Missing points of interest. Apple Maps is still missing some POI data. iOS 8 is supposed to include an overhaul in this area.
Siri navigation works very well if I give it a street address (usually obtained from google or directly from the business' website. But if I rely on the Tom-Tom sourced POI database, I find that it is sometimes incomplete or in some cases, inaccurate. I usually send a correction to Apple. It's not terrible though, and I have experienced cases where Apple Maps' POI database is more up-to-date than Google Maps'.
The other issue seems to be that Siri doesn't do as good a job at "fuzzy searches." That means if I spell a business or use particular keywords, I get POI entries that are in fact correct, or "what I really wanted." Google seems to have developed a very forgiving and damn near telepathic fuzzy search capability, and my impression is that this is what causes some Siri/Apple Maps searches against POI to fail or give wrong results.
The guy has undergraduate and graduate degrees in music. Isn't it within the realm if possibility music not maps is why Apple hired him?
Music in the sense of listening to blood flow in an attempt to understand how blood flow sounds during the lead up to a heart attack or stroke?
It is scary how narrowly focused these articles can be at times. Just taking a moment ask one or two questions about how the guy used his music degrees could have turned the story into something else entirely.
I wouldn't read too much into that -- math, music, programming (Computer Science) are, actually, quite similar disciplines.
I recall that one of the early programming tools for the IBM 1401 computer (circa 1960) was called FARGO (Fourteen-o-one Automatic Report Generation Operation). It was written by a crazy Hungarian (öt, hat, hét, nyolc) Music major working in the IBM LA (Wilshire Blvd) Data Center. I was working for Lockheed, and programming the 1st commercial 1401 to be installed. I met the author several times, but cannot remember his name... but I remember that he was brilliant, funny and crazy ... just crazy.
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I agree ... At first I asked Siri for "Ralphs grocery and deli" -- no luck!
I think it has something to do with the word "and". The real name uses an ampersand which was removed in the listing for some reason.
If you ask for Ralph's Grocery Deli she finds it but not if you say Grocery "and" Deli.
If the word and is that strong of a parameter they need to fix that.
Ahh ... a noise word should be selectively ignored -- not necessarily be used as a determinant!
The question is when ... What if you wanted to go to the A & P ... or the Big Red S...
I hate to say it but Apple maps is still horrible as is Siri integration. I was in Seattle last week and I needed some grocery items. Siri was a complete failure so I turned to Google which found a nice gourmet grocery very near my hotel. "Ralph's Grocery & Deli". I asked Siri for directions to said grocery and she said she could not find it. This is a fairly large grocery with a giant sign on the front of the building located on a busy corner in the center of downtown Seattle. What is the problem?
What Grocery store in the heart of Downtown Seattle would you be referring to??? I wasn't aware that such a thing existed......
I got completely different results which did not include as many pins as you show but it does show Ralphs.
What about for lower-case grocery. I don't think that should make a difference but that's the only difference I am seeing.
The pins seem to fluctuate depending on where the map is centered and what the zoom is. His zoom is certainly a little different and my experience is that a slight difference in or out in zoom will focus or expand the search. It wouldn't excuse missing pins, but could be the cause. Maps will only drop so many pins even if there are more places. His map being centered different is giving him a couple different pins and both are below 10 pins. I'm sure there is some pretty fuzzy logic about what to show based on relevance, etc.
You know what would be a good "mapping push" for Apple? Actually making map corrections that we users have reported via the in-app reporting feature multiple times. So frustrating.
And it's not 100% Apple's fault since they had purchased this information from multiple leaders in the industry. It just so happens that Google is better and keeping this information up-to-date in comparison to other solutions. It's a data problem, not something that defines of how well those features work when the data is there.
Absolutely! I think you have to have a search engine to make a decent maps app, the reason being that Google has set the bar so high. I have the TomTom app on my iPhone and it's brilliant to use in hire cars when I'm out of coverage or data is simply too expensive (ie abroad). However, its POI database is obviously optimised for an app that keeps all its data on the device so there's no way it can compete with a search engine once you are online. Add in an ability to guess what you actually wanted to search for plus Street View, that shows a real snapshot of the real world at ground level, and you have a mean system.
Someone at Apple built a very nice mapping app and fed it some reasonably decent maps, so it does a comparable job to a conventional SatNav with the nice bonus of satellite photos. No-one at Apple, it seems, compared the system (not just the app) to the state of the art in online mapping/navigation - this is a real example of something Apple are often wrongly accused of: nice device, poor system.
I was in London this week during the Tube (Metro) strike. I never use London buses so I hadn't a clue how to get about (I usually use the Tube). Maps offered to download a public transport app but never managed to actually do it (despite 4G coverage). Google maps just told me which bus to take, where it stopped and when it was coming. I'm afraid that, on the ground, in UK at least, Maps doesn't yet cut it. I guess someone (Scott F?) forgot about Steve Jobs quoting "skate to where the puck is going to be".
Has anyone ever reported a problem to Apple regarding map data and actually seen the problem rectified? I have reported the same issue with a parking garage in downtown Austin at least 6 times since Apple Maps made its debut. Nothing, no change. Still shows the Littlefield Parking Garage located at the Littlefield building, which is incorrect. It is in fact across a street and around a corner. Google has the location right and furthermore has the name of the garage correct which is actually the Littlefield and Scarborough Building Parking Garage. Using Apple Maps, you will not immediately find the parking for that building. You might not find it at all.
Has anyone ever reported a problem to Apple regarding map data and actually seen the problem rectified? I have reported the same issue with a parking garage in downtown Austin at least 6 times since Apple Maps made its debut. Nothing, no change. Still shows the Littlefield Parking Garage located at the Littlefield building, which is incorrect. It is in fact across a street and around a corner. Google has the location right and furthermore has the name of the garage correct which is actually the Littlefield and Scarborough Building Parking Garage. Using Apple Maps, you will not immediately find the parking for that building. You might not find it at all.
I haven't (I've only ever submitted one thing and that was last week) but there is at least one regular here that says that he's reported several things that have been corrected. I seem to recall he said they were getting faster at it. I didn't see the option to get the Notification when it was resolved but I think they mentioned that was working for them.
edit: Just checked, my directions issue hasn't been resolved.
Comments
Siri navigation works very well if I give it a street address (usually obtained from google or directly from the business' website. But if I rely on the Tom-Tom sourced POI database, I find that it is sometimes incomplete or in some cases, inaccurate. I usually send a correction to Apple. It's not terrible though, and I have experienced cases where Apple Maps' POI database is more up-to-date than Google Maps'.
The other issue seems to be that Siri doesn't do as good a job at "fuzzy searches." That means if I spell a business or use particular keywords, I get POI entries that are in fact correct, or "what I really wanted." Google seems to have developed a very forgiving and damn near telepathic fuzzy search capability, and my impression is that this is what causes some Siri/Apple Maps searches against POI to fail or give wrong results.
I wouldn't read too much into that -- math, music, programming (Computer Science) are, actually, quite similar disciplines.
I recall that one of the early programming tools for the IBM 1401 computer (circa 1960) was called FARGO (Fourteen-o-one Automatic Report Generation Operation). It was written by a crazy Hungarian (öt, hat, hét, nyolc) Music major working in the IBM LA (Wilshire Blvd) Data Center. I was working for Lockheed, and programming the 1st commercial 1401 to be installed. I met the author several times, but cannot remember his name... but I remember that he was brilliant, funny and crazy ... just crazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARGO_(programming_language)
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/140x/C24-1464-3_1401_fargo.pdf
Ahh ... a noise word should be selectively ignored -- not necessarily be used as a determinant!
The question is when ... What if you wanted to go to the A & P ... or the Big Red S...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/technology/digital-mapping-may-be-nokias-hidden-jewel.html?_r=0
It certainly would be a fast path to flesh out Apple Maps.
I hate to say it but Apple maps is still horrible as is Siri integration. I was in Seattle last week and I needed some grocery items. Siri was a complete failure so I turned to Google which found a nice gourmet grocery very near my hotel. "Ralph's Grocery & Deli". I asked Siri for directions to said grocery and she said she could not find it. This is a fairly large grocery with a giant sign on the front of the building located on a busy corner in the center of downtown Seattle. What is the problem?
What Grocery store in the heart of Downtown Seattle would you be referring to??? I wasn't aware that such a thing existed......
I got completely different results which did not include as many pins as you show but it does show Ralphs.
What about for lower-case grocery. I don't think that should make a difference but that's the only difference I am seeing.
The pins seem to fluctuate depending on where the map is centered and what the zoom is. His zoom is certainly a little different and my experience is that a slight difference in or out in zoom will focus or expand the search. It wouldn't excuse missing pins, but could be the cause. Maps will only drop so many pins even if there are more places. His map being centered different is giving him a couple different pins and both are below 10 pins. I'm sure there is some pretty fuzzy logic about what to show based on relevance, etc.
And it's not 100% Apple's fault since they had purchased this information from multiple leaders in the industry. It just so happens that Google is better and keeping this information up-to-date in comparison to other solutions. It's a data problem, not something that defines of how well those features work when the data is there.
Absolutely! I think you have to have a search engine to make a decent maps app, the reason being that Google has set the bar so high. I have the TomTom app on my iPhone and it's brilliant to use in hire cars when I'm out of coverage or data is simply too expensive (ie abroad). However, its POI database is obviously optimised for an app that keeps all its data on the device so there's no way it can compete with a search engine once you are online. Add in an ability to guess what you actually wanted to search for plus Street View, that shows a real snapshot of the real world at ground level, and you have a mean system.
Someone at Apple built a very nice mapping app and fed it some reasonably decent maps, so it does a comparable job to a conventional SatNav with the nice bonus of satellite photos. No-one at Apple, it seems, compared the system (not just the app) to the state of the art in online mapping/navigation - this is a real example of something Apple are often wrongly accused of: nice device, poor system.
I was in London this week during the Tube (Metro) strike. I never use London buses so I hadn't a clue how to get about (I usually use the Tube). Maps offered to download a public transport app but never managed to actually do it (despite 4G coverage). Google maps just told me which bus to take, where it stopped and when it was coming. I'm afraid that, on the ground, in UK at least, Maps doesn't yet cut it. I guess someone (Scott F?) forgot about Steve Jobs quoting "skate to where the puck is going to be".
Has anyone ever reported a problem to Apple regarding map data and actually seen the problem rectified? I have reported the same issue with a parking garage in downtown Austin at least 6 times since Apple Maps made its debut. Nothing, no change. Still shows the Littlefield Parking Garage located at the Littlefield building, which is incorrect. It is in fact across a street and around a corner. Google has the location right and furthermore has the name of the garage correct which is actually the Littlefield and Scarborough Building Parking Garage. Using Apple Maps, you will not immediately find the parking for that building. You might not find it at all.
I haven't (I've only ever submitted one thing and that was last week) but there is at least one regular here that says that he's reported several things that have been corrected. I seem to recall he said they were getting faster at it. I didn't see the option to get the Notification when it was resolved but I think they mentioned that was working for them.
edit: Just checked, my directions issue hasn't been resolved.