iOS 6 maps gets thumbs up ... in China

Apple’s new Maps app in iOS6 may be getting an absolute pasting in most of the world but is providing surprisingly detailed results for China, where the fruity tech know-it-all has gone with local mapping info supplier AutoNavi. It’s no secret by now that Maps has been one of the most talked-and-complained-about, features of …

[Anonymous Coward]

Now let's just hope that AutoNavi don't break into the mobile phone business or by iOS9 the maps will take a nose dive.

[Velv]

Foxconn staff voting for Apple over google doesn't count. It's like turkeys voting for Christmas.

[petur]

One of them lies

Some days ago TomTom denied their data was at fault, claiming that Apple is messing up, and the accuracy of TomTom products (and others using it too) backs this up.

Now this article claims it *is* faulty data causing it?

Which one will it be? How about some more critical investigation, El Reg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: One of them lies

TomTom's data is just fine in RoW, but in PRC it is possible that TeleAtlas does not have the necessary coverage at the required granularity (TeleAtlas provides TomTom with some mapping data) and that TomTom doesn't have enough GPS cars to cover PRC.

[jonathanb]

Re: One of them lies

Well where I am, the actual street names seem to all be in the right places.

It is just that there are now precisely two points of interest in the town - the train station and the Apple Store, and the satillite images look like a mossaic rather than an actual picture of the town.

With Google Maps, you could get directions to another part of town by bus, complete with bus times. That isn't available on Apple maps.

[Anonymous Coward]

New restrictions

These include increased fines for those who fail to include the complete territory of the PRC when making maps

So that includes places that China wants to be in the RPC, but desperately don't want to be themselves. Tibet, Taiwan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Maps is dependent on Map Data Sources

Clearly Apple made a good choice in China. I am aware Apple has enlisted Tom Tom to help on its map data base and I expect the mapping data for US, Canada, and possibly Europe to make major improvements over the next few weeks and months. I used Tom Tom on my 1 iPad 2, 2 iPhone 4 and 1 iPhone 3GS to great satisfaction and anticipate this will soon be mirrored in Apple Maps.

A more interesting set of questions are:

1. Will Apples vector maps vs Google bit maps be the future, my bet is on Vector for a host of good reasons. Sort of like Apple's early adoption of USB and WiFi long before the industry caught on [we forget this again and again, Lightning adaptor anyone?].

2. How will Google's business model work when its looses not merely a 100M premium customers with iOS 6 this week,, it can see loosing another 400Million iOS 6 customers over the next 6 months as well as all the data they provide that Google used to keep its crows sourced data up to snuff?

3. So why would Apple keep Google as the default search engine? Perhaps Bing or better part of set up is you choose from an alphabetic list, hhmmm B goes before G.