A decade after a disastrous launch, is Apple Maps finally good?
A decade after a disastrous launch, is Apple Maps finally good?
Engineers’ work on cycling and public transit have transformed the app – but rural directions remain a sticking point
Archived version: https://archive.ph/hguLn
Excerpt:
Apple Maps’ offering might surprise people who remember its disastrous launch in 2012, which the Guardian described as the company’s “first significant failure in years”. Users were more than furious – they were lost, sometimes dangerously so. In Australia, police had to rescue tourists from the huge Murray-Sunset national park, after Maps placed the city of Mildura in the wrong place by more than 40 miles. Some of the motorists located by police had been stranded for 24 hours without food or water. In Ireland, ministers had to complain directly to Apple after a cafe and gardens called “Airfield” was designated by the service as an actual airport.
But mostly the map was just glitchy and unhelpful, its directions always a little off kilter. Users revolted and Apple made a rare retreat, allowing Google Maps to be used as the default on many iPhone apps and apologizing for the product.
I can't get over how hard the author deep throats Tim Apple. When reading I stopped to check if it was marked as advertisement. This is 100% pure advertisement, not journalism. If you like apple maps, fine, this article just feels way overboard.
Apple isn't new to quid pro quo "journalism"
Wow - your hatred of Apple is super obvious. Are we becoming Reddit now?
I'm not in the US so I'd use either use Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze, but until the past 4-5 years none were that great. G-Maps would take me down roads that didn't exist, or it would Waze occasionally send me to parts of Germany by way of England. We were not amused. Forget using either for actual live navigation, especially in Germany or France - really slow at predicting turns or which lane to be in when they split. They ALL occasionally want to send you to the service dock in the back alley, instead of the front door (a result of getting initial data from delivery companies, I'd bet).
Apple Maps, about 3-4 years ago, just started getting WAY better for navigation: far better turn prediction, lane bifurcation guidence on top and really nice CarPlay integration with my VW ID.3.
Another thing to mention - report issues. The more you report, with proof (pictures, especially) the faster the map data gets updated. I'm assuming it's tied to your iCloud account - I've had maps changes happen in 2-3 days, but I've been submitting data changes for years now.
As you've been very diligent reporting errors and suggesting changes to map data, have you ever considered contributing to OpenStreetMap? You might like helping by using the app Every Door on iOS, for example.
While I appreciate OSM, I tend to fix what I use - reminded of the the old cowboy adage: "You gotta dance with them what brung you". My dance card is full with Apple Maps.
The other day I used Apple Maps in my car for the first time in a few years. I gotta say something about it felt nice.
Maybe it’s the aesthetic? The names of towns and geographic features are in big letters and flow across the map nicely — the name of the peninsula I was driving across was stretched along the length of the peninsula itself — and it felt a bit like I was traversing an old timey map, maybe like in an old Indiana Jones movie.
If I need to find some obscure business, I’ll still use Google Maps, and if I’m on a well known commute I’ll still use Waze, but for just general ambient map display, I think Apple Maps might be it now.
Apple Maps started showing speed traps and stuff outta nowhere. It’s sooo much better than it used to be.
If you want to head into a lake about 5 miles from my house, apple maps is your go-to. Every other map source gets you straight to my door in about 5 minutes from the nearest town, but apple maps takes you for a 90-minute tour around a mountain and then drops you in a lake.
Thanks to living in a walkable city, I walk places a lot, and Apple Maps has been far superior to Google Maps for that. It’s got nice little touches, too, like covered roads being a slightly different color than regular roads.
I know I'm a fanboy, but I have been using apple maps since iOS 6 beta and it has been great for me. Maybe I just happened to be in parts of the world where it just worked better. Often when I would find an issue, I would check google, and google had the same issue.
Apple Maps was shitty for a few years at most, but I've been using it for a long time and I can't complain.