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Apple's New Maps Put Brooklyn In Manhattan
By
Garth Johnston
Published Sep 20, 2012
Modified Sep 20, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Sep 20, 2012
Modified Sep 20, 2012
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Yesterday millions of happy iPhone and iPad users were told by their devices that a new version of the phone's iOS was ready. Yay, right? Well, sure—unless you want to use your phone for directions. Because one of the big features Apple is touting about this release—the all-new, not-at-all-Google Maps app—is an undeniable mess. But at least it has turn-by-turn directions?
There are lots of reasons why Apple dropped Google's map app (and YouTube!) from its lineup, but the main one appears to be fear of giving Google more user data to work with. "The importance of the map in the new mobile ecosystem is really what drove this decision [that] 'we have to own this component'," an executive at one of the companies providing mapping data to Apple told Business Insider.
But the data that Apple has bought from companies like TomTom simply isn't as good as Google's (for the moment)—and just as irritating, right now Apple's software isn't as good as Google's was at parsing what you mean. As Anil Dash puts it:
Here in Manhattan, where I live, basic search by building names is profoundly degraded in Apple's maps search. "Bloomberg" doesn't find the Bloomberg Tower; on Google Maps it's the first result. Searching for its address "731 Lexington Avenue" yields that address on Lexington Avenue in Brooklyn. It's fine to think that perhaps I wanted the address in Bed-Stuy, but even appending "NY, NY" or "Manhattan, NY" still yields the Brooklyn address. Google maps has none of these comprehension issues.
And as you can see in the above screen grabs, it also has trouble finding basic Big Apple locations like "Prospect Park Brooklyn" (though "Prospect Park New York New York" works) and "Coney Island Brooklyn." And, worse, it currently thinks that "85 5th ave, brooklyn, ny" is in Manhattan and believes that some addresses in Manhattan are across two streets from their actual location (guess nobody ever taught Apple the Manhattan street address trick?).
There are arguments that this is all sort of part of the plan and that Apple needs more user data to improve its maps, but that only goes so far. How many people, after going to the wrong place because their phone told them to, are going to want to bother pulling up the page fold on the bottom right of the map, tapping the very small "Report a problem" button, and going through a series of options to tell Apple it messed up? Oh sure, sigh, we just did—but still!
And then there is mass transit. For various reasons, Apple has decided to outsource mass transit directions out of the app to whatever other apps you might have (or want to install), which is okay if you understand how it works. But don't try and figure out mass transit locations for another city than you are in—the location based services will not know what to do. Another irritating mass transit change in the new Maps? If you are one of those who would look at the map app just to see what trains were at a given station (not necessarily looking for directions) well, that information is no longer available. All you get is the station name with no train info.
So what to do? Well, since the Maps app is already one of the few apps that you really must have internet access to use, you can always do what we've done and just save a bookmark to Google Maps to our homescreen. Suddenly it is like nothing changed! Google Maps is back! And now we get sketchy bicycle directions to go along with our walking, driving and mass transit directions.
Want more iOS map fails? Look no further.
Tagged
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directions
ios
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Garth Johnston
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