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> When I asked, “What is the weather on Crete?” Siri gave me the weather for Crete, Illinois, a small village which — while I’m sure it’s great — isn’t what most people mean Most of the narrative about Apple's maps products has simply been "Apple bad, Google good" and hasn't looked much deeper than this (with the exception of Justin O'Beirne's cartographic commentary, which is remarkably detailed though much of it is just a matter of taste). But Mossberg really hits on something here: Apple's geocoding is way below par. The cartography is superb IMO. The routing is very good[1]. The source data isn't bad at all. But the geocoding is really error-prone. I've asked it for directions to Milton Keynes, a town with a population of 250,000 just 40 miles from here, and it won't give me anything other than the nearest branch office (in a completely different town) of a company whose HQ happens to be in MK. I've asked it for directions to the village of Brize Norton and it flat-out refuses, sending me instead to the RAF base of the same name, even if I ask for "Brize Norton village", "Brize Norton School" and so on. Yes, geocoding is famously hard. But as an OpenStreetMap volunteer I see that for anything other than granular street-level addresses (where we don't have the data), our grassroots geocoder is more reliable than that built by the most valuable company on earth. And as feedback to OSM shows, bad geocoding is the easiest way to make people think your entire map product is no good. [1] except there's no bike routing... but hey Apple, if you want top-notch bike routing, give me a call ;) |