If your home in Alban, Ontario has been relocated to Albany Pizza, then you’re probably using iOS 6 Maps.
The new Apple Maps definitely do not accurately represent Ontario and programmer James Matheson has the data to prove it.
Using programming tools, Matheson compiled the data from an Apple Map of Ontario and compared it with an official list of towns and cities in the province. Of the 2028 locations that were searched, Apple Maps failed to locate 688 of them and another 551 were clearly incorrect, plotting locations in the wrong country in some cases. Of those remaining, 389 were close, but, no cigar; these locations sometimes involved driving off a cliff to find your destination. Finally, out of the more than 2000 cities and towns that were compared, only 400 were actually correct.
“Apple basically screwed over all iPhone users in Canada this time around,” says Matheson.
On his website, Matheson offers a list of solutions to Apple’s “three-fold” problem. I have summarized them here:
- Datamine government maps
- Ditch the cloud
- Make the “Report a Problem” interface easier to use
Matheson continues to update his website with changes and news from Apple. All of his comparison data is listed at the bottom of the page.
If you’re stuck looking for your own solution, Apple has recently placed a large “Find maps for your iPhone” button in their app store.
____
Mollie Paige is an intern writing for the Toronto Standard. You can follow her on twitter @MolliePB
For more, follow us on Twitter @TorontoStandard and subscribe to our newsletter.
