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Apple Maps Connect

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100 pointsAqua_Geek43 comments

I'm sort of at a loss why this is being upvoted-- am I missing something? I feel like other people are excited about this but I can't for the life of me see why...

This is something that every mapping product should have, no? Really not trying to troll just trying to figure out what I missed...

Apple

It's being upvoted because it's relevant for people in the tech industry to be aware of it, not because it's surprising or technically superior to alternatives.

Basically, it is intended for business to add themselves on Apple Maps aka crowd sourcing. There is also an indoor positioning for businesses that qualify certain criteria. SearchEngineLand has some screenshots of the process to add your business on Apple Maps.

http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self...

I would bet that this is directly related to Apple's 2013 acquisition Locationary -http://allthingsd.com/20130719/apple-acquires-local-data-out...

This is exactly what Dan and Grant built Locationary for, to crowdsource and manage (validation, collisions, conflicts) massive location based datasets.

Locationary's Saturn platform was worldwide, with hundreds of thousands of locations outside the US, so I'm guessing its only a matter of time before Apple opens it up.

This is half-baked. I started the process to add a business, and halfway through I accidentally clicked off of the 'Add Business' popup. It lost all of my info (I thought), so I started over with the 'Add Business' wizard. Once I submitted for approval, I could then see the old entry that I started. But, you can't even delete businesses yet - so now there is a half-filled-out business just sitting there.

This is a necessary facility but I can't see how it will solve Apple's quality problems. Just spot-checking my personal pet peeve, they're still showing a hotel in the middle of Oakland that was torn down several years ago, even though their aerial image, which is also very outdated, shows the site as a vacant lot.

Nobody has incentive to remove their defunct business from Apple's maps using this tool. Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public or their own internal quality people prowling around.

Or even, now that I think about, just some kind of internal cross-checking tool that would fix up problems like this. If they've got a 3-d box model of the alleged thing, and they've got imagery, and there's no way to reconcile the image with the model, someone should look into that.

I have to imagine the smart folks at Apple are aware that businesses close and that they need a way to keep track of that. It's obviously not this particular tool, but there is surely someone working on that problem within Apple.

Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public

Doesn't this already exist? There's a pretty big option after selecting any venue in Apple's Maps app that allows users to report it closed, update the data, that sort of thing. I reported loads of these in my local area shortly after it was release, and they certainly appear to have been updated.

> This is half-baked

Seems it works about as well as the rest of Apple Maps.

Don't know why you got downvoted. It's been more than 2 years now and apple map still doesn't display subway station on correct zoom levels properly. Every time i wonder why i can't orient myself on google map, i realize that's because i'm on apple map.

Still not going to be interested in Apple Maps until they start to update their data. Mercer St in Seattle is one of the main east-west routes between the highway and surface streets, and they still haven't figured out that it is a two-way street (which happened close to a year ago), and that most of Broad St no longer exists. This makes it useless for quite a lot of people here: basically anyone in the Belltown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia neighborhoods.

Report a problem - they take them quite seriously in my experience.

His point is that he shouldn't have to report it. It's a major city. If they are going to make a product that competes at the highest level, they ought to have something in place that looks for, while rare, street changes in major cities.

It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Calculate the percentage of traffic that uses a street in each direction. If more than 10% of it is going in the opposite direction on a one-way street, flag that street for human review.

In my experience, data issues aren't taken seriously at all, before you want to talk about where the responsibility of having accurate data lies.

It took 3-4 months to maybe fix an issue I repeatedly reported about Maps thinking that a location was in the middle of a highway. Yesterday I checked that the suggested route was correct but Maps decided to reroute to the "shortcut" when I was nearing the destination. Depending on how you enter the destination (direct address vs search bar result) it's iffy.

The address is a 6 month old hospital and ER. The first time I routed there to go to the ER my eyes almost popped out of my head at the suggestion of a 2-3 mile detour by getting back on the freeway. Later on I looked at Yelp and saw a reviewer talking about how they took that detour by accident on their way to the ER too. I hope this stupidity didn't end up hurting anyone seriously.

My favorite Apple Maps stupidity, as of a couple of years ago: look up "hospital" while driving northbound on I-405 into Bellevue, WA, and it will give you a massive list of every vet clinic and animal hospital in the area. The nearest actual hospital will be buried in the list somewhere.

Hopefully they've put some new people on this product, post-Scott Forstall. If it's still that badly broken, then it's about time for lawyers to get involved.

Nope. I reported the fact that what's shown as a coffee shop here in Melbourne (Australia) is in fact a parking lot, and has been forever, and couldn't feasibly be a coffee shop under any circumstances due to its location.

Two years ago.

And it's still a coffee shop. Corner of Flinders & Spring, if you're interested.

I did the same for a place in Sydney. It did eventually get updated. But it took a veeeeery long time.

I wonder if address-to-gps mapping is complicated by reversed street directions....

It took over a year to move a local city to the right island. (Langley, WA, really on Whidbey Island was listed on Hat Island, a private island with no roads)

This is actually still not fixed - trying searching for Langely, WA. I've been reporting it since maps came out, at least 5 times now.

Damn. I could have sworn that it had been fixed.

For what it's worth an 18 wheeler carrying gas crashed into an overpass which caused the entire thing to be torn down over here. Overpass has been closed for months yet still remains open on Apple Maps.

I reported the issue to both Google and Apple at the same time. Google had it fixed within hours. Apple has yet to fix it.

Additionally here is a video from the department of transportation showing them blowing the bridge up to prepare for its rebuild[0]. Still the bridge remains open on Apple Maps.

For what it's worth I have 6 open bug reports on iOS submitted around Beta 2 and 3 of iOS 8. All 6 bugs made it to the 8.0 GM release, the 8.0.1 update, and the recent 8.1 release. All tickets remain open and have no acknowledgement from Apple.

I'm convinced Apple has either given up, or is simply ignoring all requests from my account.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZV7YN0XRXQ

What is it? I don't have an Apple ID and have no interest in creating one.

There are 2 links after you sign in.

1) A link that will let you add your business to Apple Maps. "Your updates will be used to improve Apple Maps for our users and partners."

2) A link for a signup called "Indoor". The copy for that page is:

Thank you for your interest in Apple's new indoor positioning technology. We have received an overwhelming response on this service and we are prioritizing our efforts to focus on venues with the following attributes:

* Accessible to the general public

* Annual visitors in excess of 1 million per year

* Availability of complete, accurate, and scaled reference maps

* Enabled with Wi-Fi throughout

* Associated app is authorized by venue owner

Screenshots here: http://searchengineland.com/apple-launches-maps-connect-self...

Bizarre design. Pretty tourist pics and an Apple sign-in. Which Lastpass fills in anyway, so heck, I sign in. And then I am looking at "frosted glass" rectangle (Yosemite desktop effect I assume) that covers the pretty pics and asks if I have a small business.

No, I do not. But there is no way to say that. Nothing to explain what this page would do for me if I did, and nothing to tell me what use it is (or isn't) since I don't. No back-story at all. Why did I sign in?

That was exactly my thought process. After getting to the small business section -> close tab.

You signed in because this was posted on Hacker News. Apple didn't market this page to you. You're obviously not their target audience.

I didn't like the part where it asked me to move the pin to the location but didn't have map tiles for the location!

Seems to be US only for adding addresses.

That's correct - I have just tried to add my german small business. No chance. Why would they limit it to the US? Google's doing the exact same thing without restrictions.

For a while I hoped Apple would let go of their US-centric thinking, but it seems I was wrong.

Edit: I just remembered that with Google Maps, they sent me a postal letter with a code to confirm the address. Maybe they haven't set that up yet, but my point still stands.

Can anyone confirm if the confirmation process involves a postal letter?

BEWARE. When I try log in it says my apple account has been locked out for security reasons. I went and reset the password and successfully logged into a bunch of other apple stuff, but when I tried to log into maps connect it said I was locked out again.

I was able to log in with no issues. YMMV

This usually happens if some other user who has a similar name accidentally enters your address but their own password 3 or more times. If your username is also borland there, it wouldn't surprise me if someone else has something similar.

    Request limit exceeded.
    You have exceeded your page request limit. Please try again later.

    What is your business address?
    United States (with no input option, static text)

Whatever this is doesn't work in Firefox on Android.

next up: Apple Search (spotlight for the browser)

How come this doesn't work on an iPhone?

If the main purpose of this system is to allow small business owners to register their businesses, I just can't imagine that it would be worth anyone's time to either make an app for it or make a mobile web UI. It's something that some people use once and most people use never.

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