PSA: Apple Maps Has Been Down Several Hours, Directions and Search Not Working [Update: Resolved]

Wow, the 3 people that use it will be inconvenienced.

Wow, the 3 people that use it will be inconvenienced.

This joke is still being used?

Apple maps is 1,000x better than it used to be. I don't find Google maps to be much better as a whole and actually prefer the look of Apple Maps to Google Maps.

Wow, the 3 people that use it will be inconvenienced.

I’m one of the few. There may even be 10’s of us. 10’s!

Experienced this just now. Had to use google maps. Eww

Ouch, as if Apple Maps needed more bad PR :D

Ouch, as if Apple Maps needed more bad PR :D

Yeah, big grin there. Let it go already. Apple Maps got some deserved bad PR when it first came out (it was rushed out because their contract with Google was expiring, and Google wanted more creepy data on the users, but the maps were inexcusably bad at first). In the six years since then, Apple Maps has gotten much better, but people (you, and thousands of others) just won't let that old meme die peacefully (hmm, 2012 was also the the year the cruise ship Costa Concordia sank, and there was a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado - do those continue to get brought up every time someone mentions cruise ships or Batman movies?).

I use Apple Maps all the time. If Siri can work out where you want to go (which is most of the time, but once in a while she is an infuriating idiot, and cheerfully decides that it's more likely that you want driving directions to, say, a restaurant or store that's a thousand miles away, rather than a similarly named one across town - still, that's a Siri problem, not a Maps problem)... If Siri can work out where you want to go, then getting the map loaded up is incredibly convenient (one button or "hey Siri"), and Apple's minimalism and artistic yearnings have kept the display easy to parse at a glance while driving, where Google keeps asking themselves, "wouldn't it be even cooler if we could add XYZ to the display?" (and they keep answering "yes"). A number of people have done studies using Apple Maps and Google Maps for lots of trips, and the results I've seen tend towards Apple Maps being a bit more consistent and accurate in arrival times (that is, it gave a later time that actually worked, rather than being overly optimistic).

Folks make a huge deal of getting bad results from Apple Maps. I can't recall the last time it misdirected me, but I do recall the time some months back that Google Maps instructed me to "use any lane of the freeway I was on, to make a U-turn, in order to stay on the freeway I was on". Horrifyingly wrong. Google makes mistakes too. Google also has a habit of not smoothing out the GPS results, so a split second of GPS drift to an adjacent road will result in Google Maps issuing panicky instructions to make sudden left or right turns, which would not only be dangerous but also take you wildly off course. Google Maps is also fond of popping up a modal dialog "helpfully" informing me the place I'm going will close within an hour of my arriving and do I still want to go, or would I rather exit navigation (dammit, I asked for directions because I want to get there as quickly as possible, because they will, indeed, close - why are you delaying me and making me answer questions?).

Apple Maps is not perfect. Google Maps is not perfect. But people keep telling me Apple Maps is "horrible" (based on something they heard, or their experience six years ago, or just because "everybody knows that"), while Google Maps gets a free pass for some reason.