Maptastrophe

[snousle]

I'm a real map freak - as a kid, I would sit for hours looking at various maps, especially topo and hydrographic maps.

The Apple map thing was pretty exciting at first, since seems that the rendering engine is a lot more sophisticated than what Google is using, and I love the new typography and how it smoothly transitions from one scale to another. The font they use takes me right back to elementary school, back in the days when Canada was pink - cuz we're all socialists, dontcha know - and Burma, Ceylon, and Zaire were still known by their proper colonial names.

But the errors! Holy smokes. First one I found was in trying to get to the Pittsburgh airport - fortunately Scotty recognized that it was routing us into the cargo portal, which is several miles from the passenger area. That must be real interesting, having thousands of people showing up there unawares.

If you type in "Dulles Airport", doesn't even know where it is. I mean, this is one of the most important airports in the country. WTF?

I wonder how Steve Jobs would have handled this? It's like he was the only person there with any common sense. It will be interesting to see if they ever recover from this blunder, it sure is a big one. I have no idea how you go about correcting a map like that, the fixes must number in the hundreds of thousands. Glad it's not my project, I'd be having a nervous breakdown right about now.

Comments

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

Funny thing is how the Apple freaks go into one of two camps - embarassed and quiet. or a few are going the 'oh it's going to be perfect and you Android/Google people are just jealous! We just have to fix it ourselves'.

The latter is odd; because it was one of the main criticisms of Android (it's for geeks who tinker, you have to fix things, etc). So Apple is suggesting (or was, not heard the new 'apology') that it's users fix the maps via crowdsourcing. A strange suggestion for a device i would say has been sold as a 'plug n' play' 'I don't care about the innards' type device to a mostly non-tech crowd.

So unsurprisingly Android/Google people are having fun pointing these inconsistencies out, myself included. But I was amazed when it was announced they were making their own maos, having followed Google making all these mistakes (but fairly quietly before they created the mobile mapping marker) it takes years to get it right.

The errors are funny though, it seems they did what Wikipedia did - start with the 1908 Encyclopaedia Britannica as a base, but in this case use old map data. Problem is things and places move far quickly, so we've had tube stations and train stations re-opened that closed decades ago, and places re-named to old names, or even pre-WW2 names in Czechosolvakia which causes more than irritation.

The maps have lost the biggest train station in the world in Tokyo, and the Park Hyatt for instance, and also can't find Paddington and as you say more worryingly airports in the wrong place or not found - apparently it also wrongly identified Sydney airport and 'lost' the international airport. That might sound minor, but stuff like that loses flights if you're in a hurry and can't recheck. Wrongly identifying hospitals though could be a life/death matter.

And crowdsourcing maps? *shudder*. You can't crowdsource transport info, and even stuff like Yelp has had problems with rivals trying to stuff each others reviews...I just don't think crowd-sourced maps work.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

In Chicago, they lost the Hancock and restored Meigs Field to us, but the most amusing error I've seen so far is that they misplaced the Apple Store on the Mag Mile.

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

Sounds nasty. Ever played with WikiMapia.org?

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

I have heard that they moved the Washington Monument across the street.

[albear-garni.livejournal.com]

I downloaded the google "shortcut" "app." It's almost like old times! Hint - go to google in Safari, click on maps, and a window should pop up asking if you want to install it. The app takes you directly to the google maps web site, with most of the same features as before)

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

The font they use takes me right back to elementary school, back in the days when Canada was pink - cuz we're all socialists, dontcha know - and Burma, Ceylon, and Zaire were still known by their proper colonial names.

lol ... I had to check my atlasi? or is that atlases? ... anyway in the older ones Canada is pink, but then they switched to yellow... 'cause Canadians are all chicken, but probably still socialists so maybe Canada should be orange to cover both chicken and socialism

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

The big map of Canada we had in school in Canada had the U.S. as white with no details. I remember the teacher joking that's because all they get is snow down there. Also there were chocolate bars floating in Baffin Bay and the Beaufort Sea because the maps were sponsored by Cadbury.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

lol, gotta love a teacher with a sense of humor.
Hummm cold chocolate bars ... to they harvest them? ; )