Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple's New iOS 6 Maps App Drawing Significant Criticism

I want my google maps back!

Far appart than 3D is amazing.. it is only availiable in important places and big cities of USA (its funny when it starts loading.. it looks like a city after apocalypse)
But i find more utility to google maps, it has a great performance, even with apps of location services.
These apps are not working properly due the apple maps, wrong addresses, wrong street names, wrong places, wrong directions... in my case, my city: has huge clouds above important places, and the street names are totally wrong.. even most of them has typo's, and in the outskirts (which are important also) totally degraded imagery.
Apple is using tampers, when talking about mappery.
Apple should allow to choose what mapping system we want to use, till they rise something better and solid imagery, and the most important.. Useful maps! (3D looks pretty good, but i preffer google's street view), and have a great reason for a change. I Have faith that Apple will get a great mapping system, just like google did when beginning, it took time to google to have the maps quality we have today... But please please Apple, don't force me to use something that is unfinished, and need lots of fixes.
 
Last edited:
lordofthereef said:
I just honestly don't see licensing being an issue. Maps is downloadable on Windows Phone, and has been for some time. yOutube is available now on all platforms. You could be right, I am not saying there is no chance, it's just my feelings aren't licensing issues. I will agree to disagree on this one. :)
Click to expand...

That seems to be the temporary solution to this argument... :p
 
Saw this in another thread:

A3QARhSCIAA2R9U.jpg


Eek!
 
Apple maps is a disaster in my country (Lebanon). It can't find even basic locations and the satellite images are more than 2 years old. When I searched for McDonalds, I got 'no results found' and when I searched for Burger King it took me to North Carolina. It even called my university 'the french faculty of medicine' when the name was changed in 1976.
 
Last edited:
The better question is why did google maps never get a turn by turn update?
That's all the apple app offers that I care about. 3D flyover is a joke
 
I like in Qatar and apple maps is basically useless . Most streets arent on there. And my house isn't even there.

Anyone who defends apple maps is a fanboy . Plan and simple.
 
I hope everyone complaining about the inaccuracies or lack of data are reporting the problem to Apple via the in app report problem button...
 
iKing7 said:
The better question is why did google maps never get a turn by turn update?
That's all the apple app offers that I care about. 3D flyover is a joke
Click to expand...

Apple didn't implement it. The API certainly existed for Google's Maps.

If this was Google's, Apple's or a combination of the two's fault is open to debate.

----------
diamond.g said:
I hope everyone complaining about the inaccuracies or lack of data are reporting the problem to Apple via the in app report problem button...
Click to expand...

It's a full time job, and none of the ones I reported in the beta have ever been fixed.
 
Why are people so surprised that something was released that the consumer is ultimately the tester? This has been going on for years... I hate it...
 
chrisbru said:
It had to be done to give us turn-by-turn directions due to Google's limitations. If you were one of those that whined about no turn-by-turn directions, then you have no room to criticize the maps app... It WILL get better, but it will also take some time.

However, it is working fine for me, I haven't had any problems yet. I'm sure it depends on where you live.
Click to expand...

Lots of people seem to be making the assumption that Apple had to home-brew a solution if it wanted turn-by-turn directions, but I have seen no evidence this was true. Instead, people seem to be relying on the terms available to the general public for use of Google's APIs. Apple certainly was not a party to that license, though, and wasn't bound by its terms. Maybe Google imposed the same limitation on Apple in whatever private contracts they have, but that's unlikely.

Even if it were true, though, it's ridiculous to say that this leaves people with "no room to criticize." Some us expect competent software, irrespective of circumstances. Some of us expect so-called upgrades to retain key features available in the prior versions. And some of us expect Apple management to spot glaring deficiencies before a product goes out the door. Whatever gloomy situation Apple found themselves in, we have every right to criticize this sloppy, lazy, and frankly inept effort.
 
The BBC reports Apple PR rep Trudy Muller saying "as Maps is a cloud-based solution, the more people use it, the better it will get".

If crowd-sourcing is what she has in mind, then this strikes me as an ill-thought-out fantasy/pure wishful thinking.

I use Maps-type tools to find places I don't already know how to get to, not to while away my free time looking for places whose locations I know that are missing or mis-located, so I that can make corrections and add the missing data to someone else's non-open source IP. Clearly some of us are having fun, of a sort, identifying new pratfalls in Maps, but that won't take very long to become old (it's already time-consuming just to keep up with the silliest). There are other useless and unreliable apps on my iPhone, including some paid ones. Once I am pretty sure of this I no longer launch and, eventually, delete said apps. I suspect "more people" resemble me than whoever these diehards are that Muller has in mind.

Moreover, a seriously patchy map implementation like Apple's will have few, if any, "people" of any kind using it except in the places where it's already good enough to be useful, which in turn means that only those areas will see significant volunteer-based improvements. You need a certain threshold of functional competence before you can expect there to be "people" who will engage with your app, and unfortunately for Apple, for mapping this threshold is always going to be a high one, even more so when there is competition doing it more than competently enough.

Commenters have been saying that Apple can't fix this within months, let alone days. I beg to differ. They can wave Google's standalone app through the App Store, or revert to including Apple's previous Google-based version as an option in iOS 6.0.x. I can't imagine that including the old app would require a huge amount of effort.

Once Apple do this they can work on improving the Maps app to their heart's content, without at the same time aggravating and inconveniencing "more people" (viz.: loyal paying customers). In fact, with the old app available for simultaneous use, we "the people" might be more inclined and better able to contribute to those sorely-need improvements.
 
curmudgeon32 said:
One saving bit of integration there: if you request directions between two points in NYC, and you have a compatible transit app installed (I use and highly recommend iTrans NYC) Maps will hand off your request to that app and it will fetch your directions. iTrans does anyway, haven't tried any of the other connected apps. It shows you a list of the ones supported and offers App Store links if you don't have them installed.

I would assume/hope this works in other cities and their transit apps.
Click to expand...

I noticed that. Still, I hate every NYC transit app I have ever tried to use. They are all based on the subway map instead of the literal map. I know the subway well enough that 9 times out or 10 I don't need to look up directions, but the feature I did like about google maps was the ability to zoom in on the map and see the actual location of subway stations and which lines service them.

----------
matttye said:
Saw this in another thread:



Eek!
Click to expand...

hilarious!
 
While the apple maps app is subpar, I've just looked up my work on google web map and its also not in quite the right place, and local other workplaces are not on their correct locations relative to it. Are all maps crap?
 
shanmugam said:
Dude, he did not fire anyone (for that incident), do not exaggerate things ... Just the management got shuffled across the team. I for one second do not care about the managers; Kudo to the engineers who worked tails off - may be this incident they failed ...
Click to expand...

Hmm, i thought I read that they were eventually let go over some period of time (or left apple)
 
I used the maps app today to go to a prior destination by a new route. It did give verbal turn by turn which I found reminiscent of my friend's Tom-Tom, or whatever it is.

However it first took me to a closed road, a State Highway with a bar across the road. So when I selected the "Route 2" option it took me back a ways, in a circle on some dirt roads, then instructed me to go back to the closed road, which is opposite the direction of Route 2 and the preferred direction. I disposed of using the maps app feedback and just looked at the map and went the route that made sense like I was reading a paper map.

Not impressed. No mechanism for obvious feedback. The dirt road loop in the wrong direction was especially aggregious.

Rocketman
 
george-brooks said:
I noticed that. Still, I hate every NYC transit app I have ever tried to use. They are all based on the subway map instead of the literal map.
Click to expand...


You'd like iTrans then -- one of the options is to lay the actual real locations of the subway stops over a Google map (or, in iOS 6, an Apple map). If you zoom in, you can see the location of the exits too. The best part, though, is that even offline it has all those big, detailed "neighborhood maps" that hang in subway stations. For me 90% of the time the MTA map is fine for figuring out connections, but it's great to have that street-level detail when you need it (even if it is now laid over that crappy iOS 6 map...)
 
Is there a "Bring back Google Maps" page

Is there a "Bring back Google Maps" page or campaign anywhere? A petition, or Twitter campaign?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back