Apple also squandered maps ... until they didn't.
e.g. https://imgur.com/a/1Y7HviK - what rules govern this half-arsed speckling of road names?
(Apple Originals, their production house, is also an example. A huge bank of original prestige TV, subsidized by iPhones... they're just still finding a way to market it.)
You can imagine, if a business has changed its address, location, and name, that users would appreciate a “Closed” pin for the previous name and location instead of wondering what happened to the business that used to be there.
Nope, no new marker at all.
Has it improved that much? Does anyone remember what I'm talking about?
On the contrary he often seemed undeservedly uncritical when he talked about Google, like going "wow this is so detailed, they must be super geniuses who did this with computers" about something like POI locations they'd actually done by hiring a ton of contractors to do by hand.
Whichever firm Apple's contracting out to review Apple Maps reports isn't doing a good job.
I always call small businesses to ensure they are open. Why trust a small business operator to update Google/Apple in real time when I can spend 20 seconds to press the listed phone number and confirm it?
TIL Apple Business Connect exists to update Apple Maps info: https://businessconnect.apple.com
You can verify this for yourself by looking up a business on Apple Maps and seeing if there’s a “Claim this Place” button.
It is very easy to submit corrections to Apple Maps and they usually accept them within a week.
For me personally, I would much rather use a superior maps app for maps, and use the data harvesting/advertising company’s website as a business directory, or ideally get the hours directly from the business’ website or social media profile since, like I mentioned previously, they often fail to update their info even on the data harvesting website.