3 ms·

My problem with Apple's maps hasn't been the quality of the maps but the quality of the search. I was looking for the Sea Dog Brew Pub last night. When I put "s

My problem with Apple's maps hasn't been the quality of the maps but the quality of the search. I was looking for the Sea Dog Brew Pub last night. When I put "seadog" into iOS 6 maps, no result, despite it being only a few miles away. Google Maps nailed it. Both maps had a record of the POI, but only Google's had the basic smarts to handle the missing space. More complicated examples are even worse for Apple, abs typically effortless for Google. Unless Nokia has all that fuzzy match/page rank DNA, I'm not sure simply more accurate maps will help.

acdha 14y ago
I ran into an even worse Apple problem: addresses with fractions will be parsed after the / - e.g. 1234 1/2 6th Street will be displayed at the correct location for "2 6th Street"! (Interestingly, Yelp displayed that restaurant correctly using the iOS 6 map widget so they appear to do their own geocoding) That said, I've also found multiple cases where Apple is better: e.g. around here there's a diner chain with 5 locations. Searching for their name with Google Maps on iOS 5 or maps.google.com will show only one hit 20 miles away for their business office. iOS correctly finds the actual restaurants and the first hit is the one 5 miles away. From my perspective, it felt like Google Maps got much worse about a year ago – but mostly on mobile.
potatolicious 14y ago
I've pretty much given up on search on iOS6. It seems more often than not entering an address like "123 Spruce" will take me to some landmark/town relating to the street name, a few states away. I can count the number of times the search actually picked up on the fact that I entered an address on a single hand. Apple, this is me trying to make things as easy for your craptastic search as possible. I've taken the trouble to type the number and the street name. If you can't take it from there, what the hell. I've also had the map place things in hilariously wrong places. These are shops with addresses (addresses that are correct on the detail pane!) that would somehow end up a block away or on the wrong side of the street. Worse yet, I've been redirect to a few no-longer-existent Starbucks by now. This is in Manhattan too, far from an obscure location.
- untog 14y ago
  This is one of Google Maps' hugely understated strengths. I've never found another service that can take a partial address and understand what you mean as well as it does. It was one of my motivations to switch back to Android from Windows Phone.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  I've had fantastic luck getting hilarious results from google. For a while, searching for "city hall" with the Philadelphia City Hall clearly visible on the map resulted in being transported to a Chicago Police Station. I had another search that would send me to Alaska.

acdha 14y ago

I ran into an even worse Apple problem: addresses with fractions will be parsed after the / - e.g. 1234 1/2 6th Street will be displayed at the correct location for "2 6th Street"! (Interestingly, Yelp displayed that restaurant correctly using the iOS 6 map widget so they appear to do their own geocoding) That said, I've also found multiple cases where Apple is better: e.g. around here there's a diner chain with 5 locations. Searching for their name with Google Maps on iOS 5 or maps.google.com will show only one hit 20 miles away for their business office. iOS correctly finds the actual restaurants and the first hit is the one 5 miles away. From my perspective, it felt like Google Maps got much worse about a year ago – but mostly on mobile.

potatolicious 14y ago

I've pretty much given up on search on iOS6. It seems more often than not entering an address like "123 Spruce" will take me to some landmark/town relating to the street name, a few states away. I can count the number of times the search actually picked up on the fact that I entered an address on a single hand. Apple, this is me trying to make things as easy for your craptastic search as possible. I've taken the trouble to type the number and the street name. If you can't take it from there, what the hell. I've also had the map place things in hilariously wrong places. These are shops with addresses (addresses that are correct on the detail pane!) that would somehow end up a block away or on the wrong side of the street. Worse yet, I've been redirect to a few no-longer-existent Starbucks by now. This is in Manhattan too, far from an obscure location.

untog 14y ago
This is one of Google Maps' hugely understated strengths. I've never found another service that can take a partial address and understand what you mean as well as it does. It was one of my motivations to switch back to Android from Windows Phone.
tedunangst 14y ago
I've had fantastic luck getting hilarious results from google. For a while, searching for "city hall" with the Philadelphia City Hall clearly visible on the map resulted in being transported to a Chicago Police Station. I had another search that would send me to Alaska.