5 ms·

In San Antonio, Texas, last week, I used Apple Maps to search for 'two brothers bbq'. The actual name of the establishment is 'two bros bbq' or similar. Apple

by sgslo 10y ago

In San Antonio, Texas, last week, I used Apple Maps to search for 'two brothers bbq'. The actual name of the establishment is 'two bros bbq' or similar. Apple maps decided to give me results from Europe as the first few in the result set. Why in the world would I want directions to Europe while in Texas? Google maps, of course, picked it up on the first try. One other thing - while in navigation mode with Apple maps, try panning the map around, or even zooming. Let me know how that goes.

drakenot 10y ago
I think they announced that the panning/zooming issue is resolved with the Apple Maps in iOS10. So hopefully that will be one less annoyance.
- asd 10y ago
  >I think they announced that the panning/zooming issue is resolved with the Apple Maps in iOS10. I wish this were the case. I'm running the iOS 10 beta on a 6S+ and gave Maps several seconds to load this area of upstate NY. http://i.imgur.com/wi7HRqe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/wi7HRqe.jpg The dark gray grid persists. Yea, it's the first beta, but I have mostly only noticed changes in the interface and not the actual map data.
  - glhaynes 10y ago
    I believe that's a different problem than was being discussed, which was that while driving directions are being shown on Maps on pre-iOS 10, it maddeningly only lets you pan/zoom a slight amount before snapping back to a zoomed-in, myopic-feeling view of your current location.
    - asd 10y ago
      Ah, I see now. Sorry about that. Yes, that problem is fixed. You can now zoom out and explore while directions are shown.
oiojdfg999898 10y ago
Piling on this, Apple maps is absolute shit in Japan. Google pretty much seamlessly operates between English (romaji alphabet) and Japanese names for the same place.
addicted 10y ago
I don't get how Apple Maps decides to show locations in other continents when it is unable to find a a match locally. And Apple's inability to do any sort of decent fuzzy matching is legion.
- jolux 10y ago
  Apple Music can't resolve ampersands to and and vice versa. Disaster.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    A wild guess - maybe someone else (Google) has some crucial patents on fuzzy matching? I know it's probably not the case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was true...
hrktb 10y ago
While I understand your frustration, it made me think I need to give Apple Maps a new chance. Be it in search or in maps, google services are auto correcting so much stuff. You can be in France and search for 'Akita', and the first result will be some japanese restaurant that happen to have the keyword in the name, with the more reputable and perfect match half a screen below. Of course a lot of user might actually be looking for restaurants, but it's so frustrating this moment where you have to think "I really mean what I typed in this box" and going through the "what was the syntax to value more the keyword". And then as it detects your preferences the behavior changes and you are left wondering what's happening (like how do I explicitely ask for local search to be prioritized ?) It feels less and less like a tool and more like a pet engine you have to teach fetching the mail.
kartD 10y ago
Hardly a point, I've had GMaps do the same thing to me in India and the US and Apple found the place just fine. If we were comparing GMaps of 4-5 years then yes, it was far and away better, but now it seems to hae regressed and Apple maps has caught up for most use cases
- AJ007 10y ago
  Anecdotally, both Google and Apple maps have fail points. Up until very recently I would always try to double check Google Map's pin of a location from another source because it would be flat out wrong at least 10% of the time. The more interesting thing to me now is seeing what OpenStreetMap and Mapbox are doing. Their combined trajectories may end up surpassing both Google and Apply. Mass produced drones along 3D scanning tools and improved 2D->3D imagery tech could provide for very comprehensive and open map data with all kinds of layers of usage far beyond geo coordinates, lanes, and street sign data.
modfodder 10y ago
When I look for places near my neighborhood in Greenpoint Brooklyn, Google Maps pulls up places in New Jersey about 30% of the time, even if I type in the exact name of the place several blocks away. I haven't been to NJ in years (and only a handful of times). And last time I was in Palo Alto using Google Maps to find a dry cleaners, it sent me on a 20 minute goose chase, and had me going in circles. On the third try of reentering the address (using copy/paste all three times, all 3 times the address was identical) it finally game me an accurate route. I still use Google Maps more than Apple maps mainly because of the subway/bus integration and because I've been using it for so long, but in my anecdotal experience Apple Maps isn't any worse than Google Maps and has been less irritating when it's wrong than Google (although I use Google more).
nikanj 10y ago
I have seen the opposite happen quite often: small mom-and-pop place doesn't want to pay Google, so they can only be found with Apple maps. Google maps makes money by squeezing business owners, Apple maps makes money by selling more iPhones.
- Oletros 10y ago
  Are you saying that Google doesn't list a place in the maps if they don't pay? Do you have any source for that? Thanks

by sgslo 10y ago

drakenot 10y ago

I think they announced that the panning/zooming issue is resolved with the Apple Maps in iOS10. So hopefully that will be one less annoyance.

asd 10y ago
>I think they announced that the panning/zooming issue is resolved with the Apple Maps in iOS10. I wish this were the case. I'm running the iOS 10 beta on a 6S+ and gave Maps several seconds to load this area of upstate NY. http://i.imgur.com/wi7HRqe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/wi7HRqe.jpg The dark gray grid persists. Yea, it's the first beta, but I have mostly only noticed changes in the interface and not the actual map data.
- glhaynes 10y ago
  I believe that's a different problem than was being discussed, which was that while driving directions are being shown on Maps on pre-iOS 10, it maddeningly only lets you pan/zoom a slight amount before snapping back to a zoomed-in, myopic-feeling view of your current location.
  - asd 10y ago
    Ah, I see now. Sorry about that. Yes, that problem is fixed. You can now zoom out and explore while directions are shown.

oiojdfg999898 10y ago

Piling on this, Apple maps is absolute shit in Japan. Google pretty much seamlessly operates between English (romaji alphabet) and Japanese names for the same place.

addicted 10y ago

I don't get how Apple Maps decides to show locations in other continents when it is unable to find a a match locally. And Apple's inability to do any sort of decent fuzzy matching is legion.

jolux 10y ago
Apple Music can't resolve ampersands to and and vice versa. Disaster.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  A wild guess - maybe someone else (Google) has some crucial patents on fuzzy matching? I know it's probably not the case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was true...

hrktb 10y ago

While I understand your frustration, it made me think I need to give Apple Maps a new chance. Be it in search or in maps, google services are auto correcting so much stuff. You can be in France and search for 'Akita', and the first result will be some japanese restaurant that happen to have the keyword in the name, with the more reputable and perfect match half a screen below. Of course a lot of user might actually be looking for restaurants, but it's so frustrating this moment where you have to think "I really mean what I typed in this box" and going through the "what was the syntax to value more the keyword". And then as it detects your preferences the behavior changes and you are left wondering what's happening (like how do I explicitely ask for local search to be prioritized ?) It feels less and less like a tool and more like a pet engine you have to teach fetching the mail.

kartD 10y ago

Hardly a point, I've had GMaps do the same thing to me in India and the US and Apple found the place just fine. If we were comparing GMaps of 4-5 years then yes, it was far and away better, but now it seems to hae regressed and Apple maps has caught up for most use cases

AJ007 10y ago
Anecdotally, both Google and Apple maps have fail points. Up until very recently I would always try to double check Google Map's pin of a location from another source because it would be flat out wrong at least 10% of the time. The more interesting thing to me now is seeing what OpenStreetMap and Mapbox are doing. Their combined trajectories may end up surpassing both Google and Apply. Mass produced drones along 3D scanning tools and improved 2D->3D imagery tech could provide for very comprehensive and open map data with all kinds of layers of usage far beyond geo coordinates, lanes, and street sign data.

modfodder 10y ago

When I look for places near my neighborhood in Greenpoint Brooklyn, Google Maps pulls up places in New Jersey about 30% of the time, even if I type in the exact name of the place several blocks away. I haven't been to NJ in years (and only a handful of times). And last time I was in Palo Alto using Google Maps to find a dry cleaners, it sent me on a 20 minute goose chase, and had me going in circles. On the third try of reentering the address (using copy/paste all three times, all 3 times the address was identical) it finally game me an accurate route. I still use Google Maps more than Apple maps mainly because of the subway/bus integration and because I've been using it for so long, but in my anecdotal experience Apple Maps isn't any worse than Google Maps and has been less irritating when it's wrong than Google (although I use Google more).

nikanj 10y ago

I have seen the opposite happen quite often: small mom-and-pop place doesn't want to pay Google, so they can only be found with Apple maps. Google maps makes money by squeezing business owners, Apple maps makes money by selling more iPhones.

Oletros 10y ago
Are you saying that Google doesn't list a place in the maps if they don't pay? Do you have any source for that? Thanks