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Apple now updating Maps data every day with user-submitted corrections

When Apple launched its first-party mapping software alongside iOS 6, users immediately discovered that there were a significant number of issues with the map data. Apple eventually issued an apology and said that the release was not up to the company’s standards. A new Reddit post today seems it point to the fact that Apple is finally ready to start making serious changes to how it corrects Maps data.

Ever since the app debuted, it has had an option to report incorrect POI data to Apple. Until recently, however, it seemed that those reports were simply going to an unmonitored inbox to make users feel like they’d done something to help.

Just over a week ago, Reddit user “heyyoudvd” noticed that a number of incorrect data points in his area had been corrected—more than had ever been fixed in the previous two years, and many of which he had reported. Now “heyyoudvd” says he’s noticed an even bigger change…

According to a new post from the Redditor, the Maps application recently started downloading new, corrected POI data once a week. Now the application checks for this new information every single day. The updates are pushed to iOS devices at 3 AM eastern time (midnight in Cupertino).

It seems that in the past few weeks, Apple has made a serious push toward clearing up outstanding reports and fixing issues quickly once they’re reported.

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Comments

  1. brianmatute - 10 years ago

    Well you can see a better and improved maps into Find my iPhone section from iCloud.com

    • oreomuncher - 10 years ago

      Baffles me why they’re using it online, but not natively in the os. Haven’t got it web-developed yet maybe?

      • brianmatute - 10 years ago

        Maybe.. I think they will publish new maps like a developments with new iPhone

    • Cody Woodward - 10 years ago

      Wow the error I keep reporting where they have omitted an entire highway thats been there for like 6 months now is online. I wonder when they’ll push that set of maps to the iOS and OS X maps?

      • Tim Jr. - 10 years ago

        Locations are easy.. just change of a data point on and existing road or an name change to an existing road..

        Adding new roads/highways, thats harder and I think they rely on TomTom data to provide that data…

    • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 10 years ago

      I can’t tell if you are trolling. It says “map data copyright 2014 google” in the lower right

    • I think iCloud find my iPhone is using Google maps still…certainly is for me in the UK.

  2. dugbug - 10 years ago

    Nice

  3. Peter Ernst Kortge - 10 years ago

    Maps app on OS X has also fixed some long outstanding errors on Australian Maps. I’d been repeatedly advising them of a non-existent local Railway station every since Maps came out and it has finally been removed (was still showing just few days back) :-)

  4. crichton007 - 10 years ago

    The maps are still out of date out where I live. I posted a missing road a few months back; a road that has been in existence for well over a year now and it’s still not there. I’ll believe it when I see it but I have a hard time believing that to be more accurate that Apple needs a newer application on iOS and OS X. Between this, the Podcasts app and iPhoto (for iOS and OS X) I’ve stopped believing that 100% of what Apple makes will be good.

  5. I have just submitted three POI corrections for my town. Let’s see in week if there will be any changes…

  6. Rick (@dunzkap) - 10 years ago

    The building I work at has been incorrectly identified in Apple Maps for years. I sent Google the information along with a picture of the building showing its address. They responded quickly and notified me when it was fixed on Google Maps. I sent multiple reports to Apple, at least 6 months ago, only got 1 response, and nothing has been done. I love my iPhone, but its ridiculous that I cant show anyone how apple maps works when I drive to work because the information is wrong. The Google Maps team is awesome, very professional. The latest guy in charge of Apple Maps should be fired.

  7. Seems Apple fixed the dreaded “Getting directions across the Storebælt bridge”-syndrome.

    Previously, when routing across the Storebælt bridge in Denmark, the Maps app would switch from turn-by-turn 3D voice-assisted GPS-mode to a 2D overview of the route. This error seems to have been fixed, so we now have the full turn-by-turn 3D experience.

  8. Mark Lawrence - 10 years ago

    unsubscribe

  9. Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 10 years ago

    It is about time.

    This has long been what I felt was Apple’s biggest weakness. Their culture of secrecy is not conducive to a good services offering. For instance, when I submit changes to Yelp I receive an email thanking me for the submission and when the change is made I receive and email telling me that my submitted change has been integrated and thanking me for helping improve the service.

    People like feedback. This type of simple and mostly automated feedback makes me much more likely to spend time improving Yelp than Apple Maps where I have never had any confirmation that they have ever received or done anything with any corrections submitted.

    In fact, I just checked a road error that I have reported twice since Maps came out. Maps shows a road going through a local school track and school building. As far as I know Apple has never actually received either correction. Maybe it is time to send it again and see if it does any good this time.

    • peterv88 - 10 years ago

      I read numerous people who submitted road changes to TomTom and found out that the roads would show up correctly at Apple Maps. While submitting them to Apple themselves didn’t help.

      So this proves to me that the data flows from tomtom to Apple, and corrections are made at the source. Somehow the corrections that users submitted to Apple weren’t passed on by Apple to tomtom. For whatever reason.

      It seems like the data feed from tomtom to Apple has improved. From a monthly bulk feed to a daily feed. And also their collaboration has improved.

      If you do a search on “tomtom” + “incremental map updates” you can find more information on this.

  10. vkd108 - 10 years ago

    maps.google.com

  11. Not really news.

    Apple has been correcting my reports for several months now. It shocked me the first time I got a notification. I’ve been trying to do at least about a dozen reports a week, and businesses are now, for the most part, more accurate than Google Maps.

    They’ve been really good about MOVING business locations, but they’re not quite as good when it comes to other stuff like correcting individual addresses (they recently moved my home address, it’s still wrong… but it’s less than a mile wrong now), adding markers for businesses that don’t currently have one, misspelled street names, streets incorrectly displayed on map, etc.