(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Â IF YOU HAVE bought the iPhone5 or have upgraded to the new iOS6, beware while navigating your way using new Apple Maps! The much hyped Apple Maps seems to have hit major issues globally with i-users who are facing challenges with serious geographical inaccuracies and missing information.
Google Maps, the most tried and tested software which has so far been a part of the iOS suite of the past, has been phased out in the IOS6 but was extremely popular and offered some great features such as point to point instructions, street and traffic data views, public transit directions etc.
Many i-users who downloaded iOS6 were quick to announce their annoyance on internet forums and Twitter. The world wide web is an unforgiving master as the folks at Apple might have realised by now, looking at a Tumblr blog created by i-users and cynically christened "The Amazing iOS 6 Maps" where many of them posted screen shots of Apple Maps blunders (theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/).
bard is sure to be turning in his grave, with his picturesque birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon shown as a hospital! In other instances, a farm labelled as an airport, Norwegian town of Leknes shown in the Norwegian sea, highways which end in the middle of nowhere, display of locations which have long shut shop and several major landmarks labelled inaccurately or wildly misplaced! Even the 3D "flyover" which was supposed to be a killer feature, is flawed - it occasionally depicts distorted images that make major landmarks and structures look obliterated.
Netherlands-based Tom Tom NV is the service provider to which Apple licenses the Teleatlas geographical data. After the Maps outcry, Tom Tom stood firmly by the quality of its mapping systems and have stated that they provide the same maps to other customers, thereby pointing finger towards the app which Apple has commissioned.
Apple Maps has a number of great features like the turn-by-turn navigation which leverages Siri's voice, a "flyover" that pans around cities and shows 360-degree views of memorials etc.
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said the company launched the new service knowing it was a major initiative. "We are continuously improving it, and as Maps is a cloud-based solution, the more people use it, the better it will get," she said. "We're also working with developers to integrate some of the amazing transit apps in the App Store into iOS Maps. We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better," she added.
Experts feel that Apple gravely misjudged the degree of difficulty and level of complexity and expertise needed to come up with functional map service with intuitive search feature. In a hurry to phase out Google Maps soon, Apple seems to have jumped the gun, thereby compromising its credibility.
Meanwhile, Google seems to be watching the fun on the sidelines and have not indicated whether they would do a Google Maps app for the iOS6. Users of course, can access and download Google Maps using their mobile browsers and get back on the road and this time, they can hope to get to a destination that exists!
Prashant Vadgaonkar (TECH TRONIKS)
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