I won’t use it now because of this.
My personal feeling is the extents of the map window should be immutable and sacrosanct.
Because in that case I have sympathy for your plight, but would still like to ask:
Are you actually trying to make that argument by pointing out how counter-intuitive a story is you just made up?
As to the actual problem: It is both well known and not as easy as some low-level interns think: Fundamentally, Maps only does this when it finds absolutely nothing relevant at the user's location–these are almost always (really bad) typos.
In that case, the only alternative is to completely ignore the far-away match, frustrating users' #1 expectation of how a search engine works. Or to present the user with some dialog "oh but that's far away!"
The latter doesn't help anybody, because the user can return with the back button, just as easily as by declining the notification. Yet the user who actually intended the search gets inconvenienced.
No, he is making what is called an "assumption" about what might have transpired.
He's not using the made up story as a chain in some larger argument.
Strangely, it's you who makes up a whole argument that the parent supposedly implied: "Are you saying that we have it all backwards, and that the wrong people get promoted, while the smart prolem-solvers get stuck in low level position and ignored?".
In fact the parent doesn't make any such argument, just asks "how this made it past QA" -- and then makes an guess/assumption about what could have transpired.
>In that case, the only alternative is to completely ignore the far-away match, frustrating users' #1 expectation of how a search engine works. Or to present the user with some dialog "oh but that's far away!"
Assuming a user wanting to find a POI thousands of miles away from where they are is rare, then the latter would be better than wasting their time, and changing their selected area on the map, with an irrelevant result.
They only care if a feature gives them a good experience, or distracts them with nonsense.
This should probably be the Number 1 rule in UX camp. No one cares if you're a wizard. No one cares if you've perfected the ultimate software moonshot, or if your architecture is a twinkling diamond of executable and perfectly maintainable perfection.
They only care that your product works and makes life easy for them.
If it doesn't, it's somewhere on a scale between irritating and crap. They either won't use it, or - if they have no choice - they'll use it and hate it.
Let's hear you explain away Apple maps' 2012 snafu where they f-ed it up so badly that they dropped the NYC subway stops. Was that "not as easy as it sounded" to keep the product features that worked fine in a previous release? Could they just "hit the back button" and use the old maps that, you know, worked ?
The problem is with arrogant product managers that don't give 2 fucks about the UX. "Oh they don't need the subway stops, I mean come on, we have a release schedule to make or I won't get my bonus!" "Their time is ok to waste, they can just hit the back button!"
IMO The UX of apple maps is better than google maps (exempting biking directions)
Apple Maps doesn't always find the fastest route, but at least I can understand what it's saying.
Personally I won't use Apple Maps while driving, for example, because Google Maps lane hints provide a much better experience - although when I was out of the UK recently, I wad disappointed by how poor Google's routing was on some journeys.
But even if it were true - what's the point of a good UI if it displays bad data?
I suspect "bad data" is both a little subjective and, as I mentioned in another comment, very location dependent. It's quite possible that one of the reasons Apple is starting to build their own location data set is because relying on other providers leads hasn't worked out so well for them outside the US. (Although I suspect they're going to still be dependent on those providers for years to come.)
Or you might be using the osm.org website which itself uses 3rd party search applications.
The search on the project website is designed to find data and is not designed to be a competitor for google maps.