Media Release or Bug Report?

Ah Apple maps, ever the source of a good sensationalist headline. This time the Victorian police have warned people not to use Apple Maps to get to Mildura. This is definitely a bug with Apple maps, no question it should be and has been fixed.  What’s interesting though is that the Victorian police thought it would be easier to attempt to notify every iOS 6 user about the problem via the media and get them to use an alternate mapping application than it would be to call Apple and get them to fix the source data.

Users complaining publicly instead of being constructive and reporting the problem to the manufacturer certainly isn’t new, but in the age of web services its more self-defeating than ever.  Apple can fix the problem in one place and its fixed for every user, surely the Victorian police have a better way of getting in touch with Apple than through the media?

And lets not even start asking why anyone would blindly follow GPS directions into the Australia bush despite the fact that they are looking at a satellite photo that clearly shows there isn’t a town there.

The power of user feedback and cloud hosted data was very clear with my recent experience of using Apple maps – on the way to my destination was some road works which diverted the road and replaced a round about with a set of lights. Despite the fact that the roadworks were actually still in progress, Apple maps gave exactly correct instructions for the new layout. Meanwhile my TomTom GPS will still think there’s a round about there for up to another year and then require me to pay nearly $100 to get the updated maps. It wasn’t too long ago that I’d be looking up a book of maps to get my outdated driving instructions (and then have to memorise it or stop regularly to have another look).

Makes you realise what an incredible time we live in.