Apple Mapocalypse and the Anger of the Internet

As part of what you might describe as an ongoing separation between Google and Apple (who were once, if you can remember it, pretty good friends), Apple has replaced Google's excellent maps app with one they built themselves. And while, by most standards, it's pretty good, it doesn't work quite as it should:

People living outside the US seem to have been hit hardest, suffering problems such as one of Tokyo’s largest railway stations disappearing, large towns such as Antwerp in Belgium relocating, and Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, even disappearing altogether. Many people have also reported problems with directions given by the app, such as their offering a route to the wrong place.

Apple has promised to make things better, and has even gone so far as to suggest that users might like to download competitors apps in the meantime. But as Rebecca Greenfield notes, Apple will never really be able to catch up:

Apple has a people problem. On top of all the technology stuff, there is a team of human beings behind all maps, who iron out the kinks and turn the data into a whole product the works well together. (Right now Apple's human are "under lockdown ... working to fix it," says Apple.) Compared to Google, Apple's team is a joke in Dobson's book. Not only does Google have 7,000 people already working on mapping, but, the smaller contigent at Apple was not as involved in the map-making process. As Alexis Madrigal's piece made clear, people make a huge difference when it comes to map quality. "The sheer amount of human effort that goes into Google's maps is just mind-boggling. Every road that you see slightly askew in the top image has been hand-massaged by a human," he wrote.

David Talbott nails it:

It’s nuts that a service that used to work well (when it was Google Maps) suddenly become not only ineffective—but actually counterproductive, even dangerous.

(Image via Observatory)