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Consumer Backlash Against Apple Maps Surprised Waze CEO
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Tried Apple Maps again the other day because I was on an iPad .. it was still horrendous. Data quality sucks, POIs are badly maintained and the satellite images are about as good as Googles were ten years ago. But the worst of all is still the search capabilities. It is impossible to find anything unless one has the exact address with no typo or abbreviation and even then it misses more often then not.
I second this, it's still an absolutely poor offering in comparison to Google Maps. GMaps has much greater detail, better colour distinction for road types (major, minor etc. and this makes a hige difference to understanding where you are), better driving directions (by a small margin, but not much), public transport carats, Luas and Dart line and I just trust it a huge amount more.
I'm from Ireland and the Apple Maps offering out this way is pretty poor. Some blatantly obvious mistakes still exist such as placing Dublin Zoo in the middle of the City Centre on the Southside which is still the case today even after media publicity. Another gaff was saying there was an Airfield around the Dundrum area of Dublin, where there is absolutely none. This was an enormous safety issue as pilots may have used this information in an emergency scenario and only after a politician highlighted it in his constituency it was changed.
The simple fact is Google beats Apple here, to a pulp.
The average consumer is a freaking moron who is showed a picture of a skewed image with warped roads and instantly correlates this to screwed up navigation. Skewed images are also on Google Maps. Images have nothing to do with navigation.
Apple maps is good - dare I say it..
I've been using the TomTom app and google maps for a while so was naturally reluctant to use Apple maps for turn based navigation. I now find myself always using it, it is accurate and I really like the very simple interface which is what you need when driving, especially around London, which isnt the easiest place to drive! I feel the criticism is unfair..
I've been using the TomTom app and google maps for a while so was naturally reluctant to use Apple maps for turn based navigation. I now find myself always using it, it is accurate and I really like the very simple interface which is what you need when driving, especially around London, which isnt the easiest place to drive! I feel the criticism is unfair..
Street view is, at best, a worthless gimmick. I have never once seen a need for it. It is cute but of 0.00 practical value. I have never actually met a real person that when asked, has ever used it for a practical reason.
There may be a few people that actually use street view to find things but I bet it is in the sub 1 percent of users.
No, it's the customer, including this customer.
Apple always pride themselves with 'setting the standards' and 'never compromising'. Remember how they made a huge promo about the 'perfect size' screen and all that? And now they gave us a product fit for the 2010 iPhone (not the 2012 iPhone) and they don't expect any backlash.
I am happy the backlash happened, humbled Apple down a bit.
I only used Waze twice before I deleted the app from my phone.
Say what you will about apple maps. Despite the very few issues that exist with it, it does a great job and it keeps your eyes on the road with voice directions.
When I used Waze I was very disturbed to find frequent pop ups on the screen asking me to say whether there was traffic nearby. Why would you ask the user to use your app by hand while they are driving?
Say what you will about apple maps. Despite the very few issues that exist with it, it does a great job and it keeps your eyes on the road with voice directions.
When I used Waze I was very disturbed to find frequent pop ups on the screen asking me to say whether there was traffic nearby. Why would you ask the user to use your app by hand while they are driving?
It's a matter of trust
Simply I don't trust Apple Maps. I find the Google Maps app excellent and I trust it when driving. Why would I even bother using something that is known to be unreliable and buggy despite improvements.
Simply I don't trust Apple Maps. I find the Google Maps app excellent and I trust it when driving. Why would I even bother using something that is known to be unreliable and buggy despite improvements.
There aren't as many people who are anti-Google that are anti-Apple. It's as simple as that. Anti-Apple (no matter how true or false) sells newspapers / is click-bait on the web, but anti-Google is not.
Someone please explain this to me. TomTom IS a mapping data company. How can they not put resources into what is their core business? I don't follow Bardin's logic. Please illuminate me. What am I missing?
This is like complaining that a 2-year old child isn't as smart and mature as an 8-year old. No matter how much money, time, and effort you have spent on the 2-year old, it's not going to be as smart and mature as an 8-year old. Yes, it's very frustrating, but this is how life and things work. All software evolves over time, just like everything else (like you and me). The best is always yet to come.
My take was that if Google is putting in the reported $1-2 billion annually for Google Maps, a company like TomTom wouldn't have the equivalent capital on hand to put into their mapping service. I think they'd like to, they just can't match Google (or Apple's, for that matter) resource pool.
There was no consumer backlash.
There was media trying to find something to bash Apple over, and there was android zealots.
The reality is, from day one, Apple had 3D maps for far more cities, and topography maps for outside the USA, while Google, which has been around longer, doesn't even have decent maps for many cities outside the USA.
Actual consumers did not complain.
When everything you read is written by dishonest people, you start believing the lies (and so MacRumors believes there was a "consumer" backlash against Maps, just as they believe there was a "professional" backlash against FCPX, nevermind that every single one of those "pros" was an adobe fan.)
It is really quite asinine.
There was media trying to find something to bash Apple over, and there was android zealots.
The reality is, from day one, Apple had 3D maps for far more cities, and topography maps for outside the USA, while Google, which has been around longer, doesn't even have decent maps for many cities outside the USA.
Actual consumers did not complain.
When everything you read is written by dishonest people, you start believing the lies (and so MacRumors believes there was a "consumer" backlash against Maps, just as they believe there was a "professional" backlash against FCPX, nevermind that every single one of those "pros" was an adobe fan.)
It is really quite asinine.
Apple maps has been just as reliable as google maps, especially while driving around DC. Apple is playing catchup to Google which has many more years under their belt. Just because of one or two incidents, people are lashing out of how bad a product it is.
Same here. I downloaded Google Maps but continued using both just to test, and Apple Maps has almost always been right (one exception where the name of a school was off, but Google Maps also had a street name wrong and a different school location a little off). If someone tries to tell me NOT to use Apple Maps because it's bad even though it clearly works for me, I'm just going to laugh.
If only Maps could do voice navigation on my iPhone 4, I'd use it every time.
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I've been complaining since day one. Are you saying I'm dishonest?
I listed some errors in a earlier post which still haven't been fixed.
Compare it to the same map on Google Maps.
Is Google moving as quickly as Apple is? What else is there for them to do? It's the same reason Android has caught up so quickly... it started at 0.