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Tim Cook apologizes for iOS 6 maps problems

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slugg said:
Okay, I missed it... What's the problem with Apple's maps?
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Funny thing is that if I didn't have the Internet to read these articles I would've thought Apple maps was pretty awesome. It works really well around my place and it looks really nice.
 
TuxDave said:
Funny thing is that if I didn't have the Internet to read these articles I would've thought Apple maps was pretty awesome. It works really well around my place and it looks really nice.
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Obviously it works well in a lot of areas, it's the places where they did mess up that has people annoyed.
 
Found an interesting article:

http://www.mtonic.com/applemaps/

Basically the guy wrote a program to check Apple Maps search results against a known-good government database of cities and towns in Ontario, Canada. And he found that only 20% of the searches returned correct results. Another 19% were close, and the rest were either incorrect or returned no results.
 
Wow... I know I've called Tim Cook Apple's Steve Ballmer, but it's like he's TRYING to beat my estimate of 2030 for the death of Apple. I assumed Apple would have had a deeper product development pipeline than seems to be the case based on the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, and it would have carried them at least a couple years past the death of Jobs. My mistake apparently.

In the world of mobile devices, you do not get many mistakes like this before you become the next Nokia or RIM.
 
Red Storm said:
Obviously it works well in a lot of areas, it's the places where they did mess up that has people annoyed.
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Let's not forget public transportation routing that is completely missing. My gf works in San francisco and iOS 6 was a big gimp for her
 
I think its a good thing he admitted there was an issue.

If I owned an iPhone5 I'd rather hear him say "sorry about the mess, we are working on it" rather than "Its fine, move along now".
 
Running into the ground? Tim has been raising profits and sales since he took cover. I know people like to think Jobs invented the iPhone, but when you're as big as Apple, it takes more than one person to run it.

Same goes for the Ballmer comparison.He's been running Microsoft for over a decade now and they've been doing fine.
 
chewietobbacca said:
They dedicated an editorial for this? Lol, just proves that Engadget can't be taken as serious journalism. Slurp slurp slurp
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Well I think there's a point in the article. Furthermore, Apple is the only company we hold to such high standards and we expect flawless execution. Any issue that comes up goes through major scrutiny as every tech blog writes about this and people flame the hell out of Apple.
 
DLeRium said:
Well I think there's a point in the article. Furthermore, Apple is the only company we hold to such high standards and we expect flawless execution. Any issue that comes up goes through major scrutiny as every tech blog writes about this and people flame the hell out of Apple.
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I don't know about that. Everyone seems to be savaging Microsoft over win8 at the moment. 😛

Apple kind of invite this response by telling everyone how fantastic their new geegaw is before releasing it.

It's like celebritys who whore themselves out for media attention but then complain when someone photographs them drunk with a hooker.
 
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WelshBloke said:
Apple kind of invite this response by telling everyone how fantastic their new geegaw is before releasing it.
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There's that aspect, but in this case when they demonstrated their maps at the their event a few months back they gave everyone the impression that it would be flawless and work better than the existing map app.

If they had just said that they're still adding data and that some things are currently missing, but will be added soon, they would have done a lot to temper expectations and reduce the amount of hell that they're catching.

They'd still probably get some guff for it (They basically said Siri was still in beta, but some people would still have taken digs at them even if Siri were able to cure cancer at release.) but they wouldn't need to go out of the way to apologize for it.
 
WelshBloke said:
I don't know about that. Everyone seems to be savaging Microsoft over win8 at the moment. 😛

Apple kind of invite this response by telling everyone how fantastic their new geegaw is before releasing it.

It's like celebritys who whore themselves out for media attention but then complain when someone photographs them drunk with a hooker.
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Well I don't think iOS Maps are as broken as some people are making it out to be here. It's not a finished product, but there's only 1 company out there that releases 80% of its products as Beta. I tried iOS mapping out and it was pretty decent. I realize some people say they got lost and the 3D maps are screwed up outside of the US, but I was able to navigate around yesterday. Yes I may be seeing biased samples because I live in the Bay Area next to Apple HQ so perhaps they made sure it was perfect here.

But I never see Google catching the same amount of flak. How about something basic that still affects practically every phone out there? Launcher redraws? It's a proven fact that google's memory management is horrible and that's why there's a thousand page thread on XDA regarding the V6 supercharger script. I feel like people are more forgiving when Google releases mediocre products than when Apple stumbles. Let's not even talk about the halfassed products like Google+, Google currents when they first debuted. Google+ video hangouts completely flops for Samsung Exynos devices. Last I checked that makes up a huge portion of the Android user base.

Honestly there is a bias and people expect Apple to be at 100% execution. I'm not saying iOS maps is great. I'll show off my Google Maps as the superior product to my iOS friends, but I see too many people laughing at Apple's shortcomings with maps simply because they're fanboys or whatever.
 
DLeRium said:
But I never see Google catching the same amount of flak. How about something basic that still affects practically every phone out there? Launcher redraws? It's a proven fact that google's memory management is horrible and that's why there's a thousand page thread on XDA regarding the V6 supercharger script. I feel like people are more forgiving when Google releases mediocre products than when Apple stumbles. Let's not even talk about the halfassed products like Google+, Google currents when they first debuted. Google+ video hangouts completely flops for Samsung Exynos devices. Last I checked that makes up a huge portion of the Android user base.

Honestly there is a bias and people expect Apple to be at 100% execution. I'm not saying iOS maps is great. I'll show off my Google Maps as the superior product to my iOS friends, but I see too many people laughing at Apple's shortcomings with maps simply because they're fanboys or whatever.
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I'm not a fanboy of either Apple or Google, but there is a very real difference in how the two companies present their new products. Google is usually up front about software that is still in the beta stage. Many times there is a big "BETA" right on the software just in case the user isn't aware of the fact. Apple holds huge press events with long agonizing run-ups and then presents their products as the most polished (and finished) that money can buy. Everyone knows the "it just works" line by now. Apple prices their stuff accordingly. When something turns out to be half assed like the Maps application that can turn around on Apple much more than if they had been up front about the state of things.
 
Moral of the story is that Apple tried to bite off more than they can chew. There's too big bite for everybody, even for Apple. And now they know that. And now they will waste resources trying to re-invent the wheel. As others said, you can't solve tough problems by adding resources and money.
 
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