Another Apple maps desert death trap down under Just when Apple thought it couldn't get any worse for its beleaguered Maps app, which has been leading motorists deep into the desert when they try to find the town of Mildura, The Register can reveal another SNAFU that could send travellers to an even less hospitable destination. The site in question is Mount Isa, a town in …
Now news of more wrong places in Australia are being identified on iOS maps (from tourist destinations to outback locations):
http://www.news.com.au/technology/key-design-flaw-leading-to-more-map-headaches-for-apple/story-e6frfrnr-1226535382385
Wow. A near 50km difference in location..... dang.
Everytime there's something at Foxconn (who make the bulk of ALL laptops, not just the fancy schmancy macbooks) then it's "trouble at Mac-builder Foxconn".
Every single error at Apple Maps is reported in an article. Some evenhandedness, then! The number of Google Maps weirdnesses were staggering at the beginning, but you only got one article per type --- e.g., the Escher-like buildings that were leaning in all directions. Now every misplaced locality (where nobody ever goes, that's how nobody notices in the first place).
"UUUUh, the Apple links to scenic Luton in Devon instead of the shitty one near the airport" (what else you'd expect from a company that takes design seriously?) --- There's dozens of similar non-Apple WTFs [a classic one is truck drivers going for Lille in France (en route to the UK) ending up in the small Belgian village of Lille 100miles eastward] but suddenly that's not interesting? indeed, because there's dozens upon dozens. And it's not Apple.
Get over it, sick puppies.
Are you 'avin a larff? Apple maps(sic) is an unmitigated disaster...an omni-shambles, the Norwegian Blue of parrots, a German soldier just obeying orders, a stinking pile of SH1TE. It's got eff all to do with Foxconn and everything to do with a bunch of lazy "designers" at "they'll buy any old crap as long as it's shiny" central.
You must be using a different Apple Maps. Expecting the worst, I tried it for a couple of walking routes, in Geneva, Zurich and a rather obscure, light industrial area in Rothenburg, plus some random lookups of places I know in other countries. Bit of a shock: it found them all; in Geneva it led me on a shorter, true pedestrian route straight to my destination, than any of my attempts with Google Maps, that seemed fixated on following streets and put the hotel (with address!) in the wrong street, plus using GPS with it can be very random. Going to the industrial estate, to the particular address I wanted, ws pretty much spot on with Apple Maps, complete with spoken instructions. I've tried it a couple of times with Google and always been misled to the wrong road, wrong building (my memory is bad in that area and I seem always to need help to find it).
OK, not exhaustive: but good in my experience, even hunting for addresses in England and NZ and moving in nearby bits of Elsass. If this is their first, much criticised release, I think Google, after all their experience, have to improve quickly.
I always have tended to use Tom Tom in preference to Google after such oddities with it (yes, I paid real money for Tom Tom Europe on the iPhone, worth every penny, working well even in remote parts of Serbia and Croatia). and, in my Nokia days, found Nokia maps first class.
Google seems to attract even more rabid loyalists than Linux and Apple.
"...while Google is not perfect at least it does not try to pretend it is..."
Is that why it's still pushing the "Don't be evil" crap, and denying deliberate harvesting of private network data, inter alia?
PS
The plural which escapes you is "companies".
Yes but in Jean-eeva in Swatchiland and all that... you gotta remember, this is Austraya mate.....
If you go off the beaten track, to beyond the black stump and all that, you will be in the middle of no where, where there is nuffin and no one......
Except for the drop bears that will eat you alive.
Now the ABOBBI (Australian Bureau of Better Bonzer Ideas) has created a sure fire digital mapping system, that has a permanent memory and uses no batteries or artificial contrivance to develop or maintain the imaging system.
It's call the DPTPMSFAASTDWTGL (Digital Pencil to Paper Mapping System for All Adventurous Sorts That Don't Want to Get Lost).
First we grab a big note book, in one corner of a page we draw a dot with our pencil, and call it, YEWAREAR, then we draw some lines and things, and call them roads, and we name them, then we draw dots, for towns and turn offs and all that, and at the other end we write a big dot with "Bingowemadeit", to show that we made it.
DPTPMSFAASTDWTGL comes with a 2B pencil, a 6B pencil, and a red Columbia correction pencil, and a sharpener and an eraser.
Fits in every glove box and does not blow off the dashboard - except in cyclones when the windows are open or smashed.
Really?
A place so obscure that there are 5 instances of issues (and as soon as they were reported it was corrected) makes Apple maps an unmitigated failure? So 99.999999999999999999999999999232% accuracy is an unmitigated failure?
I'll let people know when it finally gives me bad directions!
This is so totally blown out of proportion!
This post has been deleted by its author
I seem to recall when it was released they relocated Cairns (120,000) 100km further north, past Port Douglas, up into the Daintree Rainforest.....
Considering there is no road there, and you would have to pass Cairns(*) first, I assume nobody got lost there.
(*) unless coming from the Atherton Tablelands - but a bit hard to miss the signs
Heh, looks like they've put cairns in Stewart Creek Valley...
Gorgeous part of the world that, I highly recommend grabbing a 4x4 and driving further up, past cape Tribulation and on to Cooktown via the Bloomfield Track.
Of course I highly recommend grabbing a 4x4, a water supply, extra fuel and some food before you follow Apple Maps anywhere in Australia!
@Rick17
Was a while back, but I thought that even coming from the Tablelands you brushed through Cairns (past the cable car) on your way north.
Not relevant I know.
As for why the fixation, it's not as obscure a place as you think. I drove past there on my tour of Oz and I have two friends out there now. That's 4 people from the South-West cider swigging country out there alone. Sure it's not just Zummerzet folk who like travelling around various parts of the world.
Have to agree, I hate using google maps, much prefer a decent topo map with gps. Bikes tend to be phone killers (vibration perhaps?) so a decent garmin is the way to go. Google maps et al are fine for finding a street a few miles away but personally I wouldn't trust them for something like a drive across the outback but perhaps I'm a little too cautious.
Only an idiot would bet their life on a mapping service that's widely known to be less accurate than soviet reporting from Pravada.
Were I going driving in Australia, you can bet your life that I not only would have acquired safety information from the locals, but would also have not just a GPS, but a reliable paper map, compass and stopwatch for dead reckoning.
IT people should know the importance of reliable, tested backups for disaster recovery. ;)
I've done a *lot* of driving in Australia and it's pretty unnecessary to go that oldschool/hardcore.
Sure, a decent water supply and a couple of spare fuel cans (20L cans) are essential when you get out of the comparatively densely populated south east, just in case the worst does happen. But in terms of directions... there's usually only one road. You follow it until you get where you're going. Sometimes that takes weeks.
I did take a GPS on my travels there, a Nokia N900. Far from the world's best in terms of functionality, but you can preload the entire world onto those things for free. The only issue I had with the nokia maps was that they mapped too much. I've driven down some very steep and tricky forest tracks only to find out that the route I was planning on using to get back out to a main road became a 'management only' track beyond a certain point, and I had to find my way back out somehow.
My dad and I drove from Brisbane to Darwin in 1985. Most of it is Outback. We brought spares (a good idea, because our fanbelt broke between Augathella and Blackall) and a map, but no GPS. The latter wasn't necessary, because we stuck to the highway the whole route.
When you go off the highway - that's when GPSs are necessary. But on the highway, road signs are good enough to get you where you need to be.
passing 21 cars in 600 km.
So, it's like northern Sweden and bits of Finland? Apart from the temperatures, that is. And the lack of precipitation. And the different critters. And the night sky view. And, um, some more differences. But apart from those it's the same, yes?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
