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Why are the Apple maps and GPS so bad?

B

bobright

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 29, 2010
4,817
34
I read a lot on here how terrible the maps are, well yesterday was my first time using the built in GPS and it worked flawlessly. It got me where I wanted, rerouted me, let me know where to turn ahead of time, no hiccups at all. The UI even looks beautiful.

What is the big knock on it?
 
bobright said:
I read a lot on here how terrible the maps are, well yesterday was my first time using the built in GPS and it worked flawlessly. It got me where I wanted, rerouted me, let me know where to turn ahead of time, no hiccups at all. The UI even looks beautiful.

What is the big knock on it?
Click to expand...

You might consider putting your title in quotation marks to clear up that it's not the point of the thread.
 
The GPS is fine. The Maps themselves are okay, but depending on where you live, inaccurate or incomplete. There are some locations where a road just ends, or dips off into oblivion. Or a bridge that goes into a building...

It will sort itself out over time. I think Apple was a tad premature releasing it personally. They should have stated they were working on their own map service, but continued on the same path for a bit longer. Then release something more polished [overall] in a 6.x release, or 7. IMO.
 
bobright said:
I read a lot on here how terrible the maps are, well yesterday was my first time using the built in GPS and it worked flawlessly. It got me where I wanted, rerouted me, let me know where to turn ahead of time, no hiccups at all. The UI even looks beautiful.

What is the big knock on it?
Click to expand...

You have had one single experience with maps. How do you not understand what people are complaining about. Just b.c it worked for you doesn't mean it is good. What if it failed tomorrow? would you get the "big knock" then?

My personal experience has been the exact opposite. I agree the look is clean and the interface looks beautiful, but Apple maps got the address of one of their own apple stores wrong for me. How is that even possible! I do not trust their directions past a certain point.
 
It has been functional for me the handful of times I needed it, which surprised me considering some of the residential places I entered. That being said, I'm still not big on the interface. I miss the more user-intuitive search on Google Maps as well as the ability to preemptively advance to the next turns. Hopefully these things can be improved.
 
First off, I assumed the poster had a bad experience and wanted to know why it was so bad.

Anyway... here is something interesting. If you do the sat view while in "FindMyIphone", those maps are from Google. Thought that was pretty funny.
 
I find Apple Maps and GPS perfectly functional. I do think that the satellite imagery is terrible and the lack of streetview bad.

But then there are alternatives to get both the sat imagery and streetview on my phone so don't really think its worth a complaint.
 
There are hardly any points of interest on the map. What's the point of having a map if you can't search for a nearby business?
 
I was standing in New York City searching for an address on Spring Street and Apple's maps kept finding Spring Street in an entirely different borough. It was my first time using it after having updated to the latest OS the night before.
 
The real question is WHO CARES?! There are countless replacements in the app store, such as Waze or MapQuest. People need to just replace the official app with those and shut up already.
 
JRoDDz said:
There are hardly any points of interest on the map. What's the point of having a map if you can't search for a nearby business?
Click to expand...

Hmmm...dunno, maybe people used maps for centuries to find their way from A to B and the only points of interest were cities, maybe streets.

I would never search for points of interest in a certain area, I always do a google search for stuff that fits best what I am looking for, not what may coincidentially be near the position where I am.

When I am at a position I look around or ask. Maybe I use Maps to look for a gas station, but never for a restaurant, shop or movie theatre.

But from what I read here most people are travelimg salesman that are in a new city every day.
 
I don't know why apple bothers with their own maps app. How they thought they could catch up fast enough to release their own maps app is beyond me. They should of waited with this one.
 
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