Given it's focus on bars and coffee shops it seems no wonder it can't find its way home.
iOS 6 maps can't find Sydney Apple Store
Apple's new maps app for iOS 6 can't find one of its own stores in Sydney, Australia. Reg reader @Rob2081 tweeted the image below that shows Apple thinks it Sydney flagship store is on the eastern side of George Street, one of the city's main shopping precincts. A map from iOS 6 showing the Sydney Apple store on the wrong …
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 08:32 GMT Bob Vistakin
But it's prettier
See that cute page curl in the bottom right corner? You got your reason iSheep feel superior to Googles maps right there.
Apple are just reinforcing their style over substance mantra. Christ, if the fanbois didn't mind not being able to make calls during antennagate and were happy to take the blame, this is a walk in the park. If you can find it....
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 23:01 GMT miknik
Google maps the defacto standard
Unless you can come close you should go home.
I launched a business with no advertising except a (free) Google maps listing, the phone started ringing on day one and never stopped so I sense the existing userbase is huge.
It is foolish to imagine people will "make do" with something which is nowhere near as good, even the most hardened fanboi needs to know where they are going, and as this has failed so publicly it must smart a bit when you pull out your shiny iPhone 5 and instead of oohs and aaaahs you get a smug droid user pointing out how poor your maps are.
I don't have an iPhone, but I use sat nav on my phone every day and if I were an iPhone owner this alone would stop me upgrading unless I could get iPhone 5 with iOS 5.5 or whatever came before...
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Monday 24th September 2012 04:01 GMT Adam 1
Re: Never mind the iPhone vs Android wars, Apple tries to start actual wars!
Now now, it is not all warmongering. They did find a neat solution to the whole Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands row between Japan and China.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/apple-maps-disaster-solves-chinajapan-islands-row-20120924-26fye.html
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 06:45 GMT tommy060289
its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
but in this case I'd say it is definitely justified. I love my new iPhone 5. Couldn't be happier with it but maps is the one area that completely lets it down. It's a bit like having like have Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Garry Kasparov, Carol Vorderman and Wayne Rooney on your pub quiz team!
With the amount of bad publicity the maps has had I can't see how apple can do anything other than update it before iOS 7, which lets be honest, it should be anyway. Map data should be constantly updated to reflect updated knowledge. I'm just not sure if they need to update the actual maps app to add more data or just update the servers that the maps pull their data from.
I don't tend to use the app that much myself so it's not big loss but I shall be using the big g maps until someone takes this map application out back and shoots it.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 07:38 GMT Jan Hargreaves
Re: its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
But he did let awful, embarrassing things happen. Stuff that was rushed to market, and full of problems...
MobileMe.
Now, I'm no supporter of rival companies/ products. I like the stuff they do at Apple, but there were plenty of examples of catastrophies while Steve was at the helm.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 09:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
"MobileMe."
I don't think he let it come to market, the backend problems weren't obvious.
He said, "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" When one foolhardy exec explained the aim of the service, Jobs shot back: "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?"
and fired the leader.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 12:51 GMT tommy060289
Re: its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
I was about to post this, as I can remember the article about him going bat shit over realising how crap it was. The man was clearly an arse (his own biography clearly shows what an arse he was) but at least he knew how to do things properly, so probably wasn't very pleased when his own company didn't.
"You couldn't be happier with it...
...except you could, if the maps were decent.
That is all."
Nope, I don't really care about maps as, like I said, I don't use it. But it is definitely crap and should be fixed
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 09:04 GMT TheOtherHobbes
Re: its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
"It's a bit like having like have Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Garry Kasparov, Carol Vorderman and Wayne Rooney on your pub quiz team!"
You mean more like having Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Garry Kasparov, Carol Vorderman, Steve Ballmer, Stephen Elop, Carly Fiorina and Wayne Rooney playing for Man U, surely?
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 17:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
The issues are in the data which lives on Apple's servers (same as Google Maps' data, which lives on Google servers) They can update this stuff anytime and the app will immediately have the correction, you don't need to wait for an iOS release. Not saying the maps app itself is perfect, I'm sure it has some flaws too, but if the data Apple got from Tom Tom was better we wouldn't see so much broken stuff. Maybe they should have talked to Nokia instead.
Or hell, just bought Nokia, between the maps and the patents it would have been worth it, getting Ballmer to throw chairs would be a bonus!
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 07:42 GMT Arctic fox
"........but in this case I'd say it is definitely justified."
I think that is indisputable. If there is one thing we can say with certainty it is that's Mr jobs definitely did not enjoy being left looking foolish. One can readily imagine the fate of the manager concerned if he was still their CEO. Though it has to be said I don't think that he would have let it out of the door in the first place.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 08:14 GMT dougal83
So Simon(author).. How much would it take to switch to rival phone like the Samsung Galaxy S3? Abiliity to make phone calls, decent maps, better UI or the warm feeling you are not a sheep? The amount of people queuing for a phone, yes a phone that is worse and looks almost identical to the last should be cause for thought and a bit worrying. Have they been brain washed? I know that is what I'd be thinking!
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 13:57 GMT the-it-slayer
We all know...
... that the SGIII is too big (along with the note and anything else in the 4"+ bracket). It seems fandroids are a bunch of sheeps of their own to go completely the opposite regardless of what the actually phone is like, especially physically. That's why I wouldn't buy and same with many. Fandroids love to brush any anti-Android phone users with the same brush.
Personally, the iP4 has been my only Apple phone purchase to date (having had a Blackberry and Android phones previously in the smartphone arena). It was Apple's best iPhone launch to date and unfortunately the stagnated release of the iP5 because of iP4S has made this product seem like a really poor release as they caught up in bad timing of their own release schedule. Things like Maps/Siri should not of appeared until ready for the iP5 and even delayed by a few months or push it back to 2013-Q1.
I think most of us middle of the road Apple users know this. Of course you have the pure fanbois that have done their normal thing to buy the iP5 without any thought. Just don't tie me with the same brush as them. Especially when I'm thinking to jump to WP8 next March once the dust settles.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 16:35 GMT Fibbles
Re: We all know...
It's amazing how certain screen sizes are apparently just unergonomic until Apple releases a product with a display of that size. Fanboys were constantly telling everyone who would listen that four inches was just too big but now that the iPhone 5 is here it's suddenly become a sensible choice.
FYI, it's 'tarred with the same brush'.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 12:13 GMT Mark C Casey
Re: Map errors
Oh stop whining dx.
First, there is a button at the bottom right on Google Maps called "Report a problem" that allows people to quickly send corrections. Because, lets admit it nothing is perfect. Especially with something as hard to do as mapping an entire bloody planet.
Second, google maps only has rare occasional mapping problems. I can't actually remember the last time I came across something incorrect.
Third, Apple maps in its current state is horrendous. Lets not beat about the bush here, it was released before it was ready by at least a year if not more. Want to know why this is a story? Because it is newsworthy and people are loudly complaining about Apple maps.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 18:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ Mark C Casey
Second, google maps only has rare occasional mapping problems. I can't actually remember the last time I came across something incorrect.
You do realize that Google Maps USED to be worse than Apple's Maps when it first came out, right? It was a joke, mapquest was far better and the only thing worth using for a while. But Google improved it, and part of that was via user feedback - I corrected a couple things in it myself in the past.
Apple Maps looks terrible because it is released in 2012, when the other mapping apps it's being compared to have had years worth of improvements and user fixes. There isn't any way to get the user fixes without releasing something and getting that process started. That's how Google had to do it, and that was the only way forward for Apple unless they'd bought Nokia.
If Apple had released iPhone 5 as a psychic phone, that would know who you were going to call and dial it for you before you had time to hit the buttons yourself, even if it failed to read your mind and you had to dial yourself 50% of the time people would think it is pretty amazing. But if Windows Phones already did this and did it right 98% of the time, people would say Apple's psychic software sucks. Perception has a lot to do with what comparison is being made.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 19:26 GMT Mark .
Re: @ Mark C Casey
Yes, Google Maps wasn't so good in 2005. So basically you're saying, Apple is seven years behind the competition. Thanks for clearing that up - I agree.
I'm not sure what your point is - yes, this judgement is based on the competition, but *of course* it should be. Products are always based on comparing to the competition.
I mean, if no computers existed, then a 286 PC selling for one million pounds would be quite revolutionary. And at some point in the past, a supercomputer would have had that much processing power.
But we don't think that, because of what you can actually get in the marketplace today, in 2012. I don't see why Apple should be held to a different standard.
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Monday 24th September 2012 06:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Mark C Casey
My point is, I don't think it's possible for anyone to release something better than Google Maps from day one. Doesn't matter who it is, doesn't matter how long and hard they work at it. The world is way too big, you need user feedback and more importantly telematics to see where the problems are so you know what needs fixing. Apple has been giving away their telematics data to Google for free for five years, helping Google get better faster than they otherwise would have. Now Apple will be able to make use of that data, and improve at a very fast clip (because they have a lot that needs improvement)
Your argument seems to be that if you can't match the competition from day one, you either shouldn't try or you should wait until you can. Well, with maps I'd argue it isn't possible to match the competition from day one and you can wait forever and this will still be true, so your argument becomes that no one should ever try to do maps ever again, and just rely on those who have already done it. That strategy was not working well for Apple, as their Google powered maps app was far behind the Android maps and was going to fall ever further behind for obvious reasons. Maps are important for smartphones, so Apple had to do something since they were getting a terrible deal from their main competitor. If it was Apple that had been doing mapping since 2005 and Google was relying on Apple for maps, I have a feeling all the fandroids who are making hay over this would be saying it is a long overdue move for Android to dump Apple's maps.
Apple users will suffer a bit in the short run, but with a quarter billion iOS 6.0 users, they will be flooded with telematics data to enable them to identify and correct problems. It'll take time, but they can prioritize issues by how often people run into them so it won't take long before the average iOS user doesn't see any major problems with Apple Maps. It took Google seven years to get where they are because back in 2005 no one had Google Maps on a mobile device, and that's where you get 99% of the useful data. Apple will be able to get their maps in decent shape - not close to Google Maps, but good enough Apple Maps is no longer a joke - by next summer if not sooner by targeting in this way.
They will probably never be better than Google Maps, or even equal to it, but they don't have to beat Google for their maps to be a success. They don't even have to beat where Google Maps is today. They only have to beat the old iOS Maps app, which in case you haven't much experience with it, is not a particularly high bar.
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Monday 24th September 2012 09:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Mark C Casey
Let's launch a new product that's clearly inferior to what went before, they'll be queueing down the street for it...
The other guys started with a dodgy product and fixed it later so that's clearly a successful approach and a precedent for what we're doing...
Thats not innovation, that's not how any rational business operates. What a sensible business does is look at what's out there understand its strengths and weaknesses then launch something WITH all the strengths (like accurate mapping) and address the weaknesses.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 11:54 GMT P_0
Surey, SURELY, now, even the most diehard Apple fans will have to stop saying things like, "Apple products aren't perfect, but they are an attempt at perfection", and other such comments normal humans have been listening to for a few years with puzzled expressions.
Because while this Maps problem isn't the biggest software blunder ever released to market, from a company that supposedly prides itself on product quality, being superior to rivals, it is unforgivable. Did anybody at Apple Inc even test it? Or just test it around Cupertino, perhaps? It just boggles the mind. What the hell have Apple been doing since the 4S? They just stretched the old iPhone design. Whoopdy-doo. This is a classic case of resting on one's laurels.
I don't think they gave themselves enough time to do full testing of the Maps software (well obviously!). But this is just showing how much the Google/Android rivalry is getting to them. The execs seem to becoming obsessed with destroying Google/Android that they excrete a pile of sh*t into their customers' phones, just so their customers don't get contaminated with Google-itis.
I mean, they just lost any and all claims to be more technically competent than their rivals. What is their USP again? Their phone spec is pretty hum-drum, not bad, but nothing new. So what do they have again, that rivals don't? Oh yeah, a nice logo.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 12:13 GMT Frederic Bloggs
Pedant's Corner
IANANOS, but I can read street maps. If I am reading the one provided correctly, Apple thinks its store is on Kent Street, not George Street. Which, BTW, is even more west (to the left of) George Street than the location in the article.
I have my coat on, as it is nissing down here at the moment.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 12:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pedant's Corner
Look again at George St. and see the small grey apple logo, that is the store.
The larger, more distracting blue dot and circle represents one concentration of Jobs' reality distortion field and how far it's effects can be felt. Sadly in this case it doesn't quite extend to the store in question.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 15:59 GMT R Cox
idealized google maps
I think we are comparing an idealized version of google maps to a real version of Apple Maps.
It was not that long ago that google sent me on a long detour down a single lan mountain road, on one side of me was a mountain, on the other side a increasingly tiny winding river. This wasn't so bad but there was a perfectly good interstate available.
The locations of businesses are increasingly good in Google, but far from perfect. I have run into trouble using their location services.
The traffic service on Google is useless. If I want real information, I go to out local traffic service with is much more accurate. It could be that Apple traffic might be better as long as there is one iPhone in the traffic.
The reality is for iPhone users google provided no value. Apple was paying huge sums of money to google, and we were getting very little in return. If Google want to woo iPhone users with superior products, they can put a third party App out there and let users choose to pay for it. I know I would not as there are $5 apps out there that are better. I think google is banking and generating great opposition to the Apple Maps on the hope that Apple will be forced to go back to google.
I don't think Apple will do this. I think if Apple and Google could play, Google would have given iPhone turn by turn maps, especially for the money Apple was giving to Google. As it is, Apple maps can only get better, and Google is apparently not going to give anything to anyone who does not use Android.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 16:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: idealized google maps
"It was not that long ago that google sent me on a long detour down a single lan mountain road, on one side of me was a mountain, on the other side a increasingly tiny winding river. This wasn't so bad but there was a perfectly good interstate available."
And Sat Navs keep taking trucks down to a passenger (foot) ferry over the River Severn here in the UK because they think that its a full blown crossing capable of taking trucks. The road now has a big sign saying that there is a Sat Nav error but the truckers still try to go down the lane which is only just wide enough for them.
I think we all know that mapping systems have mistakes and the more off the beaten track you get then the less detail you get, and the more mistakes happen.
What is very worrying is the fact that the Apple maps fail totally in large centres of population - something which might have been acceptable if there were no other map apps out there and no-one had done this before.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 20:08 GMT Mark .
Re: idealized google maps
Why should Google give away their products for free to the competition?
Yes, it's true that Apple are "having" to do this, because Google aren't writing software like satnav for them free. So what? The bottom line is that major platforms like Symbian, Android, and now WP have had free satnav for years. About time that Apple finally caught up, rather than relying on costly 3rd party apps, or just giving users only the basic Google maps that you could get on a feature phone 6 or so years ago.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 18:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Open Streetmap
>They use OSM data for their photo app.......So its likely that they've simple done it again with old data.
....I'm pretty sure that the new UK source is actually Francis Frith Street Imaging.
...wouldn't surprise me if Marius Milner took on a side gig for Apple picking up the postcards from local newsagents as he whizzed around the country in the Google Car.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 23:38 GMT HMB
Re: Open Streetmap
@tommitytom
See, I read what you said and just thought you were trolling, leaving aside my own thoughts on the matter. Then I looked at the you tube link and thought, "huh, well what do you know?
I think the man in the video is a great, smart, shameless, hypocritical, artistic, childish, entertaining bastard.
(Disclosure, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but I do like the iPhone and iPad, though never ended up quite motivated enough to purchase any of them)
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 16:52 GMT Ketlan
Grrrrr...
'iOS 6 maps has wrong location for Apple Store'
Who gives a shit? I'm sick of hearing about Apple and that fucking iPhone and everything associated with that godawful bastard of a company. Every newspaper and magazine I've seen in the past week has been slavishly advertising Apple under the pretext that the new iBollocks is somehow more interesting than anything else in the universe. FFFS, give it a rest and let the Apple fan club disappear up its own arse.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 23:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Grrrrr...
Maybe skip reading online news for a while then... maybe have a walk...
Never understood the reason why people would read stuff they don't find interesting... let alone bother to comment on it
Who says its the apple fan club pushing all the news... to me it seems kinda like everyone is pushing it... and the majority of people responding are people with android phones... if the iphone pisses people off so much... especially people that don't own one... and don't care to own one... why even bother looking at it at all.
It is almost like your punishing yourselves...
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 23:50 GMT HMB
Re: Grrrrr...
On a tech news site I think it's entirely relevant. On the BBC website I think it's because the BBC is staffed by a lot of upper middle class hipsters who can't see why everyone can't afford to buy a "proper computer".
I appreciate that's not their official line to the public too.
Yes, I have met people (not just one person) who work in the BBC.
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Sunday 23rd September 2012 23:48 GMT Matt Bryant
You are all missing the point!
Quit this inconsequential blathering about how rubbish the Apple maps app is and realise the true horror of the situation - Australia has Apple stores! Even the land of Crocodile Dundee has fallen to the fashion-victim metrosexuals. This is truly a dark day for real men everywhere. They'll probably give up BBQs and start losing at cricket to the us Poms next (oh, they did - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/19620605)!
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Monday 24th September 2012 02:00 GMT Captain DaFt
Bad publicity is GOOD publicity...
Especially if it keeps your competition from getting any!
Before this little fiasco happened, most sites* were talking about how WP8 for phones wasn't really *that* bad, how RIM just might have a chance, and how swag the new Samsung lineup was. Now it's all "Apple Apple Apple" again, the sweetest sound to Apple's ears!
*And/or arguing over the idiocy of US patent laws, something Apple'd prefer you'd ignore as well.
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Monday 24th September 2012 10:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
There is NO problem with the Apple maps
It's just that some buildings were built in the wrong place on the globe, it's the builders and town planners who have let us down.
Now that we have replaced the obsolete maps with ones showing where these buildings should be, if you just report the discrepancies to your local planning authority they will arrange for the buildings to be relocated in accordance with Apples correct mapping.
As regards Dublin's second airport http://www.thejournal.ie/alan-shatter-apple-maps-airport-dundrum-602115-Sep2012/?utm_source=twitter_self that is only an error in so far as it is currently "closed for development" and the nature of the development is Apples previously unannounced new venture into air transport facilities.
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Monday 24th September 2012 19:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Every UI change in IOS 6 makes that app worse than the one in IOS 5
IPod (sorry 'music') - got worse for no good reason.
Phone UI - why the change? No good reason.
YouTube - vanished.
Find my phone - fugly new font. Awful layout.
iPad clock app - painful to set an alarm, painful to edit an alarm, horrible UI. Why a different icon to iPhone clock?
Maps - nothing more I can add. What happens when corporate politics escapes.
App Store - double fail: worse and slower.
Apple apps are going the way MS Windows applications have gone - every one has to use its own scroll bars, buttons etc. I really expected more from apple.
And as for the stupid leather texture on the iPad calendar, and the deeply risible game centre...
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