“Some users have recently noticed a significant improvement in POI (points of interest) data in their local Apple Maps,” Arnold Kim reports for MacRumors.
“A discussion thread in MacRumors forums reports one user’s experience,” Kim reports. “The same user also posted to Reddit, where several others have confirmed the same improvements in data and quick turnaround time with corrections.”
Kim reports, Apple has made number of mapping-related company acquisitions in the past year, including Broadmap, Hopstop, Locationary, and Embark, and it’s likely those acquisitions will be bundled into a future Maps update.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone else seeing improvements/fixes recently in Apple Maps data?
Come on, Apple! Where are the interstate exit numbers?!
Mine gives me exit numbers
Siri will give them to me if I route the directions. What I’d like is to have them on the map so I can see them. I’m a visual person.
Agreed, and Apple should take note of that feedback along with other inputs to vault past Google Maps.
Interstate exit numbers are one of the key pieces of information that I desire. I generally know how to get from where I am to the interstate and make the transfers onto the final interstate. What I want from a maps application is the exit number along with the local directions to my final destination.
Incidentally, that is the reason that I dislike the default print settings of all maps applications to date. They tend to show either a large scale, end-to-end view, which provides no details and is of minimal value, or a series of small images of each “turn” or intersection along the way. I just want a couple of shots local to the final destination – one larger scale to provide situational awareness of the major roads in the area around the destination, and a zoomed look in close proximity to the destination for the local streets. Along the same lines, when you request directions from your home to a destination, it would be great to be able to roll up a series of them into a single line. I don’t need directions for all of my local streets leading to major highways or the interstate. Again, the destination is the unknown quantity.
Not if you are trying to get home from an unknown destination.
“Siri, take me home”
Siri knew them during my recent time in California
In the UK, Siri knows the junction numbers on the motorway when providing directions, but they don’t appear on the map.
That seems strange doesn’t it, having the information yet not displaying it as i agree its a prime need when looking at road maps, you know the junction number you need but little else at times and need to quickly relate between signs and your map. Siri wouldn’t be flexible enough as things stand to understand that basic need.
Have “Maps” give you directions from Allentown, Pennsylvania to
Spice India
3812 Easton-Nazareth Hwy #3
Easton, PA 18045
It takes you up Route 33 past the correct exit to the next exit that is 2 miles north. Then, it has you do a U-turn to drive 2 miles south on Route 33 back to the exit you should have taken 4 miles ago.
Just tried it. Works for me without taking you 2 miles out of the way.
It consistently takes you four miles out of your way.
Not for me. It exits at PA-248.
Perhaps it depends on your starting location? If you are both correct, then this is some type of intermittent or situational bug. Inform Apple, George.
OK, I have to admit that I re-searched for “Spice India” and it worked correctly. Despite having the correct address, the bookmark in my phone for “Spice India” still gives me the bad results that will take me four miles out of my way.
The old bookmark must have contained bad data.
Not good enough apple, still seeing errors on apple maps in my area 😡😡
I don’t know how when you only have an android device.
No you Fool!!!, I use iPhone 4s and for the record never ever had android phone, and never will. Saying that apple maps is clumsy and badly managed, and it’s no match for google maps which is the best
Funny how things seem different to different people, for me its Google maps that is clumsy and especially clunky and un user friendly. Apple maps are just a bit more likely to have errors as things stand and lacks a little functionality but overall for me is a far better option despite those occasional annoyances.
Then report it (or re-report it) to Apple. The story didn’t say Apple maps was perfect, but is reporting “improvements in data and quick turnaround time with corrections.”
Your help in reporting (I’ve done it) helps everyone. 🙂
I have reported errors in apple maps, many are not rectified, some reported over a year ago so for months the error remains😡 VERY POOR 👿
They are definitely doing something tho – I reported a change a couple months ago, and just the other day when I opened maps on my Mac, a little pop-up window came up saying the problem I reported had been corrected. It took a while, but it got done.
It’ll come. I have reported 3 wrong locations in Italy, 2 in Belgium and 4 in Spain and I just realized they’ve been fixed.
Unfortunately Not! At least not in Germany.
I’m always starting my searches with Apple Maps but I do get “No Result” quite often. When I then turn to Google Maps they find it in 90% of the cases. Also their database is improving and right now – I hate to admit it – their database for Germany (and most of Europe as well) is much better.
Apple needs to put much more effort in the improvement of their database for Maps!
I have the same experience in the UK, Apple Maps can just about handle full addresses, but it rarely finds a business or point of interest. Perhaps it’s because hardly anyone uses Yelp. I used maps yesterday to look for my nearest Go Outdoors (a national chain of camping and outdoor sports equipment) and got no results. I just checked again today and the store I went to suddenly appears, albeit in slightly the wrong location, which is a bit strange!
Apple maps is not good in London /UK , over here google map is king
Apple Maps is not good anywhere.
I hate Google but their maps put Apple to shame.
Apple’s maps don’t secretly spy on you and report your intentions and movements to the NSA. Big difference.
We’ll more reason for apple to make good maps so we don’t rely on google maps then, stop supporting apple maps which is 2nd rate
That is true, I was in Brussels Belgium in February, the apple map on the cafe and hotel wifi on my iPhone 4s always struggled to get satellite photoessays of the area I was in, the maps was slow and clumsy too, but google maps was fast, accurate and reliable
I must live in a different London then, wait I will check but do I use Apple or Google maps I wonder to decide. Quandaries, quandaries.
in abq nm both google and apple have the wrong route number for coors blvd at the paseo del norte intersection. it was changed a while ago so both have the same old data base. at least apple has the construction at paseo and i40 marked properly.
Need public transportation information baked in.
Improvements – yes.
Perfection – no.
Google maps:
Improvements – no.
Perfection – far from it.
Mistakes: Plenty more than Apple maps.
You cannot improve upon profection. /s
I have seen several of errors I reported get fixed. I think Apple doesn’t put exit numbers on the map (but Siri speaks them) because Apple doesn’t want you having to look at your iPhone for several seconds to read the number. Apple would rather you let Siri tell you.
If that’s the case, that’s terrible design. Why bother having *any* on-screen visuals at all, then?
If you missed hearing what Siri said, can you ask it to repeat itself like you could if a real person was giving directions?
Of all the things to NOT display while on a highway, the upcoming exit, in big bold sign/lettering, should be last on the list.
Never mind that approaching any complex multilane interchange, your eyes are going to be scanning the overhead signs for the specific exit and lanes anyway.
And the country of Serbia finally lights up with streets! Perhaps it was one of these new mapping acquisitions, or it was the fact that a carrier over there has finally signed for the iPhone, but the place is finally no longer a black hole on Apple maps. Just as I take my annual trip there!
I think that Apple Maps has gotten better over the past year. I often try Apple Maps and Google Maps when I am searching for directions, and then compare the results. The biggest difference that I notice is that Google Maps will quite often identify the location when Apple Maps will not. Also, I think that Google Maps is more accurate with the best directions a certain percentage of the time. I cannot remember a single example when Apple Maps identified a location that Google Maps could not, but I remember numerous occasions when Google Maps identified a location that Apple Maps drew a blank on.
I’m never lost and alone on some forgotten highway, traveled by many, remembered by few.
Looking for something that I can believe in.
Looking for something that I’d like to do with my life
Far out! 🙂
As others have said, start out with AM and often find business addresses non-existent. Not so most of the time on Google Maps.
The roads are way too light and difficult to see. Missing is small creeks unlike Google Maps which shows them in bright bluetiful.
For as hard as I try to give AM love, the complete package is not there …
Anecdotal: I reported an incorrect entrance to the Palm Springs, CA airport five months ago. Just checked for the first time since that trip. It’s fixed. That’s one.
Compare cold lake Alberta on google to any other map service. No one else comes close to the level of detail and accuracy. Maybe in the US apple has done a good job improving things, but in my town they are still missing roads 5 years old.
Just double checked. Missing roads 8 years old.
Siri can’t even find places when I use it
I wish there was an option in AM to avoid tollways. Or is there one and I’m the one “missing”?
I’ve been sending in a correction over and over again since Maps was first delivered and as of today the correction still has not happened. So, no, sorry, I haven’t seen an improvement.
The two mistakes I’ve reported have both been fixed, and for one I got an email confirming the fix.
What’s surprised me is the addition of department store interior layouts. Possibly these are iBeacon locations. One was inside a mall. The other was at a commercial complex where each business is separate from the others.
I can see Apple maps turning into, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. 🙂
All you need is your iPhone . . . and your towel.
Berlin, Germany here: Tried to get several closed businesses in my area off the map, marked them as “closed” a couple of times in the last six months. They are still there. Other businesses, established for many years now, still missing.
I’ve been using Maps turn by turn directions on my iPhone 5S in the UK for the past half a year and it is awesome. It generally suggests a couple of different route alternatives and I can select the one I want with a touch. If I detour from the expected route, I can see it re-calculating on the fly. It smoothly fades my music or other audio playing on my iPhone in and out as necessary. Never had a GPS system before and this takes all the stress out of driving to new places.
“It smoothly fades my music or other audio playing on my iPhone in and out as necessary.”
Yes, but on Podcasts it should STOP the playing, not just lower the volume. I have to manually stop and re-wind every time Siri gives directions because I missed what the person is saying.
This should be technically possible As podcasts are a separate app now.
Still lots of mistakes in New Zealand. For example, a search for TImaru Airport lands you in some trees in the middle of a leafy Christchurch suburb. I’m surprised this error hasn’t been fixed, as it was ridiculed in the local newspaper soon after Maps’ release. Somebody suggested it explained the recent increase in noise levels in his street. Another wondered if it reflected the fact that the airport is named after Richard Pearse, an early aviation pioneer in NZ, whose flying contraptions always seemed to go way off course and end up in hedges.
If so its a good job they don’t name airports after many early aviation pioneers as that as a rather common quality of them. Wonder what it does to John Lennon airport then, I dread to contemplate it if there are similar lifestyle related failures.
I have yet to see strong improvements in Apple maps for North Korean streets.
I got the TomTom app for the iPhone the day it came out. Never had some of the problems encountered here.
Now I not only have US/Canada, but also the Mexico and UK apps.
These are a god send considering that I don’t have to rely on an mobile service provider to get the necessary data.
Why is that important? Well, having to rely on local networks to acquire mapping data to draw routes has a number of limiting issues. It appears that some apps may work fantastically well on ATT for example in one area of the country, but could be the pits in some others. On one trip, we pre-planned a trip from Toronto to Boston comparing Google Maps, iOS Maps (using Rogers WiFi) and iPhone’s TomTom. Apple’s Map was the only one that came close to the TomTom plan before we started. However, Google’s route performed better vs Apple’s when we rerouted around Albany. Then there were variations when we connected via local WiFi stop.
Bottom line, our TomTom works virtually 100% of the time, although bad weather and as we know, some structures can interrupt the signal. Downloading and pre-planning a route on ISP-relied apps works better via WiFi. Some better than others, dependent on the mobile service provider, the app(s) area, as well as, factors such as G3 vs LTE, time of day and weather. Problem is, go off course and the GPS doesn’t coordinate until you get back on the originally planned route.
Note that I rarely turn on POI’s even on the TomTom. Since it needs mobile data it can slow down and interfere with the GPS’s accuracy.