Apple continues to enhance Maps app with new business listings providers

AppleInsider

After Apple's Maps app launched to negative reviews in 2012, the company has actively taken steps to enhance the fledgling navigation service, the latest effort being the addition of listings data from at least ten new companies.

Discovered by consulting firm Apple Maps Marketing through the recently activated Apple Maps Connect portal for small businesses, Apple now taps 13 providers for aggregating and supplying business listings data. Previously, known providers included Yelp, Factual and Neustar/Localeze.

As seen in the letter below from the Maps Connect team, Apple is currently accepting submissions only from large chains with at least 1,000 locations, what it calls "bulk submissions." All other point of interest data comes from a handful of companies.

Thank you for your recent inquiry and interest in publishing your business locations via our new Business Portal. At this time, we are only accepting bulk submissions from businesses with at least 1,000 locations. In the meantime, you may want to research the service offerings provided by the following companies that currently provide us business listing information on behalf of their clients: (in alphabetical order):

DAC Group
Factual
Location3 Media
Marquette Group
Neustar/Localeze
Placeable
PositionTech
SIM Partners
SinglePlatform
UBL
Yelp
Yext
Yodle

The letter ends with a boilerplate disclaimer that notes "information about third party services is provided for informational purposes only."

Launched last month, the Apple Maps Connect portal is a Web tool geared toward small business owners who want to be listed in the native Maps app, but might otherwise be passed over by data providers. With so-called bulk submission limitations, however, it appears Apple is not yet ready to expand the program to mom and pop shops.

tallest skil

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Maps will now give you a notification in OS X when Apple commits one of the changes or additions you submit. I think that’s pretty great.

dunks

Here's hoping this will improve the POI data. I love using the Apple maps software except that train lines are not visible unless you zoom right in. And sometimes pins identify addresses blocks away from their actual location because they're presumably estimates. I actually had to cancel an appointment this week because maps directed me to a similar street address in the wrong suburb and it was too late to navigate to the correct address.

It would be nice if Siri gave driving directions a little sooner too. Often the spoken command to turn comes immediately before the turn, much to late to signal properly or make a lane change.

SpamSandwich

dunks wrote: »

Here's hoping this will improve the POI data. I love using the Apple maps software except that train lines are not visible unless you zoom right in. And sometimes pins identify addresses blocks away from their actual location because they're presumably estimates. I actually had to cancel an appointment this week because maps directed me to a similar street address in the wrong suburb and it was too late to navigate to the correct address.

It would be nice if Siri gave driving directions a little sooner too. Often the spoken command to turn comes immediately before the turn, much to late to signal properly or make a lane change.

For very important meetings and places, I always use two and sometimes three sources to make sure I get the right location.

andrew shotland

Thanks for posting about our find today. @dunks I think the intent of this deal is to speed up the cleaning of POI data as most of these companies have marketing relationships with many of the top multi-location brands in the U.S. My guess is these companies account for somewhere between 500,000-1,000,000 locations. This also is a big deal for these providers as they now have a direct pipeline into Apple Maps which could be very lucrative as brands struggle with Apple Maps' data issues.

solipsismy

tallest skil wrote: »

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Maps will now give you a notification in OS X when Apple commits one of the changes or additions you submit. I think that’s pretty great.

Do you have to opt in for that when you submit a change? I've submitted several corrections and haven't seen any notification option or received a notification.

tallest skil

Originally Posted by SolipsismY 

Do you have to opt in for that when you submit a change? I've submitted several corrections and haven't seen any notification option or received a notification.

You get this popup when you submit a problem or change. From the wording, it seems like you will receive the notification when it is fixed whether you want it or not. Perhaps it’s tied to your willingness to be contacted, but if that was the case I’d imagine the tick box would mention opting in or out of notifications.

 

To Apple’s credit, I sort of had to nitpick to submit this problem to see the popup again. 

solipsismy

tallest skil wrote: »

You get this popup when you submit a problem or change. From the wording, it seems like you will receive the notification when it is fixed whether you want it or not. Perhaps it’s tied to your willingness to be contacted, but if that was the case I’d imagine the tick box would mention opting in or out of notifications.

[image]

To Apple’s credit, I sort of had to nitpick to submit this problem to see the popup again. :p

I've never seen that but I've also never tried from Mac Maps.

cali

Yelp is a company I wouldn't mind seeing Apple aquire.

svenski

If Google can figure out that K-Mart in New Ulm, MN closed over 2 years ago, why is Apple so dumb. Within several minutes of using and searching with the Maps app I found a large chain retail store that is located in New Ulm with a listing 8 miles away that has never been there, a second listing for a Pizza chain listed at a residential house, another Pizza place that closed about a year ago. Similar problems exist with closed businesses in nearby Mankato. I will list one of my favorite national chains - try and see if you can find their Mankato location on their website as the Apple Map program lists them - TGI Fridays.

luv2rip

Yelp has a lot of baggage, and hence Apple should negotiate fees for quality data and nothing beyond

patchythepirate

Thank god. Apple Maps is fucking terrible. I'm sick of it. There's a haircut place one block away that doesn't show up when I type in "haircut" (I want to get the number to get an appointment). I typed in "hair" to get at it that way, and Apple Maps too me to Cairo, Egypt. I wish I was making this up/trolling. I love the interface and UI, but there are so many things that are so simple, that Apple Maps is so terrible at. I just searched "haircut" on Yelp and it found my place right away, Supercuts, one of the biggest national brands. Ridiculous. Apple is obviously building up for a big release, but this app shouldn't stand the way it is.

 

That said, I'm still never using google maps, so get on it Apple!

philboogie

A key person in the Maps dept. is leaving for Uber:

http://9to5mac.com/2014/11/25/top-apple-maps-app-manager-for-watch-ios-os-x-exits-for-uber/

SpamSandwich

philboogie wrote: »

A key person in the Maps dept. is leaving for Uber:

http://9to5mac.com/2014/11/25/top-apple-maps-app-manager-for-watch-ios-os-x-exits-for-uber/

But that happened in July.

philboogie

SpamSandwich wrote: »

philboogie wrote: »

A key person in the Maps dept. is leaving for Uber:

http://9to5mac.com/2014/11/25/top-apple-maps-app-manager-for-watch-ios-os-x-exits-for-uber/

But that happened in July.

That was Chris Blumenberg back then (http://9to5mac.com/2014/07/08/apple-maps-senior-engineering-manager-leaves-role-for-job-at-uber/), this time it's Brad Moore, “Senior Engineering Manager, Maps Apps & Community”, who exited in October to become a manager at Uber.