Wow. Apple Maps is a disaster.

[Dinh]

An unavoidable disaster.

http://counternotions.com/2012/09/21/applemaps/

For F's sake. You wanna kiss apple's ass, please do it.
Do not tarnish others in the process.
Google maps didn't make a mistake at least in this example.

Check this out:
http://goo.gl/maps/kGxpw

Things to notice:

1) It clearly says this:
This route includes a ferry.

2) There are multiple options given.
The second option doesn't include ferry and it's as expected.

Not only that, google is smart enough to Sort the path by the travel time and not distance.

 

[hasanahmad]

Sydney siders might be more concerned with this one.

I just got my iPhone 5, and i was looking up directions to the Shangri La hotel in Sydney city. The Apple map gave me directions that took me across the Harbour bridge, through a toll road, basically a massive detour as compared to the directions i got from google maps online.

I kinda understand when the maps get landmarks wrong. Perhaps just some data misentry. But not being able to calculate a simple straight forward route to a major hotel in a major city? Massive issue

If thats a two way highway, one of them is telling you to take the first u turn the other things you are already on the right side of the highway

----------

With acknowledgements to http://www.befter.net...

That is fake. I just tried it on Apple Maps

 

[Foggy]

I have to agree with this.

Google has been doing this for YEARS, it takes time, money and millions of crowdsourcing inputs. Apple and Google fell out and Apple has been running to get it's own maps together.


You all seem to think that it should be perfect the minute it comes out of the door. Well I have news for you, it was never supposed to be.

I know of at-least 5 errors in Google's maps that I have reported on many occasions and they have not been corrected.

Report errors and the service will be improved, simples.

They are selling it as one of the core features of iOS6 and therefore also of the iPhone 5! I don't think anyone expects it to be perfect but it is, for me, not even usable. You say you know of at least 5 errors in googles maps, I discovered at least 20 in the apple maps last night looking in 500m radius of my house! An inaccurate map is worse than no map at all. There is NO WAY I would rely on finding something from the Apple maps at the moment.

Whats more, yes, I reported those errors but why on earth should I be spending my free time sending corrections to the most valuable company on earth for a product they want me to pay for, for free?

 

[DC23]

Maps is pretty awful. To those saying Google Maps has it's share of mistakes, I would not be so hard on it. I used Google Maps to drive across Canada (from Southern Ontario to Southern Alberta) when I was relocating. It took me flawlessly through 4000+km. I did not see any mislabelled streets or incorrect info (and I was going through some pretty remote areas in northern Ontario). That is good enough for me. Apple Maps has my city in southern Alberta as shrouded in clouds. Pretty useless.

 

[musiciscool]

Where I live Apple maps is better than Googles now. The only thing lacking is some searches are better with google, but others are better with Apple. But you can use both, with maps.google; then use the one you prefer

 

[hasanahmad]

They are selling it as one of the core features of iOS6 and therefore also of the iPhone 5! I don't think anyone expects it to be perfect but it is, for me, not even usable. You say you know of at least 5 errors in googles maps, I discovered at least 20 in the apple maps last night looking in 500m radius of my house! An inaccurate map is worse than no map at all. There is NO WAY I would rely on finding something from the Apple maps at the moment.

Whats more, yes, I reported those errors but why on earth should I be spending my free time sending corrections to the most valuable company on earth for a product they want me to pay for, for free?

i dont know about you but for me Apple Maps brought in better results for my city.

 

[Brazuca]

Apple really needs to its version of Map Maker: http://www.google.com/mapmaker

I know Tom Tom has one: http://www.tomtom.com/mapshare/tools/

And Waze also has one. But Apple really needs to get its userbase to participate, contribute, report, etc. And to push its developers/technicians to make corrections quickly.

 

[jollyreaper]

You don't need to compare to Vista. Apple had it's own software launch after a major effort. It was called OS X. Version 10.0 was horrible (remember talk about "debug code"?).

But they kept pushing it and improved it significantly.

The difference? The user base for OS X was much, much less than it is for iOS. And the competition was very different.

I'm not an expert, but AFAIR, every 1.0 launch of an Apple software has been sub-par (iPhoto, iTunes, me.com, etc).

I think the other big difference is that a brand new product doing something nobody has ever seen before (1.0, nothing else like it even at v0 beta) has a lot more leeway and room for growth than a comparing a barely functional 1.0 that shouldn't have ever left beta against a mature, 4.0 sort of product that's a world-beater.

 

[hasanahmad]

Source of Apple maps

Lets look. its right in their Apple Maps:


1. TomTom
2. Business Listings data: Acxiom
3. Map Data: AND
4. Property Parcel Data: CoreLogic Inc.
5. Satellite Imagery data: DigitalGlobe
6. Map and Postal data: DMTI
7. Business Listings Data: Factual
8. Map Data: Getchee
9. Map Data: Intermap
10. Map Data: LeadDog
11. Business Listings Data: Localeze
12. Mapping for Australia/NZ: MapData Services Pty ltd
13. Map Data: MDA Information Systems Inc.
14. Neighborhood Data: Urban mapping
15. Map Data: Waze
16. Reviews from: Yelp

for FYI

 

[KeanosMagicHat]

Unless you are never planning to travel away from your home town or city (which is fine), I can't see the point in people continually posting that they are now having a better experience in XYZ Ville under Apple maps.

Whilst definitely not better, my local city of Manchester isn't too bad on Apple Maps, but it's apparent from research that there is a major problem out there.

I'd like things resolved quickly for everyone, a temporary fix of a new Google Maps app with Apple improving their own offering over the next few months/years.

 

[southerndoc]

I'm sure everyone at Google is laughing like crazy at Apple's attempts at a mapping software.

Apple does have potential to turn this into an amazing map, but it's not even beta ready right now given the large number of inaccuracies.

I wonder if their software has the ability to learn from consumers usage of it? That's the only justification I could see them releasing this early because perhaps it will be up to spec in only a few months. That's a long shot theory though.

This is one of the worst disappointments ever released by Apple. Steve Jobs has to be turning over in his grave right now.

 

[Foggy]

Unless you are never planning to travel away from your home town or city (which is fine), I can't see the point in people continually posting that they are now having a better experience in XYZ Ville under Apple maps.

Whilst definitely not better, my local city of Manchester isn't too bad on Apple Maps, but it's apparent from research that there is a major problem out there.

I'd like things resolved quickly for everyone, a temporary fix of a new Google Maps app with Apple improving their own offering over the next few months/years.

That's the thing that concerns me. Mapping around me is dire enough and I am not exactly going to use it locally because I know the area. It is so far out on so many things though I would not be able to use it somewhere I don't know because I would have no confidence that it would take me to the right place!

 

[cyks]

I'd like things resolved quickly for everyone, a temporary fix of a new Google Maps app with Apple improving their own offering over the next few months/years.

If it were that easy, people could simply use Waze or any other available mapping App right now. The bigger problem are the non-mapping apps that use location services which are now forced into using Apple's (poor) solution.

Numerous exersizing and fitness apps which track running/ biking routes, realtor apps, even Find My Friends and Phone are all now giving incorrect results.

 

[Foggy]

I wonder if their software has the ability to learn from consumers usage of it? That's the only justification I could see them releasing this early because perhaps it will be up to spec in only a few months. That's a long shot theory though.

They said about this in the press release, about the fact it is cloud based and the more people use it the better it will get. I have no idea how this is meant to work unless they are talking about people reporting problems which the vast majority of people wont actually do. They will follow the map to the incorrectly placed POI, swear loudly, google the place, check on google maps, never return to Apple maps.

 

[Zaid]

Look of it

Ignoring for a moment the inaccuracies of the map and the bad satellite imagery in places, what do people think of the look of the maps themselves?

I don't think I like the look of the maps. Everything seems to be the same shade of beige, and almost all the roads are white. The roads themselves are pretty thin and the border is so slight that unless you've zoomed in it's hard to tell the difference between the roads and the rest.

Also every country has it's own conventions on colours for road maps which most people recognise, Apple has decided they know better and have thrown all these conventions out the window. Why I have no idea.

 

[Foggy]

Ignoring for a moment the inaccuracies of the map and the bad satellite imagery in places, what do people think of the look of the maps themselves?

I don't think I like the look of the maps. Everything seems to be the same shade of beige, and almost all the roads are white. The roads themselves are pretty thin and the border is so slight that unless you've zoomed in it's hard to tell the difference between the roads and the rest.

Also every country has it's own conventions on colours for road maps which most people recognise, Apple has decided they know better and have thrown all these conventions out the window. Why I have no idea.

I really don't like the look of it either The lack of colour and therefore lack of differentiation in the road types is really disorienting =/ Town names as well, they need to do something similar to google and have the larger town names in a larger/bolder font to once again help work out where things are.

Further not helped by the fact they dont put road numbers on the roads.

 

[KeanosMagicHat]

If it were that easy, people could simply use Waze or any other available mapping App right now. The bigger problem are the non-mapping apps that use location services which are now forced into using Apple's (poor) solution.

Numerous exersizing and fitness apps which track running/ biking routes, realtor apps, even Find My Friends and Phone are all now giving incorrect results.

Oh I know and I 100% agree with you, but I do not believe, for one second, that Apple will back down on this to the point where they re-integrate Google Maps into the other applications by default (Or even give the customer a choice as to which mapping offering apps retrieve their data from).

For those that like me, that believe this scenario, the best halfway house option is to hope for the return of Google Maps and to just cope with the fact that none of the apps will default, far from ideal.

You make an excellent point about all of the fitness apps etc and perhaps this is where the most influential pressure will come from as Apple will not want to piss off their corporate content "partners" whose apps have immediately become much less useful.

The Apple decision to change was made for business reasons, after all (at the expense of the customer), so perhaps it is the business community that could force through a remedy?

 

[kdum8]

This is obviously a major issue. The degree to which Apple maps suck is hard to over-exaggerate, they are terrible. Given that so many people on iPhone, millions around the world, rely for their business on mapping this is going to cause serious problems. There is going to be a real backlash against this. The question is:

1. Do Apple really listen to criticism seriously?
2. How in earth are they going to fix this?

This could lose them tens of millions in sales.

 

[shulerg]

Yes, right now it is far from good...

...but people made fun of OS X for a good two years after it debuted, and now it's very well respected, often imitated. They will learn from this and make it better and better.

 

[Parise]

...but people made fun of OS X for a good two years after it debuted, and now it's very well respected, often imitated. They will learn from this and make it better and better.

Why is this so hard for people to understand???

Some of us can't wait two years for this damn app to get better. This is the SECOND most used app on the iPhone.

If MS or Google did this crap this message board would be all over them...

 

[The Phazer]

...but people made fun of OS X for a good two years after it debuted, and now it's very well respected, often imitated. They will learn from this and make it better and better.

Yeah... I didn't use that either.

And nobody was able to magically change my machine to prevent me using alternatives without having to give up a host of system integration benefits.

 

[DaffyDuck]

I really don't like the look of it either The lack of colour and therefore lack of differentiation in the road types is really disorienting =/ Town names as well, they need to do something similar to google and have the larger town names in a larger/bolder font to once again help work out where things are.

Further not helped by the fact they dont put road numbers on the roads.

It looks like it was put together by the South Park animators (no offense to South Park). The texture and shade of green of parks dominates everything else. There are too many hard edges.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I'm not trying to defend Apple here, but lets just look at some comparisons.

Google maps
Beta: Feb 2005
Final release: 6 Oct 2005
Time since official release: 7 years (minus 2 weeks)

Bing maps
V1: July 2005 (I didn't even realize they started this long ago, it was under a different name. Still Microsofts maps)
V7 (rebranded as Bing Maps): June 2009
Time since offical release: 7 years, 3 months (and 3 years, 4 months as "Bing Maps")

Apple Maps
Beta: June 20012
Official release: 19 Sept 2012
Time since official release: 2 days

I'm not saying that makes up for replacing a good solution with a crappy one, but seriously... 7 years vs 2 days.... cut them some slack.

 

[matttye]

I bet thieves are happy with the iOS6 update.

 

[germanjulian]

you know you have a map issue when you search

"John Lewis Oxford Street" are based in London and it does NOT show you the correct "shopping center" location but instead the john lewis car insurance place a mile away (its huge to the US based folks who dont know john lewis")

This is one example of many I tried here in London of major places or interest or shops and even restaurants (yelp?)