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Maps potential

Krazy Bill said:
And what restrictions were those? I don't know how many times we heard Steve-o brag about how Apple really knows how to outsource and "partner" with other companies.

Just like Siri, Apple Maps is releases to the wild knowing full well fanboys will "alpha" test it and rationalize Apple's motives by starting threads like these.

Whatever makes you feel better I guess.
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Jeez, I've posted plenty of complaints and criticisms about Apple's current offering on other threads, but this thread was created for the positive aspects and potential about them so that's what I posted. There are plenty of threads about the bad things in Apple's maps and I don't see the need to try and hijack other threads to discuss that...
 
I've been waiting for free turn-by-turn forever. So far Maps has been satisfactory for me. It JUST released, so there are a lot of kinks that Apple has to work out.

Unless Apple gets the data licensed from Google, I don't see Street View coming anytime soon. Google spent years sending cars with cameras all around the world to gather that data.
 
I tested out the turn by turn navigation on my iPhone 4s with iOS 6 this morning, and Turn by turn directions are pretty sweet with Siri telling you where to turn. According to Apple, they say the more people that use there map app will help them make the maps better.
 
For me 3D is more useful than street view. Used it last night to find a bar and it was much more practical to look around for which buildings are nearby. I could then just spot the building and know that the bar was in the opposite corner.

Streetview was a pain. Too narrow of a perspective. No real context of your surroundings. The images were all very low resolution, different time of day, full of cars, buses, etc.

The most use I got out of street view was when I corrected Waze map errors. I could use street view to look for street signs and confirm if the street is one way, if it has a split, if you can make a turn, etc.
 
Pleasantly surprised about Apple Maps in and around NYC. Really like the 3d view (however, I would probably use it as little as Google street view).
 
rcp27 said:
I have so far been considering the problems with the maps as being mostly cosmetic, with not very good satelite images and pretty pictures for flyover not being quite right. I plan to visit a friend after work this evening, whose house I have not been to before, so I put his address and my address into the maps to get a route. Unfortunately, it seems to have decided I live somewhere entirely different. I live in Switzerland, where addresses are of the form

Streetname number,
postcode Townname,
Switzerland

Apple has decided that I acutally live at

Streetname number,
different-postcode Othertown,
Switzerland

Strangely, if I drop a pin on top of my houes, it comes up with the correct address, and if I drop a pin where it thinks I live, it comes up with the correct address for that pin. If it can't even manage to get 2 of the 5 fields in my address correctly matched, something is more seriously wrong than just some pictures being incorrect.
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But, but, but, you can view stuff in 3D!!!!

There is something very strange going on with addresses. There are loads of POI's for shops and restaurants near me that don't exist. They all exist on a road with the same name in a different town with a different postcode. If you click on the Yelp review, the Yelp entry has the correct town and postcode.
 
I don't think Apple Maps is great, but I am in the "potential" boat.

Problem is, you can't get the Maps up to date with only the beta testers correcting stuff. So I am happy they came up with their own solution and I am positive the bad stuff will be gone soon.

The complaints, how I see them:

- Bad city models. Everybody thinks it is a gimmick anyway, so why complain

- Missing street view: Yeah, street view actually is a little less gimmicky than flyover, it might even be helpful in some situations, but what I used it for is checking my hotel at next travel location. Did that always from home as I didn't even know the app supported it

- Public transportation: Never used it, never knew about it. But I can understand how people are missing it, hope google maps comes back for that or Apple does it too

- Satellite pictures: Beside zooming down on my own house or maybe doing some research, I think you don't really need it. And if you can still do it on google maps on your PC. I think good street mapping is more important

- Turn by Turn. I don't expect it to beat my Navigon yet, but I will give it a try. I am inclined to rather use maps for that as it is integrated much better (and probably is easier on the battery?!)

- POIs. Never really used them. It is nice to ask Siri and get a pub 10miles away, better to ask Google for the one a 200 meters, but the best solution would probably be to ask a real person for GOOD pub. Might be an extreme example, but I think people are relying too much on these stuff already.
 
DamonBowser said:
Maps has problems sure, but how about we all help apple solve them?
http://www.imore.com/how-add-location-or-report-problem-ios-6-maps
:apple:
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The problem is that Apple is not tapping all this information. There are loads of accurate listings on Yelp!, but only a handful of these show up on Maps...so there's a real problem here.

Still, I'm going to add as much as I can. Unfortunately there's no high-resolution satellite imagery for my town (even though it's got a population of 100,000 and has always had high-resolution imagery since the dawn of Google Maps!), so adding markers for specific buildings is going to be tricky for me.
 
I'll throw in a nod to the original goal of this thread and say that I've been very happy with Apple Maps and turn by turn while testing it out the last couple of days. I live here in Raleigh, NC, decent sized but certainly no metropolis. I've asked Siri to take me places and it's worked beautifully. This includes a few things that were a little tricky, but it didn't miss a beat.

It's a little shocking the bitterness that this seems to be causing. In particular given that no one is forced to upgrade to ios6, no one is forced to buy iPhone 5, there are other web based options, and other app options. I agree that some of the reports that are coming out regarding problems with Apple Maps are embarrassing and kind of inexcusable. But these things will improve. The thing that bothers me the most is people who have bad experiences declaring that Apple Maps is a disaster, unusable, etc., completely dismissing the many people who have had no problems at all, like myself. I suppose that's due partly to the fact that people tend to go to forums to complain rather than praise. A problem that this thread had hoped (in vain?) to help alleviate. I agree that it should have been in better shape on release, but the fact that it's not perfect everywhere doesn't make it the piece of s*** that many people are claiming.
 
timetrapped said:
I've been waiting for free turn-by-turn forever. So far Maps has been satisfactory for me. It JUST released, so there are a lot of kinks that Apple has to work out.

Unless Apple gets the data licensed from Google, I don't see Street View coming anytime soon. Google spent years sending cars with cameras all around the world to gather that data.
Click to expand...

The new street view app in the app store is IMO better than what was in the original maps app
 
I thought I'd add my own thoughts here... I was expecting the Maps in my area to be awful based on the web's response, but I've been pleased with my local area (town of about 50,000 in Louisiana--not somewhere you'd expect much attention to be placed). For the most part, addresses are spot on or within an acceptible margin of error, and most of the roads are error free, even fairly-newly constructed ones. The (limited) routing I've played with is so far is actually better than other solutions I've tried, including Waze.

I've been reporting the errors I've found, but it took google like 6 weeks to address them so I wouldn't expect any sooner for Apple. Surely they're overwhelmed with problem reports right now.

Clearly your mileage may vary depending on location, but I'm excited for the potential!
 
I feel flyover is a waste of developer time ATM, we do not need eye candy for a few cities we need a global map app. Google maps is about 7 years ahead of the apple offering, its not even ready for beta. This reminds me of windows me, I hated windows me, and have been shocked how inaccurate it's been around London today missing tube stations... To miss londons tube system...wow

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WishIWasHere said:
I'll throw in a nod to the original goal of this thread and say that I've been very happy with Apple Maps and turn by turn while testing it out the last couple of days. I live here in Raleigh, NC, decent sized but certainly no metropolis. I've asked Siri to take me places and it's worked beautifully. This includes a few things that were a little tricky, but it didn't miss a beat.

It's a little shocking the bitterness that this seems to be causing. In particular given that no one is forced to upgrade to ios6, no one is forced to buy iPhone 5, there are other web based options, and other app options. I agree that some of the reports that are coming out regarding problems with Apple Maps are embarrassing and kind of inexcusable. But these things will improve. The thing that bothers me the most is people who have bad experiences declaring that Apple Maps is a disaster, unusable, etc., completely dismissing the many people who have had no problems at all, like myself. I suppose that's due partly to the fact that people tend to go to forums to complain rather than praise. A problem that this thread had hoped (in vain?) to help alleviate. I agree that it should have been in better shape on release, but the fact that it's not perfect everywhere doesn't make it the piece of s*** that many people are claiming.
Click to expand...

Given apples markerting about maps, one should not have to read forums before upgrading. I understand ur point, but international users never expected this
 
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