“If you haven’t been using Apple’s Maps app, the all-new version in iOS 10 is worth another look,” Susie Ochs writes for Macworld. “It’s prettier than ever, smarter about finding stops for gas and coffee along your actual route, and thanks to machine learning iOS 10 it can do things like remind you when it’s time to leave for your next appointment, and then remember where you parked your car.”
“I use Maps on a daily basis, after relying on Waze or Google Maps for years,” Ochs writes. “I switched over to Maps permanently when I got my Apple Watch, because I love how the watch can tap me on the wrist before I need to make each turn.”
“So while Apple’s got my mindshare for now, I admit I felt a little dread at WWDC, when Apple announced the Maps app in iOS 10 would be completely redone. Wasn’t that kind of a disaster last time?” Ochs writes. “I’m happy to report the road forward is much smoother in iOS 10. The new Maps even fixes my biggest quibble with the last version.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s Maps in iOS 10 is a much improved experience with bigger buttons that are easier to read and tap which is very important when you’re driving. Maps’ newly-acquired ability to automatically remember where we left our car has already come in handy a least once in a large, unfamiliar hospital parking lot. Kudos, Apple!
In years past it seemed Google Maps imo was better than Apple. Because of CarPlay I’ve switched back to Apple. I noticed on my trip to Chicago from Ann Arbor the directions told me to get off the freeway which struck me as odd until I saw massive traffic jams. The whole weekend Apple Maps saved me many minutes probably a couple of hours of traffic.
developing an unquestioning reliance on a navigation program (at least short of driving into a lake) sounds like a Stephen King movie in the making. driving back to Ann arbor from Chicago, maps again told me to get off the freeway in the middle of nowhere SW Michigan through a bunch rural roads and farms in pure darkness. seemed scary but it was dead on.
It’s got at least ten things wrong within 5 blocks of where I live in downtown Little Rock.
Not just off a bit, but completely wrong.
(and it wasn’t that way before the update….)
The new US 79 Bridge on the White River that has been open for a month and under construction for years is nowhere to be seen on Apple Maps. You would think data coming back to them showing 60-70 MPH traffic through a Wildlife Refuge where there -acvording to Apple- is no road would have triggered an inquiry.
BTW I was in Little Rock Friday and had no problems with Apple Maps. It dies, however, have serious issues in Downtown Memphis. It cannot find the Downtown YMCA via Siri despite it having been in the same place since 1910 and favorited. You can be blocks away and ask Siri for the directions to the YMCA and you get YMCAs in cities hundreds or thousands of miles away.
I have sent Apple stuff on both iOS and Mac maps and still no fix on the US 79 White River Bridge.
I haven’t heard whether they decided to keep the old beautiful bridge for a nature walk or not. That was a masterpiece….unless you had a wide load!!
The old bridge is going to be demolished. It went to Federal Court and removal of the old bridge was a condition of allowing the new one through a Federal Wildlife Refuge. Besides, the local town could never afford the upkeep on an 85 year old bridge.
Expect to see it blown up next summer.
Its a great improvement in my view.
I just had an experience in san francisco, where google maps screwed up badly, and apple was perfect.
Google kept trying route me through a closed street. When I was forced to turn because several blocks of Howard St. were shut down, Google wanted to send me around the block to keep trying the same closed route.
I quickly told SIRI to “take me home”, and apple maps perfectly and instantly routed me around the problem.
I love the new very readable interface, it feels great, and very happy to have zoom. Things have changed. In a very good way
I still don’t know why Apple Maps still doesn’t offer
(1) lane guidance
(2) bicycling directions and
(3) display the speed that I’m traveling
Until it offers lane guidance, I won’t use it in my car. Until it offers bicycling directions, I’ll continue to use Google Maps when I ride my bike. And displaying my speed is just a nice thing to have as a check against the speedometer in my car.
Lane guidance is not really as useful as one would hope, and doesn’t make that much of difference
The reason is that they tell you what lanes you can be in, but the lanes shown are so often inaccurate when they’re shown. For example, they show the graphic that says you can be in either of the two rightmost lanes, and you do that, but then just before the exit the lane you’re in, which WAS the second rightmost, is now the third rightmost. Happens all the time.
You really can’t depend on it.
Marked parking feature is pretty cool.
Why do mapping applications and GPS devices fail to provide information about Rest Areas on Interstates?
The “Road Ahead” app does a great job at showing rest areas and lots of other good stuff.
I use the TomTom app on an old iPad. They have a massive database of “Points of Interest”. You just turn on which ones you want to see and they show up on the map, including rest stops. I prefer it because it needs no live Internet connection.
I use apple maps while driving in Germany. The directions are always correct. I only wish Siri would speak better German. Can’t wait til my next trip to see if Siri improved her German accent.
I used my sat nav to find St. ALban’s Cathedral in The UK. It kept taking me back to the bottom of the road and saying “You have reached your destination”. I asked Siri “Take me to St. ALban’s Cathedral” when he turn me round, three quarters up the road he told me to park and said “You’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”. He then took me down an small, almost hidden, road and there it was.
I don’t always use Apple Maps but when I have it has been really useful.
All the ‘Apple Maps got it right’ comments are funny.
As if it’s a genuine surprise that an Apple product actually performs the task it was designed for.
I drove to Texas last month, all the way there and all the way back. My Honda did not break down once. Remarkable.
If any of you were actually honest you’d admit all the other times Maps was dead wrong. But you won’t.
Well, you know people. Apple fans or not, people all have blatant biases. There is no cure for this condition, as it is a feature (not a bug) of our neurological wiring, which includes our thinking and decision-making processes. More’s the pity.
That being said, all of us have reported Apple Maps absurd failures in great detail in the MDN comments ever since the product came out. Don’t say we haven’t, it’s all there in the MDN archives. My informal tally in the first year was Maps: pro – 35%, con – 65%. Not everybody is a snivelling apologist.
I have often been accused of being one, although I have often argued that Maps have a long way to go before reaching Google’s accuracy.
Today, for me, Apple Maps is often more accurate than Google. And in some places of the world, (such as Belgrade, Serbia, or any other town there), Google is largely oblivious to street numbers, while Apple knows almost every street’s layout and house numbering.
With a product contain such vast amount of data, your mileage may vary significantly from one data point to the next, but it seems to me that the consensus here is that Apple Maps has generally reached Google’s accuracy, and the variations depend on your location. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help those who live in areas where Maps are inaccurate.
I want to love Apple Maps, but I can’t. I can’t find places, the satellite images are black and white, there are no road names, heck, some roads and streets doesn’t even exist in Apple Maps. All this has not been solved since iOS 6.
Shame.
Apple doesn’t use satellite images… That’s the other guys. Apple uses fly over images from small aircraft, that are in color, with road names.
cant believe they launched under “10” a maps app that still cant string together a trip; I’d really like the thing to handle my going from Minneapolis to Duluth by way of Amnicon Falls State Park for example; or if Apple wants to be the politically correct green tech company why cant they save my gas and carbon emissions by smartly planning the best route for my five saturday errands… so much wasted potential
Since the day Apple Maps it was released, it has shown a street next to our house where our driveway actually resides. From the beginning, I notified Apple of the erroneous road but to no avail. Apple Maps still shows it. As I hear it, a road actually used to be there…20 or 30 years ago. But not now. All Apple has to do is listen to feedback and check it. Google has it right.
Periodically, a random car turns up the “street” (driveway). What more can I do but tell Apple that they still have it wrong? Someone’s not listening there…