Apple Maps are Life Threatening

[whatthefunk]

Got a kick out of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20663447

Inaccuracies in Apple Maps could be "life-threatening" to motorists in Australia's searing heat, police have warned.

Makes sense. I wonder if Apple will get any lawsuits because of this sort of thing.

[Jonas]

I wouldn't trust a device (google maps, marble etc - or book )that's not a dedicated map device - a sole purpose GPS or a map book I'd trust. I guess the general view of a iPhone user isn't that of a critical thinker

b.r

Jonas

[james147]

I wouldn't trust a device (google maps, marble etc - or book )that's not a dedicated map device - a sole purpose GPS or a map book I'd trust. I guess the general view of a iPhone user isn't that of a critical thinker

Google maps and marble are dedicated map devices... they are both designed to display maps...and often have more up to date information then an old map book you have lying in the car. I have found Google maps on my android to be more accurate/find better routes then a dedicated gps on several occasions.

That said it is a tool, and is only as effective as they user using it... I hate all the stories about how a truck ended up in a river because they blindly followed their gps.. makes me wonder what the driver was thinking.

Although, the Apple 'tool' does seem to be of much lower quality then Googles or the open street data one (which marble uses).

[SteveRiley]

Google maps and marble are dedicated map devices... they are both designed to display maps...and often have more up to date information then an old map book you have lying in the car. I have found Google maps on my android to be more accurate/find better routes then a dedicated gps on several occasions.

Especially since every time you access Google Maps, you get up-to-date results. Anyone here ever calculate the cost of updating the map for your car's built-in GPS? While I don't own such a thing, I hear it's hugely expensive.

[oshunluvr]

My Navigator (irony?) GPS costs about $199 to update to the newest data DVD; roughly equal to the cost of buying a new hand-held GPS.

As far as drivers following their GPSs off the road into a lake or whatever - I call shenanigans. Sounds like urban legend b^!!s&!+ to me...

[Snowhog]

As far as drivers following their GPSs off the road into a lake or whatever - I call shenanigans. Sounds like urban legend b^!!s&!+ to me...

Nah. I heard that the fellow who did that was a Mr. Lem M. Ing.

[oshunluvr]

Lol, good one!

[james147]

As far as drivers following their GPSs off the road into a lake or whatever - I call shenanigans. Sounds like urban legend b^!!s&!+ to me...

You twisted my words I said river, not lake.

There have been people who follow their gps down a road that is sometimes closed due to it crossing a natural river or flood plain that is only impassable when it heavily rains. So most of the time it is fine... but rather then going "o that doesn't look good maby I should try a nother route", they go, "aww the gps tells me to go down there, it cannot possibly be that de... o dam..."

People do it even without the GPS, if there is a road they normally take, and it is partially flooded some people will go down it not thinking how deep can it actually be... its happening here right now in the UK due to our recent floodings (who would have thought a country where it rains all the dam time cannot cope with a little bit more rain then normal).

The stories are not a lie, the problem is that people blame the GPS when they cannot follow common sense simple logic.

(I am starting to hate the words common sense... I see far to many people without it)

[whatthefunk]

I think this situation, with the wrong Apple maps, is different though. It shows a town in the middle of nowhere where there is no town. People probably think that they can stop at the town for gas and supplies, but it is not there. This is 100% Apple maps fault.

[charles052]

I have a Rand McNally GPS and it has lifetime updates. I have no problems with it being up to date. It's pretty accurate most of the time but I still look at my map and the route before I blindly follow a computer.

[whatthefunk]

Nearly a year later, and Apple maps are still putting people in life threatening situations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24246646

An Alaskan airport has closed an aircraft access route because of a flaw with Apple's Maps app.

Fairbanks International Airport told a local newspaper that in the past three weeks two motorists had driven along the taxiway and across one of its runways.

Apple's app directs users along the taxiway but does not specifically tell them to drive on to the runway.

As in the first article, there is definitely a certain amount of user stupidity involved, but Apple maps should probably not be directing people to drive on airplane taxiways.....

[GreyGeek]

Especially since every time you access Google Maps, you get up-to-date results. Anyone here ever calculate the cost of updating the map for your car's built-in GPS? While I don't own such a thing, I hear it's hugely expensive.

I don't have a built-in GPS but back in the late 90's I purchased a Garmin 350 for about $300. I purchased both the street map and the terrain map because I planed on hunting when I retired. The next year I got an ad asking if I wanted to update. It cost me $75 and required that I use an NT or XP and have a high speed Internet connection. The process took TWO hours on a 10Mb/s bandwidth connection. I never upgraded it again. The most recent ad gave an upgrade price of $125. A couple years ago I let my daughter use it when she went to Denver for a week. She said it was still accurate.

The big problem I had with it was that it didn't want to take short cuts unless you forced it by ignoring the voice's recommendations and plowing forward until it finaly plotted a route you wanted to go.

I don't have a smartphone so when I go somewhere in Lincoln that I am not familiar with, or anyplace outside of Lincoln, especiallyf Omaha or KC, I always take my Garmin.

[woodsmoke]

LOL
well, maybe not LOL but anyway, the early Microsith maps that I had on my XP computer gave completely 180 degree wrong results quite often.

This was, i wanted 1800 S Lincoln, and it read 1800 S Lincoln but then said turn left instead of right and one would end up at 1800 N Lincoln.

When i started travelling a lot by car this last year I purchased a new "book" of maps, downloade the paper route from both Google Maps and MapQuest and then compared routes.

QUITE OFTEN, MapQuest would send one on an "iffy" route, such as a "numbered state highway" and sometimes folks those numbered state highways are literally dirt roads! STILL in this day and age ...but anyway...

So now in the car... in the passenger seat I place .. the book on the bottom, MapQuest printout above that, Google Maps with the alternate routes indicated, and then plugged in the phone, fired up Google Maps, did Navigation and then LISTENED to the directions, not watching..... but would also glance at the paper map at critical junctures and had no problems until.....

GoogleMaps updated Navigate and I could not get it to work so I d/ls a "month use" paid app on the Android, in a Wendy's restaurant and proceed on....

Fortunately, Navigate's "no display" problem was fixed a couple of days later.

I realize that the book and paper printouts may seem anally retentive but the first time i went through.Memphis, travelling west to east and was dumped off into surface streets about twenty feet after getting off the bridge i was really shook up that i could end up in west Germany or some place, if one knows about the same situation on the bridge going over the Mississippi at St. Louis, going west to east, if one does not take the "second" exit, about yard and a half past the "first" exit, one ends up in Illinois.... so...

Since I had the paper printout i was able to keep the surface street re-rout in context and safely ended up on the correct road.

so...again, anally retentive i know but it woiks!!

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Nearly a year later, and Apple maps are still putting people in life threatening situations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24246646

From the article...

"They must have been persistent," the airport's assistant manager Angie Spear told the BBC.

"They had to enter the airport property via a motion-activated gate, and afterwards there are many signs, lights and painted markings, first warning that aircraft may share the road and then that drivers should not be there at all.

"They needed to drive over a mile with all this before reaching the runway. But the drivers disregarded all that because they were following the directions given on their iPhones."

The runway the motorists crossed was used by 737 jets among other aircraft. No one was injured.

So, despite a "motion-activated gate," J. Random Driver can maneuver his automobile into the airside of the air traffic system, which is supposed to permit access only to TSA-cleared individuals? WTFF?

[Detonate]

I live in the recently flooded area of Colorado, and at this time I would not trust any of them. We have a lot of bridges and roads washed away and one must be very careful when planning a trip anywhere. Even on routes you have driven many times before. There are some web sites that show closures, but they are not always completely up to date. An example.