why Apple announced that Waze and Google Maps will work in CarPlay in iOS 12. They were waiting until Apple Maps was up to par before giving people a choice.
 
I already like Apple Maps though it definitely needs some love. For great urban areas (including Canada) it does contain enough information. Better user interface and navigation, smooth use, but indeed not as detailed as their main competitor.

Look forward to see more improvements!
 
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As long as the underlying intelligence of Apple maps is linked to the search and knowledge capabilities of Siri the maps will not be nearly as useful as Google Maps. That said, I do prefer the UI on Apple Maps, but that is really the only thing that I prefer about it.

On, and bike lanes. Will that ever come? Google has provided those for at least five to seven years.
 
I see the potential in Apple Maps, but Google is still solid and my go to maps app of choice. I'm afraid that Apple will still overthink things and try to improve upon something Google has figured out as best practice already and render it less useful. It's like Apple Numbers compared to Excel. Why take an industry standard application and try to completely change the way people use a spreadsheet and also eliminate key functionality? I think that Apple moving to in house development is the right direction...hoping Apple Maps becomes my first choice, but not holding my breath. Also hoping iWork replaces Office...again not holding my breath.
 
From an unfashionable backwater of the UK:

WhatsApp Image 2018-06-28 at 09.39.58.jpeg
 
Nothing like an Apple Maps story to bring out all of the haters...hah!

This has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads, but when you look at Apple's history, when have they ever taken something that others launched first and not improved on it?

The data they are collecting is much better than Google's and will be easier to catch up...and look better...and operate better. Apple's main limitation right now is reliance on third party data suppliers for routing, map data, POI data. They are doing it themselves now...just like Google!

And I'm sorry, but every map has it's flaws, so for the half of you (like me even) that have legitimate gripes about incorrect road info, or location info, or whatever...fine...it will be fixed...but Google and HERE have the same issues in different locations. I can't tell you how many times Google has told me to make illegal turns where that never happens to me with Apple.

For the other half of you, I suspect you are still butt hurt from when Maps launched and didn't have your address in the exact spot of your driveway...or you are one of the same people that loves to bring up when the beta was launched and it had roads in the middle of the ocean (forget the fact that those dumb issues were fixed before public release).

I use Waze mainly, mostly because I drive to fast and want to avoid getting a ticket, but I prefer Apple Maps above and beyond every other map out there from a UI perspective...and it hasn't failed me any more than other map programs.

And I'm trying to drive slower, so have been moving to Apple Maps more and more recently (as I typically do when a beta is released).
 
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