Apple Maps.

[zphone]

The point is: why are they reinventing the wheel? Google maps is good! they should have worked with google maps to make it better, not try to reinvent something already out there in many different formats. Google maps is integrated with most apps that provide directions including search engines, yelp, etc. Having a proprietary map program is a waste of positive energy. They should give us something new.

Umm, Google maps *is* a proprietary map program. You make it sound as if google maps predate all other map data out there which is not true. Google is so heavily used because it was free or very cheap not because it was good. In fact it was worse than map data available from other companies at a price for years. It got good because it was used. Now that they want to monetize it other companies have to think if there are alternatives.

 

[hookbill]

Since we don't have unlimited data anymore I am concerned on how much of my data plan this will use.
Do say if I use for even a hour trip around town is it using my data plan the entire hour???

Take a look at a statement you had before you went to a data plan, if you have one. I'll bet you will be amazed at how little data you use.

The ones that will have problems are people who use Pandora for 8 hours a day or are using their phone to provide their entire home with internet. Between my wife and myself we didn't use even half a gb last month. She is constantly on 4G and I'm usually on Wifi. Still, 2 people and not even 1/2 a GB? We still have unlimited but should we be forced to change we will be fine, and 20.00 a month cheaper on the bill.

 

[Rickstir]

We live in the country. About 8 years ago the county re-numbered the roads for 911 access. We used to be on County Road 175 and were changed to Country Rd. 743. Our Magellan GPS has the old roads on it. My iPhone 4 map application and any app that uses maps like weather radar apps used the new road designation of 743. Now that I have upgraded to 6, I am back to the old designation of 175. Heaven help us if EMT's are trying to find us using 6! My contract is up in 3 months and I may just move on down the road away from this nonsense.

 

[mdmcatee]

We live in the country. About 8 years ago the county re-numbered the roads for 911 access. We used to be on County Road 175 and were changed to Country Rd. 743. Our Magellan GPS has the old roads on it. My iPhone 4 map application and any app that uses maps like weather radar apps used the new road designation of 743. Now that I have upgraded to 6, I am back to the old designation of 175. Heaven help us if EMT's are trying to find us using 6! My contract is up in 3 months and I may just move on down the road away from this nonsense.

What's nonsense is any decent emt service won't be using a cell phone for directions...sheesh why use this for an excuse...just go get something else and be happy if your that dissatisfied with it.life is just way to short to be unhappy

BTW...did you call or email Apple with this info?

Mac

 

[Horsehaulin]

Emergency service vehicles have an onboard navigation system that is patched into the 911 dispatch. No worries of any law or emergency making it to your house.

 

[Horsehaulin]

Btw, reporting the problem through the app will assist Apple in correcting the problem.

 

[Lightingguy]

I've reported problems quite a few times with iMaps and have no expectation that they'll get fixed anytime soon.

My particular home address, in the very congested NYC suburbs of Long Island, seemingly does not exist in Apple Maps. I have to use the house address across the street in order to navigate home. Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing as well as my sister-in-laws TomTom can all find my house, but not Apple. I can't even drop a pin off the GPS fix, give it an address and get home. It sends me to the same address and street in a town 5 miles away.

As well, Google Maps on the iPhone is nowhere near as functional as it was on my Android. Bing is hit and miss and like MapQuest, can't access my Contacts, thus that becomes tiring. Right now it's about 50/50 that Maps will find a location or searched place of business. Google Maps correctly told me that a Barnes and Noble store nearby was gone. Maps not only had it placed in the wrong location (a 1/2 mile south) bit still thought it existed.

Mind that I LOVE my iPhone 4s that I got about 6 weeks ago. It's a superior phone to my 2 year old Android and I love using it.

But Maps is pretty much useless, no doubt about it

 

[hookbill]

I've reported problems quite a few times with iMaps and have no expectation that they'll get fixed anytime soon.

My particular home address, in the very congested NYC suburbs of Long Island, seemingly does not exist in Apple Maps. I have to use the house address across the street in order to navigate home. Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing as well as my sister-in-laws TomTom can all find my house, but not Apple. I can't even drop a pin off the GPS fix, give it an address and get home. It sends me to the same address and street in a town 5 miles away.

As well, Google Maps on the iPhone is nowhere near as functional as it was on my Android. Bing is hit and miss and like MapQuest, can't access my Contacts, thus that becomes tiring. Right now it's about 50/50 that Maps will find a location or searched place of business. Google Maps correctly told me that a Barnes and Noble store nearby was gone. Maps not only had it placed in the wrong location (a 1/2 mile south) bit still thought it existed.

Mind that I LOVE my iPhone 4s that I got about 6 weeks ago. It's a superior phone to my 2 year old Android and I love using it.

But Maps is pretty much useless, no doubt about it

Wait a second. Your other phone was Android, right? So when you back up your phone do it on iTunes and tell it to use your Google contacts. All your backed up contacts in Gmail will come over.

Caution: If you never used Gmail take a look at it before you do this. It might need a little tidying up.

 

[Lightingguy]

Wait a second. Your other phone was Android, right? So when you back up your phone do it on iTunes and tell it to use your Google contacts. All your backed up contacts in Gmail will come over.

Caution: If you never used Gmail take a look at it before you do this. It might need a little tidying up.

I think you misunderstood my comment.

Apple Maps can access the phone contacts database when doing a search. That's a very useful function when navigating the best, traffic free route to a doctors office that's in your contacts list, as example. And as I have discovered over the years, moving from Treo devices to Android and now to iPhone, it pays long term to refine and add to the contacts data base so as to make it really useful.

In truth I don't recall Google maps being able to do a contacts search, or at least I never found it and never used it. As is typical with a lot of the iPhone functions, this is one of the gems that makes using the phone such a treat.

Problem is that Apple Maps is in such a beta state that I can't trust it, thus only rarely use it. Two alternatives are Bing and Mapquest. Mapquest is in theory, able to navigate to a contact address, but in reality it never worked. Likewise Bing, and Google on the iPhone is a really poor app. Thus until Apple gets the map app functional, the iPhones have poor functionality as navigation devices.

And yes I did port the Google Contacts over. Google now allows a CardDAV export and sync to your G Contacts. This is something they added about 3 weeks ago and is the easiest and most reliable method of syncing contacts with Google, if you do not have a Microsoft Exchange account (which I do not). Google and iPhone do map the contact data differently, particularly company names and right now I find that if I add a company name on the iPhone I enter the name as a Last Name and all is happy with the sync and how it displays in Google Contacts.

 

[andrzejls]

The point is: why are they reinventing the wheel? Google maps is good! they should have worked with google maps to make it better, not try to reinvent something already out there in many different formats. Google maps is integrated with most apps that provide directions including search engines, yelp, etc. Having a proprietary map program is a waste of positive energy. They should give us something new.

Why? we will just sue. BTW Apple is suing small grocery store in Poland for their web address "a.pl" (pl stand for Poland).

 

[borgy]

The new mapping program from Apple is far from good. It gives wrong directions has eliminated entire communities and provides very little of the features that google maps does. Street view was an element of google that I found very useful to me. I am a college processor and two of my students told me that the Apple maps got them lost yesterday. Also why should the end user suffer for the inability of Apple and Google to act like grown ups. The only damage is to the customer. If Apple does not want to incorporate g-maps into its IOS6 that's fine but allow for an app download. The end user should not be the hostage or the victim. Apple will be years developing a product as good as Google maps. I am very very disappointed Apple and will likely consider moving my business away from Apple because I do not feel like they view the customer as important.

I love all the justifications from Apple disciples. I was long coming into the fold and over all see why they have loved Apple. Always a late-comer, I seem to join various computer enterprises just as they have peaked and are beginning to slide downward beginning with Osborne computer and lastly with Blackberry. I often feel like a bel weather for decline in technology. I loved it when I got GPS on my Blackberry who let me choose Google maps extensive app over their own. The one feature theirs had was map scale which Google maps and iMaps both lack. I cannot count how often street view saved me many troubles. Unfortunately Google maps on the iPhone was not allows to be complete as on Bberry with Job' dickishness emerging.
Now many say "Google maps took several years to get it right." Probably true but "It" is right, Right Now. I'm 74. I need map accuracy and features today. Turn by turn is nice but not so accurate.
Here's how Google accuracy can be important( even with paper map in hand, for the smugly superior who have previously lectured me about that. I mastered mappers in the Army long ago). In Rome, for example, with map in hand, one can have difficulty finding oneself. Street names are etched high on the side of buildings and street names often change from block to block. One can easily lose ones orientation even with paper map in hand. I ask my Bberry GPS to locate me an Voila I can navigate again. Accuracy now is imperative not several years from now. So, in DC recently, iMaps located me adjacent to my destination, a landmark building but it was couple blocks away. This is simply unacceptable! Using online Google maps won't give the GPS. Thank you ***Moderation Notice***.
A tool extends your capabilities; a machine requires you to conform to its function. I switched to Apple for a tool as Blackberry was becoming more machine like. I foresee this a just the beginning of a trend that will take several years to manifest. "So it goes." Vonnegut.

 

[Skull One]

I love all the justifications from Apple disciples. I was long coming into the fold and over all see why they have loved Apple. Always a late-comer, I seem to join various computer enterprises just as they have peaked and are beginning to slide downward beginning with Osborne computer and lastly with Blackberry. I often feel like a bel weather for decline in technology. I loved it when I got GPS on my Blackberry who let me choose Google maps extensive app over their own. The one feature theirs had was map scale which Google maps and iMaps both lack. I cannot count how often street view saved me many troubles. Unfortunately Google maps on the iPhone was not allows to be complete as on Bberry with Job' dickishness emerging.
Now many say "Google maps took several years to get it right." Probably true but "It" is right, Right Now. I'm 74. I need map accuracy and features today. Turn by turn is nice but not so accurate.
Here's how Google accuracy can be important( even with paper map in hand, for the smugly superior who have previously lectured me about that. I mastered mappers in the Army long ago). In Rome, for example, with map in hand, one can have difficulty finding oneself. Street names are etched high on the side of buildings and street names often change from block to block. One can easily lose ones orientation even with paper map in hand. I ask my Bberry GPS to locate me an Voila I can navigate again. Accuracy now is imperative not several years from now. So, in DC recently, iMaps located me adjacent to my destination, a landmark building but it was couple blocks away. This is simply unacceptable! Using online Google maps won't give the GPS. Thank you .........................
A tool extends your capabilities; a machine requires you to conform to its function. I switched to Apple for a tool as Blackberry was becoming more machine like. I foresee this a just the beginning of a trend that will take several years to manifest. "So it goes." Vonnegut.

Your overall thought process is well defined and presented, but the information you have used as your salient points is inaccurate at best, down right wrong at its worst.Steve Jobs wanted Google Maps, from Android, on the iPhone since Android 2.1. In fact, it is documented that he asked for it several times. Google agreed to turn a version over to Apple for release with iOS as long as Apple allowed their tracking/metric data to be collected. Apple refused due to privacy concerns. IE Apple was looking out for its end users.Now before you say "Apple doesn't care about our privacy", let me remind you that Google was fined over $20 million for finding a way to circumvent the iOS Safari browser that allowed tracking cookies to be installed. Apple brought this fact up to the Federal level and Google lost because they were directly tracking people that requested not be tracked. So Apple has shown they protect their users. And that is why we don't have Google Maps at this time. As a side note, Apple will allow Google to create a Map application for iOS as long as it meets all the guidelines laid out in the Developer SDK.Google maps, web based version used thru Safari, will without a shadow of a doubt show your GPS location. You simply have to give it permission to use the GPS feature of iOS. Again, this was done for privacy protection. BTW, Android has the same exact privacy protection that iOS does when it comes to using the GPS sensor.There are mulitple GPS based applications you can download for free on iOS if you dislike the results of the standard Maps app. Apple even has them highlighted in the Featured program section of the app store should you need help finding them. BTW, Android's Google Map still gets it wrong to this day, just like iOS 6 Maps. I have a Droid X that I use strictly for navigation, with my iPhone setup as a hotspot, and I still am submitting errors for the DFW metroplex.

 

[Horsehaulin]

Thank you ***Moderation Notice***.

I lost all respect for your post right there. Never in my life have I heard a 74yo person say something like that. Maybe you just typed the age wrong?

 

[borgy]

Your overall thought process is well defined and presented, but the information you have used as your salient points is inaccurate at best, down right wrong at its worst.

Steve Jobs wanted Google Maps, from Android, on the iPhone since Android 2.1. In fact, it is documented that he asked for it several times. Google agreed to turn a version over to Apple for release with iOS as long as Apple allowed their tracking/metric data to be collected. Apple refused due to privacy concerns. IE Apple was looking out for its end users.

Now before you say "Apple doesn't care about our privacy", let me remind you that Google was fined over $20 million for finding a way to circumvent the iOS Safari browser that allowed tracking cookies to be installed. Apple brought this fact up to the Federal level and Google lost because they were directly tracking people that requested not be tracked. So Apple has shown they protect their users. And that is why we don't have Google Maps at this time. As a side note, Apple will allow Google to create a Map application for iOS as long as it meets all the guidelines laid out in the Developer SDK.

Google maps, web based version used thru Safari, will without a shadow of a doubt show your GPS location. You simply have to give it permission to use the GPS feature of iOS. Again, this was done for privacy protection. BTW, Android has the same exact privacy protection that iOS does when it comes to using the GPS sensor.

There are mulitple GPS based applications you can download for free on iOS if you dislike the results of the standard Maps app. Apple even has them highlighted in the Featured program section of the app store should you need help finding them.

BTW, Android's Google Map still gets it wrong to this day, just like iOS 6 Maps. I have a Droid X that I use strictly for navigation, with my iPhone setup as a hotspot, and I still am submitting errors for the DFW metroplex.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this so well. That is a heap of good information that I had no knowledge about. Especially helpful, as well, was learning that I could enable Google maps online to use my GPS. That makes all the difference. You facts leave me a bit chastened. I feel a bit like the users' complaints in the SNL skit being confronted by the Chinese phone makers. However, you made me feel a lot better about the issue.

 

[borgy]

I lost all respect for your post right there. Never in my life have I heard a 74yo person say something like that. Maybe you just typed the age wrong?

Sorry, Mom. I still think it was funny.