Tim Cook Publishes Open Letter on Maps for iOS 6

[iphoneclassic]

Can't wait for SNL's take on this. Hope they have something this weekend.

Apple you proved you are just good in Calligraphy not in Cartography.

Of course it is better than ancient navigational devices like cross-staff, back-staff, compass, octant and sextant . But we are in 21st century.

What happened to your innovation. Is it just limited to round cornered icons.

 

[MacFan782040]

Not sure I like this move.

Apple usually waits at least a week for a "crisis" to calm down before responding (recent examples are Antennagate and the wifi location thing), and that usually suits them well.

In this case, though, I think the timing is odd. The cacophony of Maps outrage has been dying down. As news cycles go, this was clearly on its way out. The message was pretty clear: The Maps are kinda lousy, but they'll get better soon.

I think Tim Cook's letter just drudges this back into the headlines -- right when it was starting to calm down.

Side note: I love reading how the Tim Cook has put his own tone into these notes. Completely different tone from Steve's letters.

Couldn't agree more. I haven't had any issues with Maps. I think there's work to be done (searching "chinese" came up with maybe 10 restaurants with google... 5 or 6 now...) but as far as directions and locations, Maps has been fine. I understand they haven't been great for others but I didn't think it was big enough to write a letter about it. People should already know they can download other map apps.

I am surprised they released this letter. I think there are far bigger problems to worry about (Final Cut Pro release was/is still a disaster.. my whole company (~1000 employees...TV news industry) is switching to Avid or Premier because of it. I know a lot of others doing the same. You can only stay on FCP 7 for so long. Sad.

Side note: Why say "in the meantime, just use Bing, Mapquest, etc."? Why not say... we are working hard to improve maps and the more you use it and give feedback, the better it will become. When you invite your customers to use other Map Apps, you are loosing that potential feedback, user base, and creating a habit of using another app. Stupid and very un-Apple like. Not to be cliche.. but I honestly doubt Steve would have wrote an open letter....

 

[PsychoLogicXen]

P.S. All employees involved with the Maps project have been fired and replaced with ex-Google employees. We're able to pay them at a fraction of our previous team, as they're just simply giddy to now be working for Apple.

Tim

 

[ipedro]

Good on Apple for admitting they have work to do but so far, in Toronto I haven't found any critical errors that would send me to an absolutely wrong location.

Google Maps has errors too:

Hey, the park I live across from Trinity-Bellwoods Park is one of Toronto's most popular. Google thinks its inside somebody's house. Hey Google, the park is over there...

 

[Dr McKay]

Lets be real. Maps is "ok" now, but give it about 6 months and its going to be all you use. I personally use it a lot and have never had an issue with it.

The problem with it is I will have a lack of trust in it, I used it to look at my village, and when looking for food it didnt know there was a supermarket, it ignored 2 Indian Take-aways, 3 Chinese Take-aways and 2 Pizza places, and told me the Fish & Chip Shop, plus a little corner shop were the only places.

It also told me there were no pubs, there are 4 (2 of them also serve food).

If I was going into a place I didn't know, how do I know Apple Maps is giving me an honest view of what the town contains?

 

[CGagnon]

No, you buy me one Android instead, and also introduce me to your sister, you'll see if she still whines as she does with you.

hahahaha. I actually loled.

 

[Luscious]

Enough with the complaining. Who upgrades to a new OS on their phone that features a new v1.0 maps application and then bitches when they encounter problems? How about waiting until the reviews start pouring in to see if its wise for you to upgrade first? News flash, if you depend on the maps app on your phone it may not be a wise idea to upgrade to a new OS which features a v1.0 app to replace it. Those who depend on maps, knew it was being replaced in iOS 6 and upgraded anyway without waiting to hear reviews really shouldn't be complaining.

I do feel for those who weren't aware at the time, but very few people posting here fall into that category. Same goes for those buying the iPhone 5 who depend on maps and were aware of the change. You should have had the brains to wait. No v1.0 app, especially one as complicated that requires as much crowd sourced data as a maps app, is going to be introduced problem free with a data set on par with an app that's been out there on millions of devices for years.

If you depended on Google Maps you had no business upgrading your OS or moving to the iPhone 5 until you saw how things were going to shake out. You could have sat back, waited until Google released it own in a couple of months and then made the move.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. All early adopters of any new release of software are taking a chance. If you know something is being changed radically in new release you only have yourself to blame if you jump the gun and upgrade anyway when you have the alternative of sticking with what you have until things shake out.

 

[itsamacthing]

Fail fail fail fail

Retina Display Image Retention FAIL
Mac Pro still doesn't have USB 3, Sata III, or Thunderbolt FAIL
iMac not updated, still selling with USB2 and Sata II FAIL
iPhone scratches and **** battery FAIL
MacBook Air LG Screen FAIL
MAPS IS HORRIBLE!! Lost traffic and ability to search for addresses in English in Thailand. FAIL

Apple failing without Steve

Tim Cook reminding me that I can use Google Maps via the web with a shortcut on my desktop ... WIN!!!

 

[Mapmonkey]

Anybody remember how good google maps were when they first launched?

Yes I do actually and they were nowhere near as bad as the Apple version

The problem is not the app itself but the underlying data (the maps) itself.
There's no way that Apple can fix this in 6 months, unless they ditch their current partners and start working with mapping companies which know what they're doing.

EXACTLY, They can buy much better data from in country providers.

lol do you even know anything? Apple is using the SAME companies Google is using for maps data

No. they are not, they may overlap in some countries with satellite data, digital Globe for example. Check your facts before shouting someone out.

It's true - the gaps in between the POIs are for the most part correct.

Ha Ha you've got it right there! But you haven't been getting a lot of love here.

I think this was a really silly thing for Tim to write. Apple owes no one an explanation for this. Maps is better than it was and will continue to get better. The navigation interface is amazingly well integrated into the rest of the phone. We've all know this change was happening for months. Best of all, you can always use a third party app if you don't like what apple has done.

and

Use the google maps website. It has all the features you need, and you can add it to your home screen. That's what it said in the letter. It's that bit you're looking for.

Yeah, and yet again can I remind folks web app links to Google won't integrate with the rest of the iOS apps such as find my friends,contacts or reminders.

Perception is everything. On the iPhone, Apple Maps is better than Google Maps 98% of the time. That is what drove Apple to release now. They certainly made an error of judgement, but what they underestimated was that they would get beat over the head with the 2% of the time Apple Maps do actually suck.

Your perception is 98% not everyone else's.

Stop complaining about people who have a real reason to complain.

and

+1 for this! Being a fan of a good product shows a certain amount of technical knowledge. Being an apologist for a terrible terrible mistake just shows a questionable amount of blind misplaced faith

It's very likely that you do not understand. They had years to come up with this turd, another year of polish could not hurt.
.

100% Yes, in my opinion.

BTW - I think there's some subtext in this apology.....
If he believed Maps was going to be a 2/3/4 month fix - I don't believe this is the letter he would have written. My .02

Spotted that too, and that is worrying. There is no quick fix and people can bang on about crowd sourcing till the cows come home. It isn't going to get better as quick as some guys here think.


As a now retired GIS professional, I'm sorry folks but there was a hell of a lot more that needed to be done and could have been done to get this much, much better before launch. And Uncle Tim has just confirmed it.

 

[a0me]

Firstly, Maps really is a disaster.

But... having said that, Maps does look very good aesthetically, and the vector engine works beautifully.

If ( although obviously its currently a big if!) all things data wise were more equal, I'd prefer Apple Maps over Google any day.

What Apple and apparently a lot of people doesn't seem to understand is that the app in itself is fine.
As it should be.
Apple made the Google Maps app that was built in all iOS version from iOS 1 to iOS 5.

It's the data (maps) that the new Apple app relies on that's unbelievably bad.

 

[Praeliber]

People are overreacting with this iOS map thing. From what I can tell, google map on prior iOS never manage to give the correct postal code of my home, while apple map does. It seems like a detail, but since people critic the accuracy of the information given by the app, I think it's worth mentioning...

 

[BC2009]

For years folks have criticized Apple for their lack of humility and openness when responding to a problem and here they provide that and there is still backlash that he did not go far enough in the apology.

I have to agree with others here: Cook went to far in this apology. He should have mentioned the good, acknowledged the bad, and reassured folks that they were fixing it and even offered a timeline. Recommending third-party alternatives is a bit much. People don't want to use third-party alternatives they want a first-party solution that works and they want to know that Apple has a plan to get it there.

 

[Saladinos]

So he didn’t realise that Maps weren’t up to Apple’s high standards before releasing them?

I think they did, but what they've been saying all along in response to this (and what commentators who know have also said) is that it's a chicken-and-egg problem: the maps will never be ready unless they're widely deployed.

Even google's impressive maps team relies on people reporting their local data: the Earth is a big place (we seem to forget that). Mapping it all is still a daunting task, even with loads of cash and the latest technology. There's no way a bunch of people in California are going to produce accurate maps for the entire world; that's unrealistic. You need people reporting inaccurate data, and you can maybe speed up the collection process by tracking and uploading user trails (we already know Apple is collecting this data for mapping purposes).

The good news for Apple is that this is already working; they've already got loads of feedback about areas that need improvement. Now they need to put up and show us some fixes.

 

[mbh]

Reminds me of the Microsoft lawsuits in the early 2000's. The results meant you can now choose alternative apps as defaults in Windows. Apple needs to be sued over this as well I think.

Think again. Microsoft got into trouble because they were leveraging their monopoly in PC operating systems to secure their browser as the de facto standard.

Apple has no such monopoly to abuse.

 

[Qfic]

I have never used street view in my life. Do you really depend on that to find places? You know people were perfectly capable of navigating the world before street view, right? As for transit directions, when you want to get on a metro, go to a metro station! Crazy right? I bet if you wait long enough a train will come. And I have never been to a metro that didn't have a map on every wall and every train. It's really not that complicated, you sit on train that takes the same route a hundred times a day and wait until you get to where you want to go. It's not like there's service underground anyway so as soon as you're on the metro you can't even use the transit directions. I'm tired of hearing how terrible the maps are. People like you need to stop being so dependent on technology (and I'm saying that with a degree in computer science).

Oh right, because when we are talking about a top of the line technological mobile device the prevailing argument is 'People used to get around fine without them, so should you!'
Um, excuse me, no. I buy technological devices not because I depend on them, but because I want the luxury of having to go about my day focused on other things, not my train schedule or doing research beforehand on what cafe my buddy is talking about meeting up at. Get real son and stop making excuses for multibillion dollar corporation.

 

[wolverinemarky]

I have never had a problem with apple maps I actually love how when you open another app it's still up there in banner mode. Also how if u lock ur screen and press the home button you still see the map and it giving directions. It works fine for me and I live near bfe

 

[MonkeySee....]

Queuing Samsung airing a petty commercial poking fun at Maps in 3...2....1...

Can't be any worse than this...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1457015/

 

[twcbc]

Everyone keeps saying this, but how will just using it make it better?

Exactly! Anyone knows how Maps will get improved by just "using" it?

Some people had already reported error they find though Maps and yet find correction so far.

 

[phpmaven]

No - they could have re-negotiated with Google. They chose not to. No harm/no foul - but that doesn't mean they HAD to. Err on omission of truth.

It obvious that the negotiations were much more complicated and the issues much more difficult to resolve than we know. Recent reports also seem to indicate that Google was not willing to let Apple have turn be turn and other parts of their maps app without concessions that Apple was not willing to make and had eh made them there would be many up in arms about it.

None of us really know how this all went down and just assuming hat they chose not to negotiate is naive. Obviously they knew this was going to be a really painful transition and wouldn't have gone down this road if they didn't feel that they had no choice.

 

[JayJayAbels]

This whole thing is ridiculous. Apple Maps works just fine. The media has HIGHLY exaggerated how "bad" the app is thus forcing Apple to do some PR to handle it.

No it's not as good as Google maps.
No it doesn't have "street view".
No it's not as accurate as Google maps.

But just because it's not AS good as G maps doesn't make it a bad app.

I use it every day and it works just fine. I love the Turn by Turn nav.

This is NOT as big of a deal as some in this community make it out to be.

If it's a deal breaker for you... buy an Razr Maxx or SIII and ****.

By this time next year Apple Maps will all be ironed out and so will Fly Over.

Quit being cry babies over a freakin' Map application. As with ANY tech... there will always be hiccups initially. Have patience and stop with the nerd rage.

 

[Bezetos]

Good on Apple for admitting they have work to do but so far, in Toronto I haven't found any critical errors that would send me to an absolutely wrong location.

Google Maps has errors too:

Image

Hey, the park I live across from Trinity-Bellwoods Park is one of Toronto's most popular. Google thinks its inside somebody's house. Hey Google, the park is over there...

That's not an error, that's the name of that area, just like Chinatown, Kensington Market and West Queen West.

 

[thasan]

Don't know how "sincere" this apology really is, especially consdering Apple knew about the poor Maps app when iOS6 beta was released and people were complaining up and down.

Apple is just trying to wipe off the tremendous amount of egg from their face when it comes to this issue...but I think it's going to take more than an apology to fix this.

they could easily make the apps for free for the first 7 days a product is activated or something.... would lose probably a couple of hundred millions in the process. but would gain all the trust that is needed.

 

[WakeUpDrunk]

It's not even bad. It works great here in Vegas. I don't like this negative publicity that just snowballs. Like "antennagate". I wasn't affected by it either. People just love to complain together. ****

 

[thasan]

Exactly! Anyone knows how Maps will get improved by just "using" it?

Some people had already reported error they find though Maps and yet find correction so far.

i think they will start looking for errors for the areas most people search on. they know which are the most popular searches in maps etc. and then slowly build up from there.

 

[NMF]

I dunno. Have you used the Podcasts App yet?

Just what I was thinking. Scott Forstall needs to be canned. This is just crazy.