New Maps App on iOS 6 - poor resolution?

Hi All

Maps wont even find wolverhampton . Also + 1 to everything in previous posts.

Jon

Im out on location this weekend its going to be interesting I might have to buy a MAP

How could this get by the people who sign these things off at apple , how does it go Dear Tim ........................

TYPO

Seriously disappointing update, Maps is horrible, Siri worse than ever ( at least for location services in Canada) , Great I know the time in 6 cities ( who cares ), apple must always give the option to downgrade the software, I will be seriously making a big issue with this one, if apple really CARE , then they should be reading these comments.

They axed transit maps in NYC... I had a first gen iPhone, I planned a route to JFK airport using mass transit for part of it. Landed in London, bought a weeks worth of BT wifi and mapped my transit route to my hotel and back using transit. I was never lost once for a week in a city I had never been to. It was amazing. I told everyone who asked about my phone how amazing it was for years. I switched from PC to Mac because of that trip.

My iPhone and iPad now don't show me there is a Subway Station two blocks away... I just heard the train pull out.

This is a critical feature, crippled.

I just downgraded my iPhone 4 from iOS 6 to 5.1.1 so the following instructions work.

An A4 device is downgradable (e.g. the iPhone 4 (not 4S)). A few others too. Refer: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/31869383801/blob-o-riffic

Download the iOS 5.1.1 IPSW file from apple.com. This site has direct links: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=750

For my iPhone 4 GSM, I downloaded from here: http://appldnld.apple.com/iOS5.1.1/041-4293.20120427.3DRyb/iPhone3,1_5.1.1_9B206 _Restore.ipsw

Put the iPhone into DFU mode so you can do an iTunes firmware restore. Instructions at: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1034

Excerpt:

1. Open iTunes and connect the iPhone to your computer.

2. Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.

3. After exactly 10 seconds release the Sleep/Wake button. Continue holding the home button until you iTunes pops up a message telling you that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. The iPhone screen will remain black.

4. It may take a few attempts to get your iPhone into DFU mode. Generally, I hold down both buttons then release the Home button just before I think the Apple logo would appear. If you are still holding both buttons down and you see the Apple logo you are holding them down for too long!

Restore the IPSW file onto your phone (effectively downgrading back to 5.1.1):

In iTunes, hold down Shift (or Option?) key and select Restore. Then you can browse to the IPSW file to use to restore.

P.S. I will consider upgrading when I can have google maps back.

I confirm, it's a disaster also here in Czech.

Even in a 500k town the resolution is poor (not mentioning that the maps are old).

Thanks to those who posted the hint about adding the shorcut for online google maps to the desktop, however, it's still just a workaround (which unfortunately won't include my saved places from the installed app)...

Hopefully Apple will offer the google maps at least as an alternative.

it's unusable in romania, too. there are no street names in a 160k population town! my hometown (20k population) is not even on the map 😟

Honestly I don't care if Google had more time to develop it. It became bascially unusable for me (Satellite). Poor resolution & greyscale. I have a lot of doubts that this will change in the near future, thanks Apple.

Doesn't Apple usually pride themself only to introduce new things if there's an improvement?

And quite frankly I can't understand why Apple is not able to add a map scale legend to the map. A map is not a map without it, it's beyond my understanding why you wouldn't include it. There's a reason why it's on maps for centuries. If you don't know a region a map without a scale has very limited use and I normally don't need a map for a region I do know. Screen resolution can't be the problem nowadays and if you're concerned make it optional. PLEASE!

Maps are horrible! I'm from Germany and I live in a 600+k City. They just forgot to add a stripe of satellite photos in my town. See the pictures attached. And you can't use the map app. No scale, no detail. Google was 10 times better. I thought Apple only release finished products and no Beta-Versions! And YES, I have loaded the maps completely. I'm connected by Wi-Fi. It's the resolution Apple offers me in my 600+k town Dortmund!

After I zoomed in...

I am really disappointed with this update. Apple have totally miss sold us this update. The maps looked awesome in the iphone5 ad. It's the worst quality ever. Terrible blue cast over many of the locations and out of date locations. I use the maps all the time with my gps sport apps for golf and cycling. Now the golf app is almost useless as the resolution is so poor I won't be able to accurately measure distances.

There are going to be a lot of unhappy customers. I was certainly updating to the iPhone5. But now I'm not sure

It's not just the resolution or colour. This is a view of my house - absolutely useless. It can often be cloudy but somehow Google managed to find a clear day!

That's pretty poor! I thought it was just the resolution was bad too!

I simply can't get over how bad the maps app is. I used the maps feature all the time and found it to be a fantastic tool for UK travel when the motorways got jammed and you needed to negotiate around them. The Apple maps app is unclear, has less roads, doesnt use A/B road names which is useless as that is how they are signposted, it doesnt list motorway junctions, and, ofcourse, as others have said, the resolution on the sateliite imagery is appalling. I live in a big town with a 42000 population and the satellite image is blurry and if you scroll in too close it disappears completely. I have had to go to the google maps mobile web site and save to homescreen, but it doesnt work anything like as well as the previous google maps app. Shame on you Apple for hurting your loyal customers by having a disagreement with Google.

I updated the operating system today and wanted to take time to register my disappointment. Google maps are not there any more. apple maps are no where as good, no street view. Poor location search.

Youtube is gone, and though available as stand alone app from the app store. its not similar layout. its not user friendly as previous version where i had added loads of favourites and it was easy for kids to browse through and play the favourites.

I like facebook integration but there were similar apps already there. I might downgrade unless there are newer apps coming from google via app store.

I had iphone/s for last 4 yrs and loved it. but not so sure now.

If you want to keep top of the chart why not use best solutions/apps available rather than trying your own ? ? ?

Maps is rubbish, poor Res, poor/incorrect naming, incomplete roads! The world’s most advance OS is becoming rotten at the core and it shows with this poor map app! What a step backwards!!!

Interesting words from Noam Bardin, one of the partners who supplys data for the app.....

Speaking to Business Insider about the Apple’s new 3D mapping application, Waze CEO Noam Bardin said, ‘Apple went out and partnered with the weakest player.’

He added: ‘They’re now coming out with the lowest, weakest data set and they’re competing against Google, which has the highest data set. What’s going to happen with the Apple maps, is that you’re literally not going to find things. When you do find them, they might be in the wrong place or position geographically.’

One of the key new features of Apple’s mapping service is its 3D visuals, which Apple debuted at WWDC 2012 and detailed further at last week’s iPhone 5 event. They do look very impressive, we admit, but visuals aren’t enough when it comes to mapping services – the data has to be there too.

Waze provides traffic data for Apple’s new mapping service, along with Tom Tom, which is reportedly providing the bulk of Apple’s mapping data. Bardin clearly isn’t happy with how things have turned out, indicating that iOS 6’s new Maps app relies too heavily on Tom Tom’s services.

Bardin told BGR that a large number of mobileapp developers have reached out to Waze and wish to integrate the company’s maps directly into their apps instead of Apple’s service.

‘They’re saying many things that used to work on Google don’t work on Apple,’ added Bardin.

‘Going forward now, we’re going to see this around maps, it’s the question of how fast Apple can work with their partners to update the data and how good the user experience will be.’