Q: Apple maps very disappointing

Find it interesting that in these financial times, a company that is making so much money, is asking there clients to do there work for free.

Apple could hire hundreds of thousands of people to get this working. That would help them self and lots of low income people.

Yet they think about there own profit.  Some would say great buisness idea, but it also shows how Apple thinks of people. Think a few thousand workes in China would agree.

I agree Apple hardware is great tech engineering.

There is much I like about my Iphone and Ipad, but as a user have had to endure lack of Flash, whilst world comes around to Apple preference for HTML5, lack of direct printing unless I ditch my printer and buy an Apple Airprint compatible model, and now I'm denied Google Maps with StreetView.

It's a bit like having a Mercedes, and then having taken it in for a service, you return to find that they have confiscated the wheels and left it on a pile of bricks, and no - you can't put other wheels on because the hubs have been locked.

My Ipad is becoming a toy without use.

I hope that Google demostrate they are bigger than Apple, and release an App providing Maps and Streetview. I doubt whether Apple could block it on grounds of conflicting with core functionality (duplicating Apple software), because as yet i haven't seen any Apple Camera cars - a task which will take years for them to reach Google standard.

gkinchina wrote:

 

...There are scores of Tom Toms and Yelps across the world that specialise in maps and associated information for different countries. Apple should be licensing all of them and integrating it into their maps. This will take them to 80 percent of Google Maps and may even give them better curated data than Google has!

 

If you explore the small print behind the turned-up corner of the screen, you can find these few organisations that provide the data:

"Copyright © 2012 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the US and other countries.

© 2006-2012 TomTom. All rights reserved. This material is proprietary and the subject of copyright protection, database right protection and other intellectual property rights owned by TomTom or its suppliers. The use of this material is subject to the terms of a license agreement. Any unauthorized copying or disclosure of this material will lead to criminal and civil liabilities. // MultiNet® North America, © 2006 – 2012 TomTom.  All rights reserved.  This material is proprietary and the subject of copyright protection and other intellectual property rights owned or licensed to TomTom.  TomTom is an authorized user of selected Statistics Canada computer files and distributor of derived information products under Agreement number 6776.  The product is sourced in part from Statistics Canada computer files, including 2009 Road Network File (RNF), 92-500-XWE/XWF and 2006 Census Population and Dwelling Count Highlight Tables, 97-550-XWE2006002.  The product includes information copied with permission from Canadian authorities, including © Canada Post Corporation, GeoBase®, and Department of Natural Resources Canada, All rights reserved.  The use of this material is subject to the terms of a License Agreement.  You will be held liable for any unauthorized copying or disclosure of this material. // MultiNet® South East Asia, Base data © Bakosurtanal. // MultiNet® Europe, Data Source © 2011 TomTom based on: MultiNet® data of Austria © BEV, GZ 1368/2003; MultiNet® data of Denmark © DAV, violation of these copyrights shall cause legal proceedings; MultiNet® data of France  © IGN France, Georoute © IGN France, Michelin data © Michelin 2012; MultiNet® data of Northern Ireland Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland; MultiNet® data of Norway © Norwegian Mapping Authority, Public Roads Administration / © Mapsolutions; MultiNet® data of Russia © Roskartographia; MultiNet® data of Switzerland  © Swisstopo; MultiNet® data of The Netherlands Topografische onderground Copyright © dienst voor het kadaster en de openbare registers, Apeldoorn 2006.

Business listings data © Acxiom, 2012.

Map data © AND.

Property parcel data for USA. © CoreLogic Inc., 2012.

Satellite imagery  data © DigitalGlobe, 2012.

Map and postal data © DMTI, 2012. This software contains Postal Code OM Data copied by Apple under a sub-license from DMTI Spatial Inc., a party directly licensed by Canada Post Corporation. The Canada Post Corporation file from which this data was copied is dated 2012.

Business listings data © Factual 2012.

Map data © Getchee, 2012.

© INCREMENT P CORP., 2012,  http://www.incrementp.co.jp/gc01info/e/legal01.html.

Map data © Intermap, 2012.

Map data © LeadDog, 2012.

Business listings data © Localeze, 2012.

Mapping data for Australia and New Zealand. © MapData Services Pty Ltd., 2012, PSMA http://www.nowwhere.com.au/lic/NowWhereLic.htm.

Map data © MDA Information Systems, Inc., 2012.

Neighborhood data © Urban Mapping, 2012.

Map data © 2012 Waze.

“Reviews from Yelp” Yelp, 2012.

(CanVec)

© Department of Natural Resources Canada. All rights reserved.

http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/geogratis/en/index.html

(CGIAR-CSI SRTM)

CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information, http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/

Flickr Shapefiles Public Dataset, Version 1.0, http://www.flickr.com/

(GeoNames)

GeoNames and contributors, http://www.geonames.org.

(GlobCover)

© ESA 2010 and UCLouvain, http://www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.nasa.gov

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2012. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2012. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

(OSDM)

© Commonwealth of Australia, 2012. This data has been used with the permission of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within this software, and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose. http://spatial.gov.au

(OSM)

OpenStreetMap contributors, http://www.openstreetmap.org/

(StatCan)

Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.gc.ca

(TIGER/Line® files)

U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/

U.S. Department of State, http://www.state.gov/

U.S. Geological Survey, http://www.usgs.gov/

(VMAP0)

National Geospatial-intelligence Agency, http://www1.nga.mil/

This product was developed using materials from the United States National Imagery and Mapping Agency and are reproduced with permission. This product has neither been endorsed nor authorized by the United States National Imagery and Mapping Agency or the United States Department of Defense."

Looks like they have not aggregated enough sources then, or have done so but executed poorly - integration problems? Software problems?

Or is it just callous, insensitive, arrogant behaviour to launch before completing the job, expecting its fanbase to stick around like salivating idiots for whatever crap they dish out?

And Apple expected all that to work and replace Google maps with Streetview?

Streetview is the heart of Google Maps and this link shows why Google maps just work and this is what Apple need to learn........

http://mashable.com/2012/09/07/how-google-builds-its-maps/

I always loved Streetview and after reading all the info in the above link I now know why

lynnfromleigh wrote:

Streetview is the heart of Google Maps

That's what everybody seems to think. I wonder why they called it Google Maps?

Probably because the maps came first but Google then realised that to make the maps accurate they needed to drive the actual routes and while they were striving the routes, why not add cameras and so.... Streetview was born

Thanks for the article. Now I am beginning to understand why Google Maps is able to route so well in Mumbai, compared to Apple Maps, which is unable to route even if you drop a pin! I had no idea that just vector mapping data was insufficient to route effectively. I thought it was a mathematical problem until I read this article.

It also explains why Google Maps is able to search and find places, even when we use names that are local in nature and do not exactly correspond with the correct postal address. Open maps project, which Apple uses, has postal addresses, which are simply not the way people refer to most common addresses. That's why Apple Maps is unable to find the place, even though it exists in its database!

Anyway, now I have tested Maps+ for 2 days on my iPhone with IOS6, it uses Google Maps at the back. This has solved my problem of searching and routing and in a way has returned my Google Maps functionality to me, although Apple would not give it back to me.

This makes IOS6 functional for me and I will go ahead and switch to IOS6 on my iPad as well, which I was reluctant to do so far, as no Maps meant non working OS for me. I am glad I don't have to continue to use Apple Maps.

I am still very very mad at Apple though for taking away something so important from its customers, although they did not have to for another year. I don't think any serious map user will contribute data to their app until they improve - like me, most map users will simply switch to something else that works.

Maps+ won't give you google maps back, if you have maps+ have a look at legal bottom left of open app, it Apple Tomtom. I have looked and although it says google in the drop down menu it's not.

I am so angry and frustrated.  If I had know that I would be rendering the mapping features of my phone useless I definitely would not have upgraded.  I do not understand why Apple won't let us downgrade.  It wouldn't cost them anything and it would make their customers happy again.  Thinking of buying a Droid.

We Apple users love our products. I think that a better strategy would have been to leave Google Maps installed, and highlight the need to work as a community to build the database for Apple Maps.

It is a matter of egos..

Regards.

I understand what you are saying, but I "like" rather than "love" my Apple products. Looking at them objectively, I also see quality issues (both hardware and software), and in this particular instance I feel like I'm being taken for granted by Apple.

If it were an open source product there would be more appeal to the "work as a community to build the database" idea. But for the most profitable, valuable proprietary company in the world I'd rather have them spend some of their $80 billion in cash reserves and do it for me.

You know what I mean?

doug

Maps+ was using Google until yesterday. Must have been using a Web API. It was working fine in India for search and routing. It switched to Apple Maps today and does not work anymore.

Not sure if they had to switch because of Apple or because of Google.

Now I am stuck with the crappy Apple Maps on all my devices and it does not work.

I can't function effectively without a working Maps app. I will wait for Google to launch its IOS app and in the meanwhile, I will buy a cheap, Chinese Android phone today for Google Maps. I will be forced to carry two phones (my iPhone for almost everything else) until Google IOS maps is released. This is so frustrating...

Apple - the company that sells a smartphone that DOES NOT WORK

One solution that may be much faster is from the jailbreak community. I have not jail broken any of my iphones so far but will do so for Google Maps as soon as it is available, so that I can stop carrying two phones -  http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/09/24/ios-6-receives-google-maps-jailbreak-de light/

Waiting eagerly for someone to be successful with this soon.

How long before Apple Maps kills someone?

http://www.zdnet.com/how-long-will-it-be-before-ios-6-maps-kills-someone-7000004 866/