iOS6 Maps App

Wow. The new map app is horrible, possibly the worst map display I've seen in years.

Streets and street names are rendered in a manner that doesn't lend itself to easy scanning and comprehension. But seriously, the visual style makes it incredibly hard to use. It looks like a random bunch of words on a biege background. There is no visual coherence whatsoever.

On top of that, there is no street view and no public transit. No longer is it possible to see a picture of where i'm going.

It's almost bad enough to make me want to switch back to iOS5. Maps is one of the few apps I use on regular basis and this is a massive downgrade.

Am I being too harsh? Or is it really that horrible?

With a bit more use, i'm beginning to be able to better verbalize one of the problems.

Streets are rendered with so little contrast (gray on beige) that they are barely visible. Instead, street names are rendered with much more contrast (black on beige). This makes it nearly impossible to visually scan the screen and gain a quick understanding of the street grid.

People that are visually and spatially oriented are not well served by the new look of the maps. The new maps makes the rendering of streets a secondary function. Display of street names is now the primary function.

The visual indicator for one way streets is now almost invisible. At first I thought their database was wrong. But no, holding the phone a few inches from my head I was finally able to confirm that light blue arrows do exist to indicate one way streets. However they are light blue in a sea of beige and about the size of a fraction of a single letter of the street name. It is absolutely astounding that this got through Apple's quality control. Did the user tests not include one way streets?

Also, buildings are no longer drawn at all. Yep, one more visual cue that was removed.

Best yet... most streets are now completely unlabeled. It is necessary to zoom in ludicrously far for the names to be displayed. This is likely because some randomly chosen streets are labeled with too large of text in the normal zoom levels. There is no space left to include all the street names.

Gizmodo has a nice photo to illustrate some of these problems:

Should You Keep Your Old iPhone on iOS 5 for Google Maps?

http://gizmodo.com/5944437/should-you-keep-your-old-iphone-on-ios-5-for-google-maps