Engineers’ work on cycling and public transit have transformed the app – but rural directions remain a sticking point

Archived version: https://archive.ph/hguLn

Excerpt (and context):

Apple Maps’ offering might surprise people who remember its disastrous launch in 2012, which the Guardian described as the company’s “first significant failure in years”. Users were more than furious – they were lost, sometimes dangerously so. In Australia, police had to rescue tourists from the huge Murray-Sunset national park, after Maps placed the city of Mildura in the wrong place by more than 40 miles. Some of the motorists located by police had been stranded for 24 hours without food or water. In Ireland, ministers had to complain directly to Apple after a cafe and gardens called “Airfield” was designated by the service as an actual airport.

But mostly the map was just glitchy and unhelpful, its directions always a little off kilter. Users revolted and Apple made a rare retreat, allowing Google Maps to be used as the default on many iPhone apps and apologizing for the product.

  • southsamurai
    5•11 months ago

    Wellll, considering I’ve recently needed to use Lyft and uber a good bit, and the drivers were mostly using apple stuff, and I had to open up my android device to use Waze so they could get guided for half the damn trip while apple’s maps just sat there spinning, I’m not very impressed.

    My wife prefers iOS, so we’ve tried using it a handful of times when my device had other issues (broken screen, etc) and the damn thing got us lost three of those times. It did eventually get us back into areas I knew well enough to just get places myself, but it was a laggy, shitty experience.

    I fucking hate Google for so many reasons, but their maps work. Waze works fine as well (though who knows for how long lol). Osmand is okay, but isn’t as reliable. Nothing else on android is any better than osmand, just different.

    Apple maps just isn’t on par with any of those three yet. Maybe it will be eventually though!