Archived version: https://archive.ph/hguLn
Excerpt (and context):
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’m in the middle of a fairly populated US suburb, and Apple maps still sends anyone trying to find my house 3 blocks away, so I’m going to say that it’s not “finally good.”
As soon as I get those people to use Google Maps, they’re on their way without issues. I can see why Apple Maps might make the mistake that they do, but the fact is that Google Maps doesn’t and hasn’t ever in the last 15 years. I recently had a bunch of contractors around for quotes on some renovations and the iOS users ended up lost every time while the Android users never had a problem.
Betteridge’s law (of headlines) is an adage that states “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
Exception that proves the rule? Cause yeah, Apple Maps is actually a Google Maps competitor now, which is great.
If you live in some developed part of the world, sure. But it’s garbage in my country. Still shows my house location to be in a middle of a national park which is like 100 km away.
It really isn’t so long as they’re using Yelp for reviews.
For just driving directions, sure. Google Maps is far more feature rich and I frequently end up regressing to Google whenever I need more info.
Really? Google reviews is manipulated horribly. The underlying project, the maps, Apple isn’t far behind and in some cases I’ve noticed it’s actually much better.
Appple maps sucks outside of the US. I can’t even get cycling directions anywhere in canada. It barely provides even the most basic driving directions. Probably the most useless app on my phone. I don’t even know why they include it outside of the US.
is Apple Maps finally good?
No. Definitely not “good.” It used to be terrible and maybe isn’t so bad anymore, though.
For instance, around here there are a lot of private driveways; farming roads, dirt paths on private property, things like that. Apple would route me through those, I would mark them as not a road, they would be reviewed, and a month later they would reappear on the map. Why would I trust a map that jeeps trying to route me down a private washed out dirt path?
I was going to a meeting and typed in the address they provided. Apple popped up a location, but it was about an hour away in the wrong direction. It turns out that Apple didn’t know the correct address, so they helpfully corrected it to a different number, street, and city.
I needed to get to sports practice at a community center, so I put in the address. Apple took me to a literal empty field ten minutes away from the actual location.
If that’s the best they can do, why would I ever trust them? Maybe it’s better, but it was so bad for so long that I don’t even want to try it again.
How is Open Street Maps btw?
It’s great, install the Organic Maps or OsmAnd app on your phone. Level of detail of the map is much better than Google in my area.
I only use Google Maps for looking up reviews anymore.
