“Shares of online recommendations purveyor Yelp (YELP) are up… following a note from Wedge Partners’ Brian Blair, who writes that the company could benefit from Apple‘s (AAPL) refresh of its own maps application, which he expects will be discussed during next Monday‘s keynote presentation at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
Even with Yelp’s solid growth in mobile, however, we believe that the issues surrounding Apple Maps have somewhat crimped Yelp’s usage by iOS users who initially had problems with Apple Maps, largely with its ‘accuracy’ …We expect to see numerous changes and feature updates announced for Apple Maps that significantly improve the user experience and ultimately increase adoption of the platform by existing iOS users. We believe this will be a positive for Yelp’s mobile metrics, particularly for CYQ4 and provide a stock catalyst, as we believe a better Apple Maps experience will increase Yelp usage by existing iOS users, many of whom continue to use alternative mapping platforms since last September. — Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair
Ray reports, “Fixes could include public transit directions, improved accuracy of labels and positions, improved directions, better context to local searches, and ‘an announcement of ‘human analysis,” writes Blair, as he thinks Apple needs to add something akin to Google’s roving fleet of cars that create Street View to improve accuracy.”
Read more in the full article here.
Maps was the first step in a series of to be updates. It was never meant to be the all encompassing final embodiment and set in stone for ever. Other parts were slated for additional content and parts found to be in need of repair, well, repaired. These Analyst really should take a clue from Apple and revisit there articles and do the necessary fixes of accuracy and fix there content problems. Maps was an excellent start to an extremely complex task.
Don’t try to tell people how complex and daunting a mapping application can be… and please don’t bring up the fact that after all these years Google’s maps still contains errors as well.
The “awful” experience was way overblown from the beginning. It has ALWAYS been completely usable even if it lacked some of the features as its predecessor.
On vacations I’ve trusted imaps and been burned multiple, multiple, multiple times. Not to like Burma, to the likes of Myrtle Beach and similar. NEVER trust imaps for locations of franchise stores. That’s where they’ve been the worst… Although there was the one time it didn’t know the funeral home had moved like 5 years earlier. That was awkward.
imap is an email protocol that has nothing to do with iOS Maps.
Never trust Yelp. They are more evil than Google. If you don’t sign up with them you will receive bad reviews and comments about your business.
At least MDN has quit posting “takes” that regurgitated their disappointment in Maps. Maps is improving. I never had a problem with it, but I recognize there are those that did.
I don’t see that linking Yelp! to Apple Maps will greatly increase Yelp!’s registered users. I think certain people are predisposed to post reviews, and others (like me) rarely choose to do so. While I may use the star ratings or even read some reviews, I don’t think I’ll be posting to Yelp! anytime soon.
Here in Australia Apple’s Maps is still not nearly as accurate as Google in quite a few instances. While presentation is in the eye of the beholder, I find Google’s presentation to be much clearer and more pleasing to the eye. A major gripe with Maps, is that when zoomed out to quite a degree, the map is dominated by green National Parks and State Forests, and the locations of towns is nowhere to be seen. When one zooms in to finally see the location and names of towns the overall context of where they are located is lost as the area covered is too small.
You can’t really expect Apple to expend large amounts of time and money to to gain the same precision required in large cities and densely populated countries. After all Australia is for the most part a desolate, dry, windy and dusty….Very Dusty
continent.
Apple’s Maps is a disaster in HK. Turn by turn navigation? Good luck. Yes. HK is a very polluted city (yes also, pollution has nothing to do with its accuracy).
But as a Apple “fanboy”, I usually ask my friends to report to Apple (from within the Maps app) any wrong map data if they find any discrepancy. I do it myself very oftenly. Usually I use Google Maps first, but will check with what’s on Apple’s Maps later on just to help it improve faster.
First time hearing people see Australia as a dusty continent! Bizarre!
Yelp usage is crimped because the ignorent, unqualifued morons that populate the service.
Apple maps will not be “improved” until they restore public transit directions and street view. Until then, they will have to pry iOS 5.1.1 from my cold, dead hands.
It is unbelievable that until this day people still talk about the maps. Can you please brig up the Antenna thing on iPhone 4? I have beer had any problems what so ever with Apple maps.