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.
> is Apple Maps finally good?
No. Definitely not “good.” It used to be terrible and maybe isn’t so bad anymore, though.
For instance, around here there are a lot of private driveways; farming roads, dirt paths on private property, things like that. Apple would route me through those, I would mark them as not a road, they would be reviewed, and a month later they would reappear on the map. Why would I trust a map that jeeps trying to route me down a private washed out dirt path?
I was going to a meeting and typed in the address they provided. Apple popped up a location, but it was about an hour away in the wrong direction. It turns out that Apple didn’t know the correct address, so they helpfully corrected it to a different number, street, and city.
I needed to get to sports practice at a community center, so I put in the address. Apple took me to a literal empty field ten minutes away from the actual location.
If that’s the best they can do, why would I ever trust them? Maybe it’s better, but it was so bad for so long that I don’t even want to try it again.