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Apple's New iOS 6 Maps App Drawing Significant Criticism

Ymmv

Checking in areas like Houston and Atlanta, so far accuracy seems to be better than Google Maps. This is not surprising since it's based off TomTom, and Google Maps seems pretty inaccurate outsides places like the SF Bay Area and NYC. But I'm sure there are still errors, and they should be fixed over time.
 
Rocketman said:
That logic doesn't work either. By your theory we would have never seen iOS 1.0 and iPhone 1 2007.
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Terrible comparison. In those two cases it was a brand new product (and as much as people complained about those, they did compare well to other phones and phone OS's at the time).

In this case they already had functionality that worked well for the most part, and when they switched over they took that away and replaced it with a train wreck. They could have kept this as a beta until it was ready, if they really wanted to release it to the public they could have included it as Apple Maps Beta alongside the Google maps then switched later.

Lots of people depend on map functionality NOW. This is becoming a PR debacle for Apple, it has the potential for people to delay updating to iOS 6, could hurt iPhone 5 sales, and could even cause some people to get android phones instead.

"Hey, not bad for 1.0" just doesn't cut it. Paying customers aren't beta testers.
 
Buildbright said:
If you all hate Apple so much leave. You expect everything to be perfect it doesnt work that way. There will be a google maps app for ios soon and remember Google started this fight, hate them for not giving you all the features of android.
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Thanks for the advice. I won't be buying it.

iP5 is a joke and iOS6 is insulting. Especially for a company who is sitting on BILLIONS of dollars of cash. Whatever they release these days should be perfect. No excuses at this point. They secured their customers, now they need to make sure they take care of them or they start losing them. Plain and simple. So yeah, I think quite a few people will be taking your advice :)
 
Ugg said:
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.
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Ok, so one person likes it
 
basesloaded190 said:
It's a shame they went ahead with introducing this when it clearly isn't ready. Too stubborn to stick with Google any longer than they wanted to.
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Agreed. Apple being ignorant again believing they can do everything.

They seam to enjoy releasing software that is not ready for market.
 
Rocketman said:
That logic doesn't work either. By your theory we would have never seen iOS 1.0 and iPhone 1 2007.

Apple does have a release and upgrade cycle approach with all its benefits and difficulties.

My objection with Maps and FCP is why deprecate the old when introducing the new. Among the millions of customers, some want to be early adopters and some want bulletproof reliability and to be a late adopter. My concern with this approach is forcing essentially all OS users to be bleeding edge early adopters.

The factor that is not really being addressed is the fact the new maps app has underlying functionality and hooks to other apple and ecosystem features that will enable it to do things Apple would not let a third party do at all, and do so with as good of security as is achievable.

Until the release and upgrade cycle resolves them a bit at a time year after year.

It is instructive to remember Google Maps itself is only 7 years old and only became ubiquitous about 4 years ago, three years into the product life. Apple has a captive audience to sort the issues on a massive scale so may get there a bit faster than Google did, but with that momentum and the access to interactive hooks, will surpass it.

In the mean time some pain and error is in your present tense.

Rocketman
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No. If you want to improve functionality you do it by delivering the one we have already paid for (Google Maps) and offering the new 'better' solution as an addition -not just replace it unilaterally - that approach will just piss everyone off ; as it has done in this instance.
 
xkmxkmxlmx said:
Thanks for the advice. I won't be buying it.

iP5 is a joke and iOS6 is insulting. Especially for a company who is sitting on BILLIONS of dollars of cash. Whatever they release these days should be perfect. No excuses at this point. They secured their customers, now they need to make sure they take care of them or they start losing them. Plain and simple. So yeah, I think quite a few people will be taking your advice :)
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I also am off to Android. And appy about it.
 
aurichie said:
I'm really excited Apple has stuck two fingers up to the naysayers and rolled out the new Maps app to the entire iOS universe. They need to start from somewhere, and this innovative mapping technology will improve the more we use it, and help improve it.

This is a good solid 1.0 release. Remember Google Maps has been going for several years and more. Google won't be laughing today. They know they are about to be eclipsed by Apple.
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Wow

How does the Kool Aid taste?

Could Apple do anything wrong in your eyes?
 
I'm not all that worked up about it. The underlying technology is pretty cool. They just need to work out some kinks. They probably should have called it a Beta. But Apple has the resources to make the necessary fixes. And now that they have "ownership" of Maps, they also have the motivation.

I'm also not concerned because I think it's just a matter of time before Google releases a Map app.
 
I think maps are THE most important part of the iPhone. Sometimes an email reply can wait, sometimes you don't really need to play Angry Birds, sometimes it's okay if you can't watch a video, but if you need to know where the hell you are when you're lost, or you need to find your way, that simply has to work without problems.
 
I've read some of the criticisms and I'm not disputing what others are saying.

However.....

I like the new Maps! Maybe it depends on where you live but I live in San Diego and it seems to be pretty slick. Seems faster than the previous iteration and is spot on in terms of locating me. I love the new 3D mode, cleaner UI and integration with Yelp. I've run a few routes and it seems spot on as well. Haven't actually tried the turn-by-turn but will be giving that a try later on this afternoon.
 
yusukeaoki said:
In Japan for work.
Excited for iOS 6 and just terrified.
Apparently my hotel doesnt exist, my train station near is called Mcdonalds.
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Imagine if you were living here.
There's about 8 - 10 million iPhone users in Japan, and over here people rely on maps A LOT. If a solution isn't found soon, Apple will just have handed the Japanese market over to Google and Microsoft.
 
scottwaugh said:
I don't think that's the "reality" at all.

Apple could have released their own Map App as a Beta and asked for customers's help in improving it while keeping the working one around till the license actually expired on that (& making sure Google would have a standalone).
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That would have been taking care of the customer first though...and a much nicer reality with Apple stepping off the cliff when they had their Map App actually ready for primetime outside of Cupertino and particularly outside of the USA.

It'll be interesting to see how they step through this mess they've made for themselves though.[/QUOTE]


Unfortunately that wouldn’t work, maps require vast amount of crowd sourced data, and any data acquired by Google sourced maps is theirs and theirs alone. Most people would use the Google solution because it’s better thanks to nearly a decade of crowd sourced data they already have and every day that someone uses Google Maps is a day Google Maps gets better and Apple’s Maps don’t. Apple could have waited until next year, or the year after or 5 years from now but the gap between Google & Apple would be bigger not smaller because an army of passive participants will overwhelm the tiny percentage of active users.

The next 6-18 months (depending on the density of iOS users in a particular regions) are going to have varying degrees of unpleasantness, so much so it seems strange Apple didn’t label this a beta; perhaps they have a lot of confidence their army of passive participants will correct the data in a relatively short space of time.
 
NumberNine said:
Ok, so one person likes it
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I also have no issues. It is accurate for me (except that I live in a brand new neighborhood and one of the roads doesn't go all the way through on the map like it does now). The UI looks better and is infinitely smoother. Numerous times the GMaps app was useless because it took forever to render.

I'm a fan....then again as some people so eloquently pointed out, I'm an iSheep :rolleyes:
 
UK is not all there

Hi All
Probably ten said before but everything in UK is very low res except flyover some is in grey can't find simple things Mway junctions A & B road names iOS 6 also bricked my phone to such an extent Apple are replacing it (4S).

Also apps that use maps lose functionality i.e. TPS the photographers ephemeris which i use a lot at work to decide where the sun shines on buildings etc won't work Im in Manchester this week end near old trafford and that shows up in a different location its going to be an interesting week end.

Jon
 
New Zealand: Not found.

My home country people :confused:
 

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Totally Agree

dotme said:
Maybe the problem is that Apple has gained a reputation for excellence - from design to build to customer service. So they set the bar higher than most other companies. Then they release a maps app, and possibly a black iPhone that looks 6 months old after 2 days. That's uncharacteristic carelessness, and it will not go unnoticed by customers or the media.

With all the money they had in the bank, I'm just aghast that they didn't throw a ton of hours and resources into building an excellent map app. It's not "new" - they've been working on it for a long time. Long enough to do better than this. Either they were starved for resources, with insufficient funding to get the job done, or they had a very low set of standards.

I just wonder who wears the boots at Apple now. Someone should be receiving some swift kicks up the backside for this. It makes Apple look very inexperienced, and that's a shame.
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You would think that with $120 billion in cash that just maybe Apple could have come up with maps app that was fit for purpose? If this was a free app on the app store no one would download it!
 
baryon said:
I think maps are THE most important part of the iPhone. Sometimes an email reply can wait, sometimes you don't really need to play Angry Birds, sometimes it's okay if you can't watch a video, but if you need to know where the hell you are when you're lost, or you need to find your way, that simply has to work without problems.
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Wow, sounds like you just need to buy a GPS device. Maps are the least important for me. Oh, and th new app works great for my area in the US, which is all that matters to me.
 
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