Comment by chime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chime | Hacker News Reader

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> But when Maps leads you to the wrong destination, do you feel emotionally hurt by Apple? In my experience, no, you realize the computer messed up and you look at the map and correct it.

If I miss something important because the directions seemed correct overall but were in fact wrong, then not only do I get emotionally hurt, there could be real life damages. Not just missing a meeting or lunch date but imagine being late for your immigration interview or being delayed when visiting a hospital during a loved one's emergency. Sure, you can blame me for not being prepared enough but I TRUST my Google Maps app. I can't recall the last time Google Maps was severely wrong. The worst I've gotten is being directed to the non-public entrance of a gated community when visiting a friend.

I want to trust the iPhone's new Maps app too but I can't yet. So it's not a small "oopsie one wrong turn" issue. Missing an exit around where I live can be a 40 minute detour. If a software upgrade causes me to be late for a once-in-a-lifetime job interview, the least I expect from the CEO is to admit that their software sucks.

I call shenanigans.

Google Maps turn-by-turn has, on several occasions, tried to take me the wrong way down a one way street. You cannot just "TRUST" an app and outsource responsibility for your own punctuality and navigation.

I've never used turn-by-turn - not available on iPhone Google Maps. Like I said, I'm sure you can easily argue that I should be more prepared instead of blaming a piece of technology. In that case, people shouldn't blame their car manufacturer when a new car stalls on the side of the road, their computer makers when the batteries don't hold charge, or web-hosts when the cascading network failures bring down their sites. Failure is not acceptable, neither is poor performance, especially when you pay for it and when it has worked well in the past.

Three years ago, I bought an iPhone primarily for visual voicemail and Google Maps. I upgraded when new phones come out and have been very satisfied. I don't see why I should have to switch to poor GPS software and stop my reliance on a device that cost me more than my laptop.

I understand WHY Apple did it. Still doesn't mean it was the right decision. Hence the very public apology.

I don't think I would ever "trust" a map application from any vendor in the way you describe.

What happens if your battery dies? What happens if you drop your device and it breaks? How are you going to cope? Are you going to miss your 'once-in-a-lifetime' job interview?

The sort of dependency you describe ("emotionally hurt", "life damages") is foreign to me.

I mount my phone in my car and it is connected to car charger constantly. With hands-free bluetooth taking calls and playing music, it is a fantastic setup. It used to be that P(Gmaps being wrong) < P(phone breaking). Now P(Apple maps being wrong) > P(phone breaking).

I drove from FL to UT and back a couple of years ago using only my iPhone for directions. I did not get lost once, even though we went through twenty different inner-cities and camped out in National Parks for weeks. Currently Apple Maps has my house city and my work location wrong. I live in a heavily populated county in Florida (Pinellas) and if my local directions are so wrong, I don't know how wrong the remote destinations will be.

I can understand why you don't need to trust your GPS or care much about directions if you've lived in the area for long or have good public transport. But just like many people rely on cellphones for voice calls, many people rely on GPS that comes with cellphones. I can accept change if it is better, not worse. I'm used to my cellphone GPS being correct. I'm not used to it being wrong.

>The sort of dependency you describe ("emotionally hurt", "life damages") is foreign to me.

Try going somewhere important and missing it because of a Maps error, and you'll sing a different tune. You might not be "emotionally hurt" but you're sure be pissed off.

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