Apple Maps Still Not Improved

NBC Bay Area ^

[nickcarraway]

After releasing a lackluster Maps app to compete with Google Maps, Apple found that its wasn't so easy to eclipse Google's long-used app. In fact, Apple Maps was a failure.

It would seem that after such a failure Apple would try to update and improve the Maps app, but the Worldwide Developers Conference showed that the app was far from perfected. Instead, it seemed ignored.

“There were multiple improvements that didn’t make it into iOS 8,” an unnamed source told TechCrunch. Unfortunately, Apple still hasn't made a good Map app.

Previous reports said that app would be more reliable, have better labels, accurate points of interest and locations and all with a slicker interface. There were rumors there would be public transit information and "augmented reality", according to TechCrunch. But those didn't show up. The reason? Apparently a lot of the Apple developers left the company and Apple wasn't able to complete their plans. Another unnamed source said, "I would say that planning, project management and internal politics issues were a much more significant contributor to the failure to complete projects than developers leaving the group."

It's unfortunate that the one thing that has crystallized as Apple's most abject failure, Apple Maps, still hasn't had an overhaul in the last two years. We think that Apple should make it a priority to improve that app instead of letting its users rely on the superior Google Maps.

[Stentor]

How many times did you play this so called game? Frankly, I'd guess once.

It so cute that you accuse me of lying in service of your fanboy/shill activities. I gave two examples. It's happened multiple times and it is not improving. Why can I admit that even the Iphone 5's camera runs rings around my Note 2. Because I am not a delusional pinhead and don't wear Samsung underwear.

Sorry you missed the party at Tim's house.

[Swordmaker]

It so cute that you accuse me of lying in service of your fanboy/shill activities. I gave two examples. It's happened multiple times and it is not improving. Why can I admit that even the Iphone 5's camera runs rings around my Note 2. Because I am not a delusional pinhead and don't wear Samsung underwear.

". . .delusional pinhead. . ."? ? ?

Ah, again, we find an anti-Apple argument devolving to attack by ad hominem.

Two anecdotal examples. whoop-de-doo. . . and it's not improving? Amazing. Frankly, I DON'T believe you. I have NOT experience what you have, and I use the iPhone and iPad Maps for directions frequently, not just to play stupid games. My girlfriend uses it for her business and has never been mis-directed. . . except once, and that was because the business she was looking for was located behind several other businesses and had no signage. Google Maps also could not locate it correctly either. She has driven hundreds of miles a day in her profession.

Did you or did you not notice that Apple is also contracting with WAZE for data for use in Maps? You said you "love Waze." Seems to me that Waze directs you to where you want to go. . . it would work in Maps too. Apple is using Waze for traffic information and current routing. Yet you say it "isn't improving" but all of the pundits say it is. Hmmmm. . . who to believe, my own experience, all the pundits, or Stentor, who does not use the app?

[HamiltonJay]

You said:

“It was actually pretty good then, with a few problems in the 3D views, but vastly overblown by Google’s FUD campaign.”

Which is false, the Maps App was not “pretty good” with a few problems with 3D views at its 1.0 release.

The maps app was pretty horrible at 1.0 release, at least 1/3 if not a 1/2 of the time it did not properly find the right location when it was release in my personal experience. Trying to blame a google FUD campaign for the maps apps failings is flat out and fundamentally a lie.

Has it improved since its release yes, but to claim it was “pretty good” at release is just flat out lying to yourself.

[Swordmaker]

Has it improved since its release yes, but to claim it was “pretty good” at release is just flat out lying to yourself.

Excuse me, I do not lie. To you or to myself.

I used it then exclusively and it steered me wrong only ONCE, which I described and the reason. Others I know use it with no problems. YOU complain, but give no examples. No qualified researcher has come up statistics ANYTHING close to what you claim about misdirection of users. THAT is sheer FUD of the first order. There IS evidence that Google did indeed wage a campaign against Apple's Maps in an attempt to get their Maps app replaced on the iOS platform, contrary to your claims. Google has a bully platform in which placement of news articles on Page One of a Google Search is primary. . . and articles that don't agree with Google's position find themselves relegated to far lower positioning. Google does it regularly on political issues. This happened on the Map issues, the iPhone4 "battery gate" non-issue, and other issues that affect Android. The European Union's equivalent of our FTC has been investigating Google for such information/data throttling practices.

I found Apple Maps to be "pretty good" and it worked for me, and most of the people I talked to, the people who reported in the comments sections of the articles and reviews with a few noted anecdotes of problems. . . but nowhere near the 30-50% failure as YOU claim. There were some areas of the world such as Australia where the rate DID approach those levels and Maps should never have been released in those areas. . . simply because complete data was not available from Tomtom and Yelp for those areas to the level Google had developed and iPhone users were familiar with. Had it that level of failure, there would have been a class action lawsuit to end all class action law suits. There was none.

In the year that Maps was introduced, Apple Maps had only a 3.1% error rate. That is certainly NOT anywhere near your 30-50% error rate you are claiming. Was it too high? Certainly. Google's was only 1.1%.

However, both Apple and Google achieved 100% accuracy when discrete city, street, and road addressing was input into each.

I must admit, I have a tendency to use any mapping system by inputting complete addresses, most times. Lately however, I am starting to input business names. . . for example I may put in the name of one of my banks if I need to make a deposit or withdrawal, and need to find the closest branch. I've been directed to a closed branch once by using that technique. That branch had closed the month before I went looking for it.

Apple's higher rate was attributed by researchers to the errors inherent in Yelp's crowd sourced addressing of business addresses when users put in businesses by name, and also in the rate of businesses still being listed that were no longer in business. That is being corrected. Google's error rate is mostly similar, with the majority being associated with businesses no longer being in business but still being listed.

Also, Google auto-filled the accurate names of businesses because their algorithms had those data. Apple Maps did not during the first year. This ability to fill the search field with the accurate data, increased Google's hit rate on finding the correct location. Yelp's data, using crowd sourcing, often did not have the correct business name, so resolving the name to the address added to the location problem.

This was a problem associated with Yelp not having the resources that Google had to police its database, to clean out the deadwood, and to physically check the data provided by the using public. Errors of putting in a search for a specific restaurant, for example, may not find the newest restaurant that opened three months ago two miles away, but instead on Yelp would return data for the older restaurants 14 and 20 miles away, and include the now closed restaurant that the new restaurant replaced. These are reported as "errors" when the user knows about the new restaurant.

Google, having sold advertising to the restaurant chain, KNOWS about the new restaurant, may often still have to old, closed restaurant still listed, but will offer both, reducing their "error count."

Apple has addressed this issue by incorporating Bing as well as 13 other mapping resources other than Yelp and Tomtom into its search and mapping algorithms.

Even on FreeRepublic, most users posted they were finding it a good application on release. Was it "perfect"? No. Did it improve? Absolutely.

[HamiltonJay]

You seem to think this is an academic exercise, I frankly would worry about someone who decided to spend research dollars on which map app is the best.

You’re denials of my experience remind me of the two hippies who after the 1972 election stared at one another in disbelief at finding Nixon was re-elected saying “How can that be? no one I knew voted for him.”

I am glad you found the app “good enough” at release, reality is though your experience and the experience of your friends was not remotely an overall picture. I am telling you that the Apple Map app at 1.0 release was terrible, and yes it incorrectly identified street locations at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the time when I used it. Your experience was better, good for you, but it mine was not. It was not remotely on par with the google map app that it replaced in accuracy and reliability.

Has it improved, certainly, but to claim it was a good app at launch is utter and complete nonsense.

[csivils]

I use a combination of apple, google and waze for navigation. Waze seems to handle traffic routes better, google has an edge for tough directions, but on my iphone apple maps are better for ad-hoc seeing what is around me and winging it.

Maybe version 1 was bad, but now it is a competitive product with the others.

[Swordmaker]

You’re denials of my experience remind me of the two hippies who after the 1972 election stared at one another in disbelief at finding Nixon was re-elected saying “How can that be? no one I knew voted for him.”

And I say that your experience does not agree with mine at all. I have numerous people using Maps. . . in my businesses and personally. They have NOT had the issues you seem to think they should have experienced. Not at all. Therefore, I have trouble believing you. Are you in Great Britain? There were problems of that magnitude there. . . but NOT in the United States. . . and those issues have been addressed and fixed.

As to someone who would spend dollars research on which map app is best, there are organization that do exactly that. . . in this instance a Crowdsourcing company called Crowdflower released a report on December 19, 2012, about three months after Maps was released. They used a sample of 1000 businesses in the US and 100 in the UK for their data set, and had their "crowd" try to find them by name using Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Bing. Note that Yelp is NOT a big presence in the UK. Their results were graphed:

Percentage of Businesses that were found with a name search


Percentage of found businesses with major errors

Other contemporaneous studies showed similar results. . . but with a lower major error rate. Over the last two years, the hit rate has increased considerably, and the error rate has dropped drastically.

Was it as good as it could have been? No. Scott Forestall lost his very lucrative job because it wasn't ready for prime time, but the only way to find out was to release it into the wild and find out. . . Forestall should have labeled it "BETA."

I just love the way Apple bashers put words into my posts. Did I say it was "good enough" in my post??? No, I said it was "pretty good". . . there is a difference. I did not say it was perfect, good enough, wonderful. . . or anything others have claimed I did say. . . I said it worked for me. . . and for many others. The bashers are claiming it "has not improved." That is a lie. Deliberate FUD. As was the article that this entire thread was based on.

[amigatec]

I have typed the same address into Google Maps, Mapquest, Apple Maps, my Garmin, and at least one other Gps, and they all give me the wrong address.

[Swordmaker]

I have typed the same address into Google Maps, Mapquest, Apple Maps, my Garmin, and at least one other Gps, and they all give me the wrong address.

Wrong address, or wrong location?

[amigatec]

The address is correct, I just tried it again with both Google Maps and Apple maps.

Goggle maps was a half block off, and Apple maps was 3 blocks off.

[amigatec]

Wrong location.

[Swordmaker]

Wrong location.

That's interesting. Wonder what the NSA, CIA, and other clandestine services have to do with that address, now or in the past?

[amigatec]

I live in a town of about 1500, so I would expect the map data to off, since where I live is not a popular spot.

I use Motiion X GPS on my iPhone to drive around Tulsa, and I have seen many, many addresses that are wrong. Some of these are fairly new, and some are several years old.

My biggest complaint with Apple maps app, is you can’t add more than one address at a time. I may make 4 of 5 stops when on a route.

When you add that feature I go back to using it.

[Swordmaker]

It would be kind of cool to have an address the government couldn't locate, wouldn't it. The Obamanator could program your coordinates into one of his terminator drones and it blows another locations to smithereens instead of your house. . . he tried it again, using another GPS system. . . and BLOOIEE! Another poor schnook's store front goes up in Liberal smoke, not you! He tries again with the LibErTard satellite Freedom System. . . and the laser melts the local Liberal mayor's house. Dang nab it!

I like it. How do I get an unlisted Geo Positioning address?

[amigatec]

The scary part is when I type my address into Google earth, and I can see everything in my back yard.

[Swordmaker]

As Google goes more and more real time, better watch that nude sunbathing. . .

[Georgia Girl 2]

I wondered who stole my bike. :-)

[zeugma]

I've gotta agree with the author. Apple maps sucks. You know what one feature these mapping apps really need more than anything else?

A freaking scale indicator. I mean, is this something that is, like impossible to do or something? Everyone I've ever mentioned it to agrees that it would ba a freaking Godsend, yet noone seems to do it!

/rant

[zeugma]

Sword, Sometimes the directions are good, sometimes bad. I almost died laughing yesterday when I asked it to direct me to the nearest starbucks.  According the the directions, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Granted, it managed to get me there in only 5 miles. The kicker, our local starbucks is a really direct route of less than half a mile. I walk when it isn't too hot. I really should have taken a picture of it.

 

[SamAdams76]

How can this be?? Apple is perfect! There is NOTHING better than Apple. There must be some right wing nut writing this.

You mean "left wing nut". It is the liberals that hate capitalist Apple with their billions of dollars in the bank.