Charles Arthur for The Guardian:
Apple has updated its new maps system after police in Mildura, Australia, said a number of people trying to find the town of 30,000 people became hopelessly lost in the bush in scorching temperatures.
Great that this problem was fixed because it was so serious. I hate to think how many others are still out there.
The “other” Mildura is still marked on the map, it just doesn’t turn up in search results. Still potential for confusion.
Less about the seriousness and more they had confirmation of the correct information. That’s how it got fixed in less than a day.
The maps app was marking the centre of the Mildura region. It was not inaccurate and if you also looked out of the windscreen of the car as you drove, you would seethe signs that point to the centre if town.
This is another non-story beat-up probably fed by other phone or mapping device companies.
“I hate to think how many others are still out there.” In the bush?
TomTom is the worst maps provider in the world. why apple partnered up with TomTom in the first place
“I hate to think how many others are still out there.”
thousands 🙂
Two points:
1) According to this: http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/12/australian-police-apple-maps-errors-partially-fixed.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
6 People were affected.
2) Do people really just enter the name of a city for directions? I usually just use an address of a particular location.