Hacker News Reader

Comment by traceroute66 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think its 100% fair to blame Apple for the business metadata - and I'm sure they're aware of it and working on it.

The opening times data on Google comes from business owners who create an account on Google and then create a Business Profile (in rare cases, Google scrapes it from the website but it needs to be presented in a specific machine readable form[1] which, let's be honest, most websites do not, especially small businesses).

Apple probably just need to spread the word more that they have an equivalent mechanism in place.[2]

[1]https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structure... [2] https://register.apple.com/placesonmaps/

View on HN

Google maps opening hours are also frequently wrong, at least have been in pandemic time

I neither go by Apple Maps or Google Maps for restaurant opening times in my area. A lot of them still have their pre-pandemic times posted online and most simply don’t have the staff to stay open from 12p-1am.

That’s my experience as well. Even pre-pandemic.

The same in Canada -- the hours and even phone numbers are wrong frequently enough that it makes them entirely untrustworthy and thus ignored. I just search for the business website to find those sorts of details, and it isn't something I expect from a mapping product.

Google can be wrong too, of course, but it’s usually accurate in my experience while the examples I gave for Apple Maps were not selective. The places I check have the time wrong on Apple Maps in nearly all cases - even the Colosseum is wrong!

If they are taking this data from Yelp and Foursquare then it’s not surprising if it’s low quality (they are linked in reviews and the only places I see with the same incorrect hours). Presumably it’s different in the US, but Google and TripAdvisor are the only services with traction here and therefore the only ones likely to be maintained by the actual business.

Yes, it’s difficult, but they’re not going to successfully compete with Google Maps until they have good business metadata. They need to find a way.

I don’t personally know anyone who uses Apple Maps in Italy, and the low usage is presumably why so many businesses ignore it.

>I don’t personally know anyone who uses Apple Maps in Italy,

tourists?

on edit: with money, because have the expensive phones presumably.

Maybe. I just meant that of the iPhone users I know here, they all using Google Maps.

Doesn’t Google augment it’s opening hours these days using Duplex?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com