Q: Apple maps very disappointing

Nogueira wrote:

 

"Busca ou Endereço" means "Search or address" in Portuguese language.

I see. I searched for Suaräo and found nothing. I guess that is a limitation in Google's search engine. It doesn't strip diacritics. That has been standard Apple practice with Unicode for years. On Windows mainly, typing non-ascii is problematic and shouldn't be relied on.

Still, Google returns incorrect addresses all the time. It is normal for any GIS systems. I've never felt the need to troll the internet about it.

Here is the correct location of Suarão, an Avenue at the city of Itanhaém, state of São Paulo, Brazil.

And here is the location of the railway station called Suarão, in the same town. As shown by Apple Maps:

http://www.geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-947069&fid=766&c=brazil #MAP

Names around the world are not necessarily unique. 

I live near Philadelophia and work in down town. In case you were wondering its a pretty large US city. The Maps App has the hospital where I work listed as a parking structure. The starbucks down the  street is not located in the right place. Near my house the the suburbs if you search for 'Market' it finds a few of the local markets. One - the Whole Foods, is positioned a mile or so from the correct location. If you search for Super Fresh Market, it only finds three in the whole Philly area, and misses the one next to the Whole Foods Market. Strangely looking at the map, there is a listing for the market but its just shown as 'Super Fresh'. Of course its not located in the right place though. I could go on but let me say that in my estimation about 65-70% of locations I search for are either missing or miss located. I always provide feedback but not one of the errors I've noted have been fixed. In my experience Maps is much worse that the news media make it seem. Terrible. 

These are not minor issues. This software does not work and replaces something that worked exeptionally well.

The reason that this is so upsetting is that Google maps had all of these things right and the lack of integration with the iOS severly hampers the usefulness of the link workaround. Overall the new map experience has broken my 30 year confidence that Apple makes superior products and cares about the user experience. This is an unmitigated disaster - by far the worse single product mistake ever made by Apple.

Nogueira wrote:

 

Here is the correct location of Suarão, an Avenue at the city of Itanhaém, state of São Paulo, Brazil.

How do we know that? I I lookup Suarão, I get this:

If I use the Brazil site like you did, I still get a different answer than you did:

Which one is right?

Matthew Dalva wrote:

 

The reason that this is so upsetting is that Google maps had all of these things right

And presumably still does. The key part of that is that those maps are Google's. They do not belong to Apple and Apple cannot use them whenever they feel the need. Apple must abide by Google's licensing agreement that is going to expire soon. Google has a 7 year head start. How is the experience supposed to get better if Google has an 8 year head start instead?

If you want to use Google maps, then do so. If you don't like the integration with iOS, then complain to Google. Apple didn't like the integration either but, unlike you, was powerless to do anything about it.

Thanks for the correction (red face!) :).

It depends of what you are looking for.

In my case, I was looking for Suarão (avenue), and the location is correct, because I know the place.

In your case, you typed Suarão, and there are some options to choose: Pharmacy, Real State, Nursery, Timber Shop and Home Center Car Parts.

Here's what Apple says:

"At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers," Cook wrote. "With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better."

Nogueira wrote:

 

Here is the correct location of Suarão, an Avenue at the city of Itanhaém, state of São Paulo, Brazil.

 

OK. Let's revisit this. Now that I'm home for the day, I can actually check this location out in Apple Maps.

All you did was cherry pick the results to show the one item that comes from the old NGA geonames project. When I search for "Suarão", Apple gives me the best results it can find relative to my current location. Those are in Toronto. If I add "itanhaem", I get this:

Yes, that does include that old geonames point, but the rest of the results are the same as Google.

If I omit the accents entirely, Apple Maps still gives me the same results. Google fails to give me any results.

Google is an excellent armchair GIS tool. But if you really need to navigate and don't know or want to add all the correct accents, Apple Maps returns superior results.

Nogueira wrote:

 

In my case, I was looking for Suarão (avenue), and the location is correct, because I know the place.

 

In your case, you typed Suarão, and there are some options to choose: Pharmacy, Real State, Nursery, Timber Shop and Home Center Car Parts.

But I've never been to Brazil so I am at a bit of a disadvantage on how to form the addresses. It appears the correct way to refer to that street is "Av. Suarão". When I search for that exact string in Apple Maps, I get:

It doesn't matter than I'm currently in a different hemisphere or whether or not I use accents. The result is the same. No so for Google. My first attempt results in nothing:

To be fair, if I start from maps.google.com.br or if I make sure to use the exact captialization, then Google does give me the correct results. Apple Maps automatically capitalizes for me, which is a nice feature that Google lacks.

You've got the correct location, but there's no explanation for this:

etresoft wrote:

 

 

Matthew Dalva wrote:

 

The reason that this is so upsetting is that Google maps had all of these things right

 

 

And presumably still does. The key part of that is that those maps are Google's. They do not belong to Apple and Apple cannot use them whenever they feel the need. Apple must abide by Google's licensing agreement that is going to expire soon. Google has a 7 year head start. How is the experience supposed to get better if Google has an 8 year head start instead?

 

If you want to use Google maps, then do so. If you don't like the integration with iOS, then complain to Google. Apple didn't like the integration either but, unlike you, was powerless to do anything about it.

 

 

Apple, powerless? I doubt that very much. They just weren't willing to meet Google's licensing terms. What did they expect would happen when they chose to integrate Google's map data into so many aspects of the IOS interface?

The problem is they weren't prepared with an adequate replacement when the license ran out. What is disturbing is how bad the map data is from Tom Tom, a company that has apparently been doing OK selling their own GPS devices for years. Are they providing Apple with the same mapping data they use for their own devices? If so, how have they managed to stay in business?

There is an explanation. You Photoshopped it.

All explanations aside, it's inexcusable to replace an accurate, full featured maps app with a half baked erroneous dysfunctional excuse from apple and expect customers to accept it like google maps never existed. Place and route information where I live are practically absent or unusable while they work just fine on my wife's ios5 iPhone. The web interface to google maps really can't compare with the native app.

Also, the licensing agreement with google is valid for another year. Please do your homework before claiming otherwise. Apple chose to dump google maps early.

Yesterday I picked up a galaxy s3 after trading in my iPhone 4S. At least it got me a discount :)