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A decade after a disastrous launch, is Apple Maps finally good? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I use Apple Maps for directions and Google maps when I want to “explore” or look for restaurants. Discovery on Apple Maps is still awful and requires you to have Yelp installed. On the flipside though they beat Google to having intersection lights and stop signs on the map while driving. The overall experience and animations are also far smoother on Apple Maps which is what makes me use it for driving. Google maps, like many Google products has a low framerate for its animations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Also Yelp sucks. People rate things on Yelp when they’re angry. Ratings are almost always lower on Yelp than Google Maps.

I suspect this is because Google Maps reminds you to rate places you’ve been later, whereas Yelp is what people go to when they want to bitch about a place.