#Fail: Users
complain about the new Apple Maps
on iOS 6
San
Francisco: An entire
city is in the ocean, a farm has been labelled as an airport, highways end in
the middle of nowhere and a hospital now covers the entire centre of British
city Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's home.
Welcome to the new world of Apple
Maps that greeted iPhone and iPad users when they downloaded the highly
anticipated update to the consumer giant's mobile software platform, iOS 6.
Apple Inc's home-grown Maps
feature was introduced with much fanfare in June by Apple's software chief
Scott Forstall and is a direct challenge to the same service offered by
friend-turned-rival Google.
But the
app is already facing criticism from users globally for a number of
geographical errors, missing information and because it lacks features that
made Google Maps so popular, including public transit directions, comprehensive
traffic data or street view pictures.
Apple Maps has replaced Google
Maps, which is no longer available on iOS 6.
Many users who downloaded Apple's
iOS 6 software, released on Wednesday, took to Twitter and online forums to
express their frustration at the glitches.
"The people who thought the
world was flat were more accurate cartographers than Apple Maps,"
@RayneBradley said on Twitter.
"Apple Maps also have errors
in business listings. I went to call a local taxi driver and it was a
taxidermist (seriously)," said @TomDavenport on Twitter.
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller
said the company launched the new service knowing it was a major initiative.
"Maps is a cloud-based
solution and the more people use it, the better it will get," she said.
"We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make
the customer experience even better."
The criticism comes on the eve of
the launch of Apple's iPhone 5, which hits stores around the globe on Friday.
The iPhone 5 comes pre-loaded with the new iOS 6 software and Maps.
Users have created a Tumblr blog
sarcastically dubbed "The Amazing iOS 6 Maps" where many have posted
screen shots of the errors (theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/). Pictures showed
the Norwegian town of Leknes in the Norwegian sea, the entire city centre of
Stratford-upon-Avon is labelled as a hospital.
Some of the errors have even
irked politicians. Irish Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said he was
surprised to discover that Airfield - a 35-acre estate with working farm and
café in centre of his constituency in Dundrum, Ireland - has been labelled with
the image of an aircraft.
He said this could be dangerous
for pilots and suggested in a statement that Apple use the image of "a
cow, a goat, a sheep, a flower" instead, and that an "aircraft is an
entirely inappropriate flight of imagination."
Users in Asia were surprised to
see two sets of the disputed territory of Senkaku Islands. Some joked that this
was Apple's effort at providing a diplomatic solution to Japan and China, both
of which claim the islands.
Not an easy fix
New York city residents are
unhappy that Apple maps doesn't offer public transit directions, one of the
most-used features on Google Maps in cities.
"My phone should be able to
tell me which bus and train to take," said Kenan Ali, a Brooklyn, New
York, resident who exclusively uses public transport in the city and has been
an iPhone user since 2008. "I am hoping in the next update they will
somehow add transit directions."
Apple's map service comes with
three-dimensional images of cities called "Flyover" along with
real-time traffic updates and also turn-by-turn navigation, the last a feature
that Google has in Android devices but had not made available in Apple devices.
Apple licenses mapping data from
vehicle navigation systems maker TomTom. TomTom said it stands behind the
quality of its maps but didn't develop the app.
"During the process of
turning mapping data into an app, every manufacturer does it their own
way," said TomTom spokesperson Cem Cohen. "We are not part of that
process. Apple uses exactly the same maps as our other customers."
Cohen said TomTom hasn't talked
to Apple about the issues.
While in theory it will be
possible for Apple to update Maps with a software fix, the problems appear to
be "pretty profound and pretty fundamental," said Marcus Thielking,
co-founder of Skobbler, maker of the popular GPS Navigation 2 app, built using
the crowdsourced OpenStreetMap platform.
"The question is really how
much expertise do they have in-house and what they sourced from third
parties," Thielking said, adding that Apple requires people with a very
specific skill set to fix it.
"It's not their core
competence," he added.
Google, for its part, did not say
whether it would do a Google Maps apps for iOS 6. Users now have to access
Google Maps through the browser.
"Our goal is to make Google
Maps available to everyone who wants to use it, regardless of device, browser,
or operating system," the company said in a statement.
Apple shares closed down about
0.5 per cent at $698.70 on Nasdaq, a day after reaching an all-time high of
$703.99. The shares have gained over 20 per cent in the past 3-1/2 months in
the build-up to the launch of the iPhone 5.
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