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Apple's New iOS 6 Maps App Drawing Significant Criticism

Winni said:
They should have bought Navigon or maybe even TomTom instead of even trying to do it on their own.
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The new Maps already gets its data primarily from TomTom, and also Waze and a bunch of others (Waze provides crowd-sourced traffic info, I think).


Honestly, for driving, I can't see any reason to use something besides Waze which is incredibly awesome.... although it's also lacking in transit navigation so it's not for everybody.
 
It works great here in rural, northern California. The road badges are great, I like the overall look of it better than Google's cluttered mess, so far I haven't found any errors, and it is definitely faster than Google.
 
gmanist1000 said:
Apple has over 100 billion dollars. Why don't they just buy Google Maps and overlay their UI on top of it? Why buy mapping data that is years old?
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LOL yeah why not? in fact, why not just buy out Samsung? and Microsoft too!
 
drtimo said:
Dude,

When searching for Pub in Guildford map - only comes with handful (literally a less than dozen). YELP has tons more (50+). So integration with YELP not functional.

Plus satellite quality in SE England, although good in places, Brighton absolutely awful.
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Hmm interesting i eat my words, I had not noticed the missing yelp entries myself. It will be interesting to see how quickly yelp entries make it into apple's maps. I still feel it would still be beneficial adding more data into yelp.

I happen to visit Brighton quite regularly (once a month) and did not have a problem with the cartography but did notice imagery being especially bad and had real problems trying to locate a specific address. So I feel for you and other people where the mapping is poor. I think in the longterm though WHEN the problems are ironed out it will be better than google maps. I'd even go so far as to say when it works I prefer the apple turn by turn to copilots.

It does sound like I have have had a fairly lucky experience compared with others though. But i can only speak from my own experience. The satelite imagery over my house only dates to about this time last year (i can tell because of the building work we've been doing) so hopefully if the can get it right here they will update the rest of the country very soon.
 
Winni said:
I guess somebody in Cupertino is now slowly and painfully learning the fact that writing good navigational software is more complicated that turning an existing Open Source operating system into a commercial software platform...
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I guess that's why Garmin had such success with the Nuvifone. :rolleyes:
 
T. Durden said:
It's version 1.0, give them a break. They're human. It's only a matter of time for them to work out the kinks. In the meantime, give them a hand by clicking the "report a problem" link in the app.
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It is not version 1.0 quality, 0.1 or alfa release level (regarding area of Japan).
 
Luckybobby said:
Ok guys I would like you to make a 3D map of a town a make sure everything is perfect.
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But it's not our Job.. This isn't a hobby for their employees. They get paid and have skills for this (hopefully). While I've had no problems with it, I see others have many issues and many of them should not have been there upon release.
 
daverso said:
I agree with this. However, I think the iPhone would have been half the phone it was on the original launch had they not relied on Google for some elements...
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The worst thing about this was that Apple made this change for no reason other than to rid itself of Google in iOS. Why? They weren't dominating the space enough? They weren't making enough money?

Now they've accomplished the exact opposite of the intended consequence - they've given Google (and subsequently Android) a clear differentiator and themselves a black eye.

I understand things like antennagate that weren't caught in beta, but Maps was clearly nowhere near prime time from the get go. I was on the beta from the beginning and I know many people who expressed the same reactions as those listed here. Apple chose to ignore them in order to simply launch iOS on time. This is where firm leadership takes over - having the guts to say something isn't ready and pull it rather than risk what you see here.
 
T. Durden said:
This has nothing to do with Apple going thermonuclear on Google and everything to do with Google hindering Apple's ability to move forward and innovate. For example, Google restricting APIs that would allow Apple to implement turn-by-turn navigation.
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Those restrictions came from the suppliers of data to Google. This has been well known since Maps started.

Those map suppliers also sell to GPS makers, and do not want their core business disrupted by every programmer who wants to make a nav app on top of their data without paying.

jrswizzle said:
1) Apple just decided to drop Google on a whim or out of some personal vendetta - WRONG. Google restricted the API.
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No. See above. Like Google, Apple has to contract directly with the suppliers for such access, which is why they're now dealing with TomTom.

It will take time. But Google Maps, aside from the data, hasn't been updated in forever. The loading mechanisms are slow and sometimes rendered the app useless. Apple decided to create their own vector-rendering system thereby giving the app a better base to build on.
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Google Maps for Android switched to using vector maps back at the end of 2010. That's also when they began caching common location and search areas.
 
It is very good opportunity for google
They can sell google maps to millions of iphones, even selling them £0.69-$1 makes some good money
Or ather collected data will be more valuable?
 
hspace said:
Save us, Google... Release a Google Maps app!
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I think if I was Google I'd be looking at this whole situation, laughing and wondering how much I could get away with charging for my "proper" Maps app...
 
FearlessFreep said:
I'm one of the biggest Apple fans but there's no question that Apple Maps are just a flat out FAIL.

To all those saying - 'well, just use something else' the issue here is that they removed a highly useful application and replaced it with something unusable. I don't have an issue with them replacing Google Maps per se, but it should at least be on par with the product it replaced. It's far, far below that level. Definitely not up to past Apple standards.
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Apple has a long history of releasing stuff that's not "up to Apple standards."

iTunes (on Windows). Ping. Their first two attempts at cloud services. More recently, the Podcasts app.

MOST of what they release is excellent, but like every company, they do have their occasional stinkers.


The new Maps app has the potential to be really good, but unfortunately they're noobies in that arena. They have a long way to go just to catch up.
 
People seem to be assuming that Apple arrogantly dismissed Google maps from iOS - but this isn't the case (according to what I heard). Google basically terminated the licence, or at least stipulated licence conditions that were simply not acceptable to Apple. No way are Apple prepared to leave such a core piece of functionality in the hands of a major competitor, so they had to move quickly to build their own solution.

In the short term, yes it probably suck. In the longer term, we'll hopefully end up with something much better than the **** sandwich Google were expecting us to eat.

On the positive side, the driving directions are great !
 
I've only just started having a play with the new map app and I'm a bit surprised by just how poor it is. I searched for a (large) leisure centre that I was standing next to, gave it the name of the centre and the town - it came up with something a hundred miles away.

The lack of public transport is poor as I often used that on Google. In fact there is a general lack of everything, including turn by turn navigation (on my iPhone 4) which plenty of other apps seem to manage to implement ok.

Their sales and profits might be rocketing at present but that isn't going to continue if they keep pulling stunts like this. It's pushing me more towards waiting for the new Windows mobiles to see how they compare.
 
You != Everyone

Nathan20 said:
Wow. Everyone is criticising an app they didn't use much before iOS 6...
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Actually, I use the Maps app constantly. Even after years of living in the same town, I'd use Maps on my iPhone for any place I wasn't familiar with. And now that I've moved to a new town, I use it multiple times per day.

I haven't fully evaluated the new Maps app, but I'm not optimistic. An out-of-the-way place like Binghamton is likely to be served very poorly for a long time.

I'm also not optimistic about a Google Maps app. First, Google has had plenty of warning, but their new YouTube app (a) doesn't show up in a search, and (b) looks terrible on the iPad. On top of, if Google were to make a Maps app for iOS, Apple is likely to at least delay it on the basis of it duplicating core functionality.
 
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