Mikey Campbell
As Apple continues to refine its in-house mapping and navigation services, business owners are reportedly receiving phone calls from Maps team representatives looking to resolve user-submitted data discrepancies.
According to a post on Reddit, Apple's Maps team is reaching out to business owners to clarify reports of incorrect address data assumedly sent in through the Maps app's "Report a Problem" feature.
As noted by Reddit user swb1192:
A 408 number called me from Apple Maps and let me know that a user reported my business address as incorrect. They still had my old address that was listed on Yelp so I gave them the new one. I asked when I should expect it to be updated on Apple Maps and the lady said, "We don't have an exact timeline for updates but it should be within the next week."
It appears that Apple pulled from Yelp awhile ago but it doesn't actually sync the addresses and other information.
Still couldn't believe that they called me to fix up the listing - how awesome.
The "408" area code covers Cupertino, Calif., along with neighboring cities in the counties of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz.
Although the Maps team appears to be contacting individual businesses, it is unclear if Apple is also making calls to other points of interest like schools and apartment buildings as reports affirming such action have not yet surfaced.
Also unknown is the process by which Apple prioritizes the "Report a Problem" corrections. It can be assumed that the Maps team receives a large volume of correction requests per day considering the app has been deployed worldwide and is now available on OS X as of 10.9 Mavericks. If the Reddit user is to be believed, Apple is achieving a quick turnaround of one week for each reported incident.
The information jibes with a report last week that claimed Apple is now updating the Maps app with user-generated corrections on a daily basis.
Since its 2012 introduction in iOS 6, the Maps service has endured a barrage of criticism over inaccurate map data, The rollout was so ill received that it prompted Apple CEO Tim Cook to issue a formal apology to customers and was said to be play a role in the ousting of former iOS chief Scott Forstall.
Following the rocky start, Apple acquired a number of mapping and navigation companies including Embark, HopStop, Broadmap, Locationary, and Spotsetter to bolster Maps' feature set. Despite its efforts, Apple's Maps app still suffers from inaccuracies and lacks functions like built-in public transit directions that have long been available through competing services, namely Google Maps.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
79 Comments
Why would it Jibe? If they are doing updates every day It may take a week for a particular one to get updated? Doesn't mean to say that they are not updating every day.
Apple's Map app is bereft of places. It seems they do pull most of their info from Yelp. But , I think there should be a simple and clear path to adding and fixing data directly within zither Map app.
About time. The Yelp POI location data has been nothing short of an embarrassment, and the decision to rely on it was disgraceful. If Apple wants to be in the map business (and it seems they do) then they need to belly up to the bar and do a full court press on their POI data. It's time to them take some accountability for this and get it fixed.
I have tried to tell the "map team" that the Baltic sea (for the Geography challenged that is the sea between Sweden and Finland)...
...is placed on the WRONG SIDE OF SWEDEN!
That is both tragic, and Hilarious.
On every Swedish Forum/Comments etc when sb says "Apple Maps has become better..." the reply is always, from the H8terclub:
- Yes, and still the entire Baltic sea (Östersjön) is placed along the wrog coast... yada yada yada.
Reported this probably 10 times, over YEARS.
[quote name="John.B" url="/t/181336/apples-maps-team-calling-businesses-to-resolve-incorrect-address-data#post_2563120"]About time. The Yelp POI location data has been nothing short of an embarrassment, and the decision to rely on it was disgraceful. If Apple wants to be in the map business (and it seems they do) then they need to belly up to the bar and do a full court press on their POI data. It's time to them take some accountability for this and get it fixed.[/quote] Agreed. Apple has to do something to bolster their POI data. Maps are relatively easy. Most roads have been around for decades... but even newer roads are listed somewhere. Every state has a department of transportation... so they should know the status of every road. I would imagine other countries have similar departments. POI data is a little more challenging. But hell... can't they use data from YellowPages.com or something? Is there not one place that has the names, correct addresses and phone numbers of every business in a particular city? It sounds like Apple went to Yelp for information... but it resulted in lots of wrong information. Was Yelp the only source they used? I'm shocked that we live in a time where information is available everywhere... yet they can't seem to find the correct information for businesses. Every business pays taxes... their names, addresses and phone numbers should be listed there. Why is there no other source that has this information?