Everywhere in the UK is now Dudley

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/scie ... 2092142045

Not updated to iOS6 yet because of this issue. I use google maps to plan my itinerary (usually) the night before. Usually checking how long it will take and the best route to use. I then use the in-car satnav to get to where I want and will sometimes ignore it depending on what googlemaps has revealed.

I have deliberately not updated and won't until they sort it out. It is a pity that Google aren't developing their own app for iOS6.

In the short term, Maps sucks. We know this. There are several free alternatives though - not upgrading simply because of the Maps issue seems a little backward tbh.
Also, when Apple finally get their act together on this, they've really no alternative than to produce something that knocks Google Maps into a cocked hat. Or at least, if it were my company, that's how I'd be approaching this situation.
So, hopefully, we'll see something great shape up in the long term.

You see that's easier said than done. Google employed a lot of people to assemble their data by hand over many years. You can't reproduce that effort quickly.

Well Apple are recruiting for maps plus with the effects of crowd sourcing error correction it could happen sooner than some expect.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.

+100 to your first point.

Agree on the second too.

Well, you can, because most of it is work you can compartmentalise. It just takes an enormous heap of money. Which, conveniently, they have. It's a question of how much they are willing to invest in getting Maps up to speed. If they're not that bothered, it'll take a while. If they are, they can throw money at the problem to fix it more quickly.

Jon

I was listening to Matt Cutts on TWiG yesterday, Goolge have around 7,000 employees and contractors working on Maps.

Some interesting commentary on Apple's motivation if you've got 25 minutes to catch the first part of the show: http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-google/165

Was it a bold business decision about "vertical integration", or a fallout with Google over turn by turn? Whichever, it's apparently the first time that customer satisfaction with a new release of iOS has fallen and Maps seems to be a big part of that.


Even "more quickly" is unlikely to be sorted in a few weeks like most serious problems with new releases, and a significant number of people are saying they do find it a serious problem.

I don't really understand why though. Here in Aberystwyth, Maps was nothing special, there was only generic info on it (road names, a few pubs, the uni, etc), I don't know if it was different in other parts of the country? Many people I had spoken to in the past had dedicated satnav apps/devices, and most people seemed to use Maps as a quick, informal reference to their location and destination.
It seams that most people have read about it on the Internet and have decided it's worth making a fuss about. I daresay most of the people making a fuss don't even use an iDevice on a daily basis.

Looking at the acknoledgements, Apple doesn't seem to own any of the data it's collected from a fair number of sources, some of which are country specific, to name but a few: TomTom, Acxiom, AND, DigitalGlobe, Factual, Getchee, Intermap, LeadDog, GeoNames, OpenStreetMaps.

The poll and comments in this thread suggest that the problems do have an impact on real iPhone users in everyday life. I suspect a lot of users visiting or working in London in particular, and that's a lot of people.

Only time will tell, but frankly it's not the end of the world and I doubt very much if this will change the perception of Apple in the long term. How many people are really going to switch to Android just because of Maps? Very few indeed...

It would almost certainly be cheaper to buy another sat nav app for your iPhone than buy out a phone contract to get an Android phone. So you're really talking about 'those people who are due an upgrade and were already thinking of an Android phone and Maps has tipped them over the edge'.

That's definitely 'some' people but I couldn't say how many.

As an iPhone user in London who uses maps daily, I've got to say that having used iOS 6 for this last week has been pretty much plain sailing [pause for jokes about misplaced lakes here] with the only slight niggle being that search could be better - sometimes it only wanted an address, sometimes it just wanted a postcode, occasionally both. Now, my use of maps (paper or app variety) is pretty simple - I want to know where I am and where I'm going and that's it - points of interest, building names, turn by turn directions and transit data (I had to google that to see wtf people were talking about) is a big fat 'meh' to me.

But the new maps app is fast and elegant; 3D view is nice and it's very handy to be able to spin the map around so it faces the right way, rather than rely on the app to track your every twist and turn, taking your destination off the screen every time the road jinks one way or the other. I haven't used directions in anger, but a couple of 'known' local journeys the route it plotted was exactly what I would take. Another bonus; it integrates very well with the 'find friends' feature - the previous Google-based app would often freeze up for ages, or would need manually refreshing to show any change in location - not so with the new app.

So, room for improvement, sure, but for me, far from the train-wreck I was expecting.

Cheers, Pete

It would seem I was born in a place called Duncaster.

I also sat buy a colleague yesterday with his iPhone 5 and my Sensation. We went to the same location using our map applications. I was actually shocked how poor his was. I could zoom in to ground level with loads of clarity and detail. He couldn't get anywhere near. Seriously it was pointless.

I am holding off on upgrading from 5.x to 6 until things improve