Apple Maps inaccuracies blamed for Australian bush fire troubles
Apple Maps inaccuracies blamed for Australian bush fire troubles
13 February 2013
published by www.theinquirer.net
Australia — THE DISCREDITED Apple Maps service is facing a new round of attacks in Australia, this time about bushfires and problems with finding them.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Country Fire Authority in Victoria thinks Apple Maps let it down and caused its Fireready bushfire information app to fail.
“Macedon and a number of other Victorian towns are located incorrectly,” said a spokesperson. “Users report that towns are located on their maps at the centre of the district rather than on the actual township itself.”
One end user, Marcel Theunissen was even less keen. He said that the use of Apple maps was a big problem. “One of the problems with Apple Maps is that they don’t show the names of cities and townships at all times,” he said.
“This makes it very difficult to quickly determine the exact location of fires once alarm calls are being received. This creates potentially dangerous situations and delays to activate phone trees if required.”
Apple Australia is not commenting on this and has referred readers back to the letter that Tim Cook signed last year accepting blame for problems with the Maps software.
“At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better,” it said.
“While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, Mapquest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.”
