Police concerned with Apple iOS 6 mapping system
vicpolicenews.com.au
vicpolicenews.com.au
I've been to this national park before. It's a beautiful place, but not one you want to get stuck in unprepared. The temperature estimates given by the police are accurate. It gets damn hot out there. The roads are gravel at best, and often just packed dirt or sand. You can very easily get bogged, if you don't know what you are doing. I got to a point where the road became unsuitable for my car, and I had to drive backwards for nearly 100 metres to get out as there was nowhere to turn. I would be concerned for inexperienced drivers with two-wheel-drive vehicles.
Map data is serious business, and this particular case is an egregious error.
He was cremated and he wasn't above screwing up.
That said, Apple should have written a big fat check to a company with much better data. (I still think Apple needed their own mapping and apparently maps improve as more users use them.)
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sat+nav+wrong+turn+site%3A...
When iOS 6 was first available, I hit a link to a restaurant on a web site that opened Maps to the restaurant's supposed location. The location it opened actually had the restaurant's exact, correct, latitude and longitude. But Maps decided it knew better and showed me where it thought the restaurant with that name was, which was about a half mile off. If I removed the name and left the lat/lon then it was correct.
Or just search for "emergency room" and notice how, even today, it still shows tons of medical stuff but no actual emergency rooms.
2. Difficult how? You don't have to perform it on items that can't be automatically searched for. Then you do subtraction, square, check if you're over a kilometer.
I mean as an absolute first step, they should as a minimum report the problem by using the -in-app error notification system...
> Police have contacted Apple in relation to the issue and hope the matter is rectified promptly to ensure the safety of motorists travelling to Mildura.
Pretty stupid comment, really. No need to get uppity, I'm an Australian also.
None of these points had been brought up before, so I'd hardly call that a "zero content response".
Peace, I wasn't throwing stones. And I don't see how it's helpful to any conversation on HN...
The thing I don't get is how/why people keep going until they get stuck. Is there not a point where you think 'this doesn't look like the road to Mildura anymore' ?
Places like that national park should only be entered in a 4x4 and you need to be carrying a water supply, spare fuel and various other bits of equipment.
I used to laugh when I heard stories like this in the news. But in my case it's dark, we're all tired, in an unfamiliar location, and I'm busy looking for sign/landmark/anything to get me pointed in the right direction. And, it managed to snow (this was in May). So when you're doubting yourself and not sure what decisions to make guess who doesn't have that problem? The little 4-inch box sitting on your dashboard who is speaking with absolute authority that you need to make a right in 400-meters.
And that is why people get stuck in the places they do sometimes.
Fortunately, they thought it was hilarious that an Englishman in an 80's Merc should rock up at their launch facility looking rather tired and confused, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this.
A couple of years ago, Google Maps placed Sunrise, FL in Sarasota, FL -- a 200 mile error, so somewhat larger than this one. But not as dangerous.
One of the Apple Maps data sources is GeoNames (geonames.org), a free data source available under a Creative Commons Attribution license and also used with the search on OpenStreetMap. If you search for Mildura at OpenStreetMap (openstreetmap.org) you'll get the correct location of the town, but if you scroll down the GeoNames list you'll also be offered "Mildura Shire" as a search option. Click on that, and the pointer moves to a location similar to the Apple Maps screenshot, about 70km away from the actual town. It seems that's the location that Apple's search has chosen to prioritize, over the actual town.
Mildura Shire is listed in GeoNames as a "second-order administrative division", so it's probably similar to the middle of a county or council area.
This isn't a problem with datasets or incorrect data, it's a problem with how Apple is searching & prioritizing the correct data they already have. Choosing the "town" instead of the "second-order administrative division" would be appropriate here.
For what it's worth, GeoNames already prioritizes the town of Mildura correctly in their search engine.
Many don't line up with GeoNames data, but they do appear to be cases where a town name clashes with the name of a local council area, and Apple Maps have chosen the council area instead. Wanneroo is another example here: http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/post/32038150409/wanner...
It's not limited to Apple maps either - I've seen this on other consumer-grade online mapping services too. Sometimes searching for a specific location/address may default to the city that is in your search term, but if you're not paying attention you can be led astray.
Some of the stretches further East of Mildura run 100-200km without petrol stations and supplies. A number of the national parks in those areas are unmanned and irregularly visited, and there can be long periods even on sealed roads where you might not sight another car in an hour of driving. For one stretch (in and out of Mungo National Park), we stocked up on a lot of extra water as a precaution and notified family of our plans. Having an infant with us, I was very conscious of how quickly the temperature can rise once the air-con is off.
Can easily see how people might blindly follow maps/GPS and end up caught out. Especially when you're relying on cached phone maps data if your connection drops, as it does frequently out there.
When on feet I use one primary eTrex with maps, and always have a cheap secondary hand held GPS without the maps. Plus a paper map. And a set of extra AA batteries.
Google search, maps and other good things you have on a smartphone are nice, but it's way too unreliable to my taste. Battery life is crap, and without a connection the phone is pretty useless, unless you use a mapping app that can download map data. In which case I'd rather use a dedicated mapping device.
EDIT: Obviously all the equipment can't replace common sense. If you see you can't go any further - don't. Even if all your electronic devices tell you otherwise.
I'd never go anywhere risky without a paper map and conventional compass - I actually rarely use a GPS when out on the hill because I want to keep my navigation skills reasonably sharp. I generally only use a GPS device to confirm decisions I've already made in rather "tricky" situations.
Rangers are frustrated by having defunct roads or paths in GPS navigation systems as roads and having no way to get them removed.
I was traveling in Death Valley recently, and the span of "unpaved road" ran from "better than my driveway" to "I could try, but there is a 50-50 chance this rented jeep[1] isn't coming back."
EOM
[1] If you pass through, spend a day, rent a jeep. Don't do that to your own tires. The rental guy will tell you where to go to see the things you want to see.
In Death Valley, with elevations below sea level, a little bit of rain can cause standing water on roads where people don't expect it. Heck, Inyo County throws up "road closed" signs just based on the amount of rain not based on road conditions. Park rangers, county road crews, etc. in remote areas need to cater to those that really don't think about what they are getting themselves into.
Was planning on winging it but figured a recommendation or two might help.
I'm from BC and usually when I'm out in the back country I'll pick up a forest service map, are there similar maps for Death Valley?
http://www.farabeesjeeprentals.com
For maps, the NPS site is your first stop:
http://www.nps.gov/deva/index.htm
The specific back country road map is:
http://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/upload/Backcountry%20R...
If you want specific details and more information, contact me directly. I can give you more detail, depending on your experience/desires.
Opening and closing the container leads to contamination, and consequently it is generally "emergency only" use, vs. something you use routinely (and thus maintain automatically). If you end up having to walk some distance, you can't really take the container comfortably, vs. throwing some bottles into whatever bag or pockets you have.
I like bottles because they fit in cupholders, and it's easy to give out bottles of water to people (e.g. a broken down other car, or someone injured, or drunk people after a party, or whatever). A case of water is $3-5 from Costco.
The energy and environmental cost of ~6-12 cases of water per year isn't really that big a deal. The extra fuel burned by carrying 5kg might be more than the cost of the water bottles.
Best bet is a case of store bought bottled water for convenience, and LIFEBOAT RATED water pouches for actual emergencies.
So: it's not just that people don't keep a bottle of water in their car. Many locals who know they're living in a fire risk area don't have enough kit in their cars - or even the right type of cars - to safely evacuate them and their loved ones for a few days should the fire risk become extreme.
We're not talking about fleeing an incoming fire (almost never a good idea), but simply going someplace else for a day as the fire risk is so great. But, apparently, many people choose not to prepare for such a simple operation.
I think that's a bit of hyperbole: people relying 100% on a GPS/map/whatever when they should have used their heads a bit more is what got the boy in the article killed. Doesn't look safe? You're not prepared? Turn around! Don't go into places like that without a full tank of gas, plenty of water, some food, and if it's cold out, some sleeping bags/blankets.
-- You should never blindly follow consumer-level GPS. Full stop.
Especially in remote areas/national parks/widerness areas. Hate to say this is "common sense", but really it should be. It really has nothing to do with Apple, the iPhone, or iOS. Its quite the opposite, there are errors on all sorts of digitized maps. Most people are not aware or the vintage of the underlying mapping data (pre-digitization) and the variances of map-set data even amonst variant databases of "real maps".
This is a data processing problem. Someone's algorithm screwed up and they didn't bother to have people sanity check the results.
It happens. About 12-13 years ago, a colleague and I were driving around Ohio to document landuse near a freight railroad line. The maps we had (USGS, AAA maps and local street maps) indicated a small town in one location, but when we drove there, there was nothing, no remnants, no anything. When we got back to the office, we looked into it- turns out the town had been wiped out by a flood a few years earlier and the decision was made to disincorporate the town instead of rebuild. That town appeared on maps that were printed after it was abandoned.
Perhaps this doesn't happen anymore with more recent mapping techniques/technology, but it's not unheard of.
As they rushed into the war, the geomatic guys responsible for making maps somehow reused the soviet maps and there was no way to assume those roads and villages didn't actually exist. So they persisted on our maps, up until 2010. Data around main areas would end up getting corrected (patrols would complain about the inaccuracy and the geo guys would update their database). Data in the desert would remain erroneous in many case.
For instance, I could simply look at a village's location on satellite imagery, such as a casual Google Map, and clearly see there was nothing there but maybe some odd looking shapes and shadows due to rock formations. So even hand-crafted maps, in military operation, almost 10 years into the war, can remain inaccurate.
Worst, maps of many military bases in North America are completely wrong as soon as you get off the few main roads listed on it.
I came to rely on satellite imagery whenever you want to go on a somehow non-urban track. It's much more reliable than using a map.
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/6234/%E2%80%98missing%E2%...
http://www.heraldandnews.com/breaking/article_ea780435-4e3a-...
But yeah, your original point still stands: you should always use common sense when following GPS. In this case, it would be common sense to assume that the road to a major regional town wouldn't take you into back streets of a national park...
Seems to happen even with whole islands: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/where-did-i...
If it were labeled something like, "novelty product, not to be used for actual navigation", I could see that, but GPS manufacturers position their systems as ones you should actually use for navigation.
-- This is a great point.
I'd almost prefer this to having to click the damn button/s evertime. =D It would also reduce the dissapointment when finding out how crap many (even expensive) maps are in the field. I know know to cross reference (especially topo's), pick the best ones, and cary a spare to diversify just in case.
Perhaps a lawyer will chime in, but on the technical point: its pretty common for people selling product X to limit their exposure to $=price of X (max). So this technique (a limitation of liability resulting from <use> of the product beyond replacement) is fairly common. I don't think magellan wants to get sued when your galleon of gold bullion gets lost at sea...etc. That kind of thing.
GPS navigation devices and software could be marketed "geography teaching tools" or something like that "not for navigation"
Frankly, I don't understand Apple's decision in the context of the idea of being customer-focused. In other words, if you, as an organization, make decisions for the benefit of your customers --or, at the very least not to their detriment-- how can you justify pushing out Maps and not keeping Google Maps on there?
OK, I get it. It would have cost more. A lot more. Fine. That's your problem. Pay Google for another five years exactly because you care about your customers. At the same time, put out your own Maps app and --funny enough-- compete on the merits of the app, not the hype.
If in five years you can't turn Maps into an app that people will choose over Google Maps, then, well, why are you in the mapping business in the first place?
Anyone know how much it would've cost to keep google maps?
Just two years ago I had Google Maps send me a few miles in the wrong direction and plant me in the middle of an unfinished housing development when I wanted to go to a shopping mall. It was a mistake, I reported it, and it was eventually fixed. It's not as bad as getting stranded in the middle of a national park, but
a) It should be obvious that the middle of a national park isn't where a town is supposed to be, and
b) If it's not obvious because you are a tourist, maybe you shouldn't be blindly trusting your Maps app and only having enough gas to make it to town?
That's going to have real long-term consequences I'm not sure Apple even understands yet. For instance look at how quickly the tech crowd embraced Google now on the iPhone? The hole in Apple's armor makes it easier for people to accept that other things are also better. These things really can snowball, and when you're protecting a luxury brand that's a really serious issue.
You simply can't screw up what might be the most universally used feature (maps) on the entire phone. It's the one thing, next to maybe the dialer and messaging, that people interact with more than anything else. Screwing that up makes all of your polish, usability, and "coolness" irrelevant. Instead of arrogantly shoving crap out the door and expecting everyone to love it just because, maybe that's the time to invest that money and do the quality control you have to do to make it work. Hire 10,000 people to drive all over the world making sure you got it right. Google does something close to that (those Google maps cars improve the accuracy of their data ten-fold), and if you want to compete you should too.
Now you have to put the genie back in the bottle and hope the damage isn't long-lasting. It's probably going to be even more expensive and I'm not sure you can.
You can't expect any company to hire 10,000 people to work N amount of hours/day/years just so you can polish your app 5% more when that same polish can come from users submitting error reports. That's just nonsense.
Just to clarify, these people weren't driving into the desert, just into a town. The GPS took them 70 kilometres away and left them in a position unable to find a way out.
I'm at the point where I'm seriously considering going the Android route, especially since I think Google's OS and services are improving much more rapidly than Apple's.
A customer-centric chief obsessing about software quality, with $70bn sitting in offshore banks, would probably make a different one.
A very popular dining and shopping center in Atlanta shows up erroneously on my quiet side street. I flag down people in cars when I see they're confused and tell them about how to report the errors. Nobody knows it's there. 1.5 months of doing this and it's still not fixed.
In contrast when I reported my address at the wrong end of the street ( over a year ago ) Google fixed it in a week AND sent me a confirmation email. I want my Google maps back on iOS6!
Look at other companies that does map, google map started out using Tele Atlas, NavTeq serves yahoo, bing and mapquest. Let's face it, spatial data cost money to collect and even more costly to update/maintain. Nevteq and Tele Atlas are gigantic companies for serving basic spatial data for a reason.
I guess apple didn't do sufficient data QA before saying, "hell yeah we are going with OSM where every big player is going with commercial data."
Without a solid baseline data, any fancy pants software development would just evaporate in air.
I have to say though, the GUI for apple map and functionality has very high usability. Apple just need to adapt a different mindset when dealing with data-dependent applications.
(disclaimer: I am a PhD student in Geography with CS background, did my share of processing spatial data for the last 8 years)
If we keep doing disclaimers wrong like this nobody will ever pay them any attention.
Is Apple using OSM? I thought they were using TomTom?
Do you have this on good authority? (seeing your disclaimer and all) Because the way I understood it, they have all the data from TomTom and that seems to work fine - so it seems the problem is definitely not the data but what they are doing with it...? In this case some people in here stated it is an issue with search priorities, the phone suggests a different destination with a very similar name.
At least this story is hitting the HN front page. Because the park rangers were hitting Google's traditionally deaf customer service ears (which must have been super-frustrating because people had already died and/or gotten into life-threatening situations).
I lost the link to that article, sorry. If I happen upon it, I'll post it here.
On the one hand I suppose it's people's own fault for venturing into dangerous terrain unprepared. But on the other hand, what's the use of having GPS Maps when you don't know when it's trustworthy or not? Great effort by OpenStreetMap (read below) of cross-checking their own maps for consistency with competitor maps, is at least a step in the right direction.
All-in-all a stressful experience
He was in pain, but not anything I'd consider taking the ambulance for (and the driving distance from his school to the emergency room is ~2-3 km). I shouldn't have gotten my car, and instead just have dumped him into the taxi. Norway covers a share of the taxi fare when it's for medical reasons.
I'm not saying you should have known where it is or anything like that, mind you.
The bottom line is if you're driving into a wilderness area like a national park, you should not be depending on your cell phone for your own safety. One of the first things they tell you if you read the pamphlet outside of a hiking area is: do not depend on you cell phone.
So sure, the map data is inaccurate. The more dangerous thing about this is that your battery has a finite lifespan. Also your signal is not guaranteed.
You need to bring water, you need to bring supplies. You need to bring warm clothing.
Seriously.
Mildura isn't a wilderness area, it's just a town in regional Victoria.
The point is that this thing is taking people saying they want to go to Mildura (which is a town, not a wilderness area or a national park) and sending them into a national park with no infrastructure.
These aren't people who have decided to "go hiking", they are just visiting a regional town centre.
These people getting lost are not intending to drive "into a wilderness area like a national park", but were led into one by mistaken data.
Yes, you could presume that the signs you were going the wrong way might be self evident after a little while, but if someone had literally no idea where Mildura was then they could easily end up in the middle of this national park assuming their iPhone was simply taking them the long way 'round. As they have no other choice they keep following the maps until they get to where they have been directed, only to find themselves in the middle of nowhere with no help and no reception.
This is a serious problem, and the map data needs to be fixed.
5 different groups of people managed to not even have a tiny bit of skepticism?
Sydney is very well known and signposted city, but for Mildura, a town of just over 30000 people in regional Victoria, the fact that it is not as well known and is more remote lends credibility to the idea that unknowing people who have come to rely on technology (and understandably so, technology is great!) might be misled by rogue data.
- sidenote - We constantly rely on technology, and come to depend on it. This is a good thing. Only when technology is unreliable do we need to carry 'backups'. It would be weird to carry a pencil around just in case your pen broke (edit: in most situations, that is; going into space is not a normal situation, so it would not be weird to carry a pencil in addition to a pen there). Digital maps are not yet at their pinnacle of development, nor are they completely reliable, however that is no reason not to use them exclusively if they prove reliable enough for the job at hand.
The town was itself was placed in the wrong place. These people could easily have thought they were going in the right direction, and if they had concerns about the roads they were taking what choices would they have?
They could have studied the map. Maybe this is a 'scenic route' and there were better roads to take that the app just missed? If they looked at the map they might have been able to figure out a better way to go. In any case, the data was wrong, so they still wouldn't get to the correct location! If they were very clever, they might note the confluence of highways where the town actually lies, and navigate themselves there.
They might have asked someone for directions, but this was next to impossible where they were, especially as there was no mobile reception.
Perhaps they took a wrong turn, so they might decide to turn around and go back. Go back where? Surely if they just keep going the way the map says they will get to the right place? The only evidence against going the way that they were was that it was through a national park, and even that is not unheard of. In fact, there are a number of highways that go through national parks.
The very fact that (at least) 5 separate groups have been waylaid speaks to the importance of this issue.
FYI, when you travel make sure to bring extra clothes, water and food. Australia is a massive land mass and it is hard to fathom for people form a lot of countries that it can be a very harsh place for the unprepared.
http://blog.australian-native.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009...
Never have a single point of failure. A paper map or extra GPS at the bare minimum.
Though I'll admit I've never used turn by turn for that, rather just got the broad strokes. Is this a problem with turn by turn directions, or is Mildura actually in the wrong place on ios6 maps?
EDIT: Took a look, seems like Mildura is actually marked at the wrong location, which is significantly worse imo.
Here's the road you should be taking: http://goo.gl/maps/QbZ88
And this is the kind of road that Apple's maps send you down: http://goo.gl/maps/CdCjh
I've started carrying around my Nexus 7 in addition to my iphone just because of maps.
If iOS maps isn't seriously fixed by the time my contract is out, there's no way I'd by another iphone.
There is NO evidence that Apple is blocking it from the store.
Getting stuck in a bad part of a city, getting lost on some unpaved road at night in a national park, is many people's nightmare. At this point many don't even carry paper maps or if they did they probably couldn't use it effectively.
It's a maps app, not a weather reporting app.
The important point to note though, is that independent of the quality of the map in your GPS, there is plenty of indication along the road. Turn by turn indication is great, but indication on the road itself should take precedence.
I don't know what makes somebody follow blindly a magical widget in a way they would never follow local people giving them indication. ( I had quite often the situation of friends following the GPS instead of my indication, despite having lived in the area for 30+ years. )
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/travel/travel-news/taking-th...
I recently used Apple Maps to roadtrip through Germany and Austria, and it worked without a single hiccup. This summer I had the beta running in Switzerland and it was fine.
In the darker corners of Europe, well, I'll just say in Belgrade iOS maps literally had nothing but a pin. No streets at all. So it seems wildly dependent on where you are.
A buddy and I travel the back country of Death Valley regularly and the stories we have heard, the vehicles we have seen trying to go places they shouldn't, etc. are just amazing. At a certain point, however, common sense and personal responsibility need to be considered.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/15/google-map-...
Furthermore, the transit integration is so broken as to be useless. Asking for a route from Kirkland to the Seattle federal building gives you a bus route to downtown Kirkland (the post office, actually). The POIs in that area are AFU.
What if the iphone battery dies, even with super accurate maps?
I don't have a cellphone plan so I carry paper maps, I guess I am old and old fashioned.
I think it's because I've done long journeys powered by digital maps but I always made sure that there was an agreement level between two, or that it looked sane on a tried and tested road map. As good as they've gotten for the most part they're still prone to bugs, or to lose signal. Paper maps are a car essential still.
[1] http://www.usaprepares.com/survival/husband-died-just-six-mi...
Google seem to have already started down this path with the Map Maker functionality. http://www.google.com.au/mapmaker
It's been 1.5 months since we've had everyone we can think of submit the problem. Still not fixed.
What does it take for Apple to actually "fix" an incorrect pin location and label?
Telephone poles are also a good guide if I can see them.
In which case you need to be aware that GPS is generally only accurate to within tens of meters (sometimes worse), and your satnav will pin you to to the road it thinks you should be on, even if your computed position disagrees (as you will have noticed if you've ever taken a different route to that which your satnav is recommending).
It's far worse than that in my region most roads in my area are wrong, I tried to submit the errors to the two largest mapping companies but no dice.
The errors I mentioned are at least five years old and still have not been corrected yet!
Explication mine.
About the same area as England, Wales and Scotland.
Also slightly larger than the "Small American city" of Utah.
When you see a news article about "Police say [whatever]" it is assumed that a particular organization is saying it. There isn't a global organization of police for it to be confused with.
I'm aware of the 80 char limit on subject lines, and I realise that sometimes information is left out.
Your suggestion is 28 characters more than "Police ".
Australian Police is infinitely less misleading and more accurate than simply saying 'police'. I have to assume all of these downvotes I've received are from Australians or other foreigners making some kind of anti-American point. The fact remains - this is a US owned website and a topic about a US company. Saying 'Police' gives the impression it is American police - when it isn't.
HN has an international audience. Assuming that $THING defaults to $US_VERSION_OF_THING is suboptimal. It's silly to do it here, it's silly to do it with dates; it's silly to do it with anything.
If you'd said that explicit declaration of nationality is better because it makes things clearer and easier to grok then you'd have got upvotes. But because you assumed US police and attacked the title as link baity you got downvotes.