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Frankly, Tim Cook should shut down the entire Apple Maps division. Who in their right mind is going to use Apple Maps at this point? Try searching "Pier 39 Sa

• Alaskan005 14y ago
  No wonder he is the CEO and you aren't. Think LOOOOONG term, in a few years Apple will catch Google for the most part (hello AAPL bank accounts and increase of usage!) and Apple will not depend on a major competitor for a crucial aspect of the mobile world. Google is the loser, despite Apple having a few growing pains.
  • zspade 14y ago
    Thinking long term, it seems to me shutting down the entire maps division may prevent the possible reality you have just presented from ever occurring.
  • pdx 14y ago
    Well, no worries then. A few thousand people who don't get to hospitals or who end up in dangerous situations is not LOOOOOONG term thinking and can safely be ignored.
    • criley 14y ago
      Wow, what did people do BEFORE a smartphone! It's a wonder a human being ever found a hospital before Google saved the human race from it's own helplessness!
      • ajdecon 14y ago
        The problem is that a wrong map is a lot worse than no map. If you don't have a map, you might ask a local for directions or take a cab if you're in a hurry to get somewhere that you don't know the location for. If your map is wrong, you are more likely to actually end up in the wrong place -- and then become that much more confused and make poor decisions while trying to find your way without it.
        • mikeash 14y ago
          I don't understand why people don't get this. It's not a matter of being able to get places without our smartphones. I'm sure we can all handle that just fine. It's a matter of knowing that your smartphone claims to know how to get there but is wrong. The proper response to bad search results is not to talk about how you can still manage just fine with paper maps, unless you're implicitly proposing that we give up on the electronic maps completely.
          • Terretta 14y ago
            On the other hand, the earlier Maps (Google data on iOS < 6) also lead to wrong locations. But without alternatives, there was no profit in writing about that. Once there's an alternative, it's a flame-debate, where each side gives itself a pass. Controversy drives page views. Nobody wrote about how bridges mapped to 3D terrain in Google Earth, but we get a Tumbler of iOS 6 3D bridges examples.
      • mdc 14y ago
        There's a difference between not having a smart phone and having a smart phone that actively misleads you.
        • criley 14y ago
          No, there's not as big a difference as you're implying -- because ALL mapping data is imperfect, therefore ALL smartphones are capable of actively misleading you. And paper maps can mislead, as well! (I'm trying to think how many "this place is closed/moved/never here" notices I sent Google Maps myself, because of the number of times I've been misled by Google Maps!) A smartphone is not a replacement for common sense. In Apple Maps, you can clearly look at your destination and say "Hmm, wow, that doesn't look like sprawling medical complex, perhaps this tiny out of the way building isn't a hospital". People have been misled by Google Maps and MapQuest and Tom Tom for years and years. How common are stories of people driving off of cliffs or other such nonsense because a GPS said so? Yes, Apple Maps isn't perfect, but it's a long shot better than Google Maps and MapQuest were six months into the product, and is actively providing superior maps to the baseline of a decade ago, or even five years ago.
          • mikeash 14y ago
            The danger factor is one you must mitigate using outside circumstances, certainly. But aside from that there's also the lost-time factor. If Apple Maps misleads me far more often than other products (which it does), then I waste far more time (and gasoline) using it. That is a real problem with it, and one that cannot be answered with "ALL Mapping data is imperfect". As for Apple Maps being better than the baseline from five years ago, is there a way for that statement to be useful that doesn't require access to a time machine?
          • esolyt 14y ago
            All maps are imperfect. But some map services are better than others. Why isn't iPhone, which is a great phone, is not shipping with one of them?
          • skeletonjelly 14y ago
            There's no black and white perfection and imperfection that you state.
      • nicholassmith 14y ago
        I think people need to ask their parents, "hey mum, dad, how did you use to find things before smartphones?" and they'll point out things like road signage and maps, and asking people for directions. We've really only had mobile mapping for about 7-8 years now, it's amazing how quickly people have forgotten how to get places without it.
      • bgray 14y ago
        While I understand what you're implying, you need to realize people depend on these devices. If they didn't exist, yes, people would find other ways (as they have in the past).
      • esolyt 14y ago
        >Wow, what did people do BEFORE a smartphone! The question is not what they did BEFORE the smartphone, but what they do now. What they do now is to use the maps application that came with the device they bought.
  • w1ntermute 14y ago
    If everyone starts using Google Maps, then they'll never collect the user feedback needed to perfect the data.
  • jug6ernaut 14y ago
    I assume your assuming Google Maps will just stagnate during this time? Or are you assuming Google Maps has already reached its peak?
    • w1ntermute 14y ago
      I highly doubt Google Maps has reached its peak. You're constantly hearing about new things being added, such as the Photosphere feature in Android 4.2 letting people take 360 deg indoor pictures and attach them to buildings on Google Maps, or doing an underwater "Street View" at the Great Barrier Reef. Just a few weeks ago, 3D structures appeared on Google Maps for my parents' house in the suburban Midwest. Google Maps is constantly advancing.
      • jug6ernaut 14y ago
        Oh i agree with you, i simply posed these questions to counter the claim that "Apple Maps" will catch up with Google Maps in a few years. There is a lot to it and to make such a blanket claim with nothing to back it up is pretty weak. The questions were meant to point this out.
        • sbuk 14y ago
          By the same token, stating that Apple will never catch them is pretty weak too. in fact this whole line of thinking is pretty weak. It really is a school yard "my dad is bigger than your dad..." style of reasoning.
          • jug6ernaut 14y ago
            I never stated that? The line of thinking was to not make assumptions. And if they were to what were they basing there assumptions on. Not sure how that is school yard logic.
  • kjackson2012 14y ago
    A good CEO knows when to stop throwing good money after bad. Apple will NEVER reach the search domain expertise of Google, and Maps is too valuable to let turn into a complete debacle, as Apple has learned. We have given Apple so much money THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH IT. They have $120B in the bank, more cash than any other company has ever had. They can buy very famous companies for cash, like Cisco, Dell, Facebook, etc, and even banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, etc. This is a crazy amount of cash, and they are clueless as what to do with it. I know what I would do, I would throw some of that money to improve the quality of my product for the sake of my hundreds of millions of customers. I would admit defeat, and I would pay Google for a license in perpetuity for Google Maps to be on iPhone. I would engage in some sort of rev/data share with the Maps app and throw them a few billion. Win-Win-Win for everyone. Sure, maybe Apple doesn't extract every single red cent from the deal, but money is of secondary or tertiary importance here. Their money is already relatively useless sitting in a bank account making 0% interest. And sure, maybe they left money on the table, and maybe Apple overpays and gets the short end of the stick for once, but it's called taking one for the team. Customers get the very best maps technology and a permanent agreement to always have access to it, and Apple can stop being distracted by one of the most important aspects of a smartphone experience, which is location services. They can continue innovating in things that will make them money, like newer designs, etc.
    • technoslut 14y ago
      >Apple will NEVER reach the search domain expertise of Google, and Maps is too valuable to let turn into a complete debacle, as Apple has learned. How can you possibly say that? How was Android 1.0 compared to what it is today? Or Windows 1.0? In your view no one should start anything if they aren't immediately good at it. What should be questioned is Apple's dedication to Mpas. If they're not interested in creating a high-quality mapping solution then they should give up. What Apple should do is buy a company to provide the mapping solution for them. The same goes for Nuance. Core technologies of your OS should not be left to a third party.
      • cookiecaper 14y ago
        The point is that you don't push an irrevocable update to a critical service, one of the few things that is somewhat likely involve real-life, actual physical safety, out to millions of millions of users. Yes, maybe when it was brand new, called "experimental", and people hadn't come to trust it, GPS/location stuff could be spotty, but the bar is raised now. While we can all respect that development takes iteration, you just don't force people to use your stuff until it's up to expectation, even if those expectations have been made much higher than they were a few years ago. A few bugs here and there is understandable, of course. Any honest person looking at the situation knows that Apple's Maps app was not just a matter of a couple semi-serious bugs; it was practically unusable for a large portion of people, and it's an application where unusability could create real safety issues. Completely unacceptable handling on Apple's part. They could have pushed it as a "beta" or "preview release" or other "help us work out the bugs" thing, but they decided to force all users to engage it as their only maps experience. Apple is responsible for this severe oversight in judgment.
• xutopia 14y ago
  This is nothing. Try to look up many of the hospital in Quebec and it will send you to random places (car dealer, ice cream shop, etc...)
  • skeletonjelly 14y ago
    Job's homoeopathic influence?
• dljsjr 14y ago
  "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell on Apple, 1997. If everybody just "shut it down" every time things went pear-shaped, we wouldn't get very far as a species.
• macspoofing 14y ago
  Oh come on. I like to make fun of Apple maps as much as the next guy but the reality is that they aren't that bad. Certainly a few more iterations and constant development effort will iron out any quirks.
  • fudged71 14y ago
    First impressions are killer. Even if they're improving, there is a harsh stigma against Apple Maps now, much like Bing, because it didn't meet user's expectations. So users are being comforted by a familiar and useful tool, Google Maps, which many people can use on their computers (Why is Apple Maps not bundled into OSX? Error reporting could be done much more efficiently and abundantly). At this point, many people will ditch Apple Maps for Google Maps. And because of this, they will suffer from having less crowdsourced error reporting. By the time it's as reliable overall as Google Maps, they will need to have a clear advantage for users to switch back. Deep integration with iOS maps might be the key, but lots of apps will now be integrating with the Google SDK because of user preference. Tricky situation.
    • Simucal 14y ago
      I think you are vastly over estimating the number of iOS users who will seek to replace a default app. I'd wager that the friction of not being one of the default apps will ensure that Apple Maps continues to be the dominant iOS mapping app for the foreseeable future. There are a huge number of un-tech savvy users with iPhones that barely download any 3rd party apps at all. Those of us who have been voicing our opinion about Apple Maps and anticipating Google's new app are the vocal minority.
      • fudged71 14y ago
        That's a good point, but "Apple maps being bad" is not only experienced by users, but it's also a meme that's swept through the media as well. Don't forget how valuable it is to be at the top of the "free apps" section in the app store, too. If/when people discover the app, they might like it more than the default app.
• ececconi 14y ago
  If he shuts it down, then Google wouldn't have much incentive to make a great maps product on iOS. It would stay stagnant like it was beforehand.
• nicholassmith 14y ago
  I am. I talked about it on the other, now super long, thread and my reasons boiled down to: I prefer how Apple Maps works and feels, in general for my usage it works fine, it has gotten better over time and if I stop using it it won't get better. Horses for courses, if Google Maps scratches your cartographic itch then go for it but please don't say things like "shut down the entire Apple Maps division" as some of us are using it very happily and are watchfully waiting for Apple to start pushing their datasets forward.
  • DannyBee 14y ago
    What do you mean "if I stop using it it won't get better"? Do you mean apple will stop supporting it? I'm having trouble seeing why you can't stop using it for a year until it gets better.
    • nicholassmith 14y ago
      No, I mean Apple won't get the many data faults I report, the missing POI reports or the incorrect POI reports. Apple has an entire globe to cover, it'll improve incrementally globally but improve locally for me if I'm reporting my concerns.
      • SyneRyder 14y ago
        Are Apple doing anything with those bug reports, though? In my area, bugs reported 2.5 months ago still haven't been corrected. (If you are seeing improvements though, more power to you.)
        • mitchty 14y ago
          Every report I've filed has ended up added within 2 weeks. I'm guessing it varies by city/state/country, no idea how apple is actually vetting the reports but I've had no issues.
      • DannyBee 14y ago
        Okay, so then you are probably under the misapprehension that this is the main driver for improvements. For giggles, if only 10% of people with iphones report one error a week, calculate how many full time people it would require to process them. In reality, their biggest problem is probably operator (IE people reading reports) time, not lack of error reports. I would take a massive data entry operation to handle them all. If they are smart, they will have realized by now that relying on user reports to correct things is basically impossible, unless it's an automated system, which has it's own issues. In short: If you think crowdsourcing is the way they will solve their data/data quality issues, you are probably wrong.
• hrktb 14y ago
  Actually, this app is way better than what was provided before, so it is a net plus to have a Maps division at Apple.
• ionforce 14y ago
  Apple Maps is the native mapping framework. So for developers who don't want to wander very far, Apple will be their first choice. And Apple will be Apple's first choice for Apple apps.
  • jonknee 14y ago
    > Apple Maps is the native mapping framework. So for developers who don't want to wander very far, Apple will be their first choice. And Apple will be Apple's first choice for Apple apps. I think developers will care more about better data than about the time it will take to import a framework into their X Code project. It's very simple to integrate either type of map.
• vvhn 14y ago
  oddly, just entering "pier 39" gives the correct result while "pier 39 san francisco" doesn't. OTOH, if you clicked on the "report a problem" and gave this feedback you could count yourself the saviour of the hapless millions who would have been lead astray by Apple maps and mugged or killed.