This is especially galling for the Japanese. Not only are they valuable customers due to their frequent cell phone purchases and rabid desire for brand-name products (including Apple, of course), but a quarter of the Japanese population (and the main target market) lives in Tokyo, where people are almost entirely dependent on public transit to get around. With iOS 6, there are no built in directions!<p>Of course, Apple apologists will jump to say that you can just get a 3rd party app, but that simply doesn't cut it. Google Maps provided a door-to-door solution for directions, which makes a big difference when you don't know what the closest train station to an address is. Moreover, the ability to see the total door-to-door time and compare it to the cost of the trip made it easy to select the optimal route (based on a combination of price and time).<p>And here are some of the amusing mistakes in the database[0]:<p>* "McDonalds" and "Pachinko Gundam" train stations<p>* A station not attached to any railway lines<p>* No Osaka station (this is a really big station)<p>* Place names in Chinese and Korean<p>* Haneda Airport (busiest airport in Japan) is mislabeled as 「大王製紙」 ― "Great King Paper Manufacturer" (this one has gotten a lot of laughs)<p>* Narita Airport (2nd busiest airport) completely missing<p>For those who can read Japanese, there's a good 2chan thread archive[1] of Japanese netizens taking the piss out of Apple Maps.<p>0: <a href="http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2012/09/ios-6-maps-fail-in-japan.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2012/09/ios-6-maps-fail-in-ja...</a><p>1: <a href="http://gahalog.2chblog.jp/archives/52132765.html" rel="nofollow">http://gahalog.2chblog.jp/archives/52132765.html</a>
To be fair, Google Maps in China isn't great either. See "Map View" vs "Satellite View" here: <a href="https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.637323,114.030954&spn=0.001513,0.00284&t=m&z=19" rel="nofollow">https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.637323,114.030954&spn=0.0...</a>. It's off by a few hundred meters (the corresponding satellite view for the previous map view is actually here: <a href="https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.640363,114.025936&spn=0.003025,0.005681&t=h&z=18" rel="nofollow">https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.640363,114.025936&spn=0.0...</a>). I assume Google is aware of this issue since they don't overlay map data over their satellite view like they do almost everywhere else around the world. The fact that they can't drive their Street View cars in China doesn't help either.
This is making me seriously reconsider buying an iPhone 5 when it becomes available here in Poland next week. Maps are a vital part of my smartphone activities, and Google's offering have been really impressive.<p>If Apple can't get this right for a market as big and smartphone-friendly as Japan, I'm struggling to think how they'll do so for Poland.<p>Edit: just to clarify, I don't care in the slightest about the 3d-image errors, but the problems with directions look incredibly painful, missing roads will be a huge hindrance, and the disappearance of points of interests, well, that's just plain annoying.
They made another mistake for Hong Kong.. The maps are in English only... many Taxi drivers won't be able to take you where you want because they only know it in Chinese and pointing it out on an English only map doesn't help.
What a disaster for Apple. But of course Apple can't admit fault and the people who are screwed are the users.<p>Steve would have never let this application go through.
Another part of Steve playing god giving each country an island of its own?<p>Did use iOS 6 in China a month ago... pure garbage. Mapquest was better 5 years ago.
Quite annoying. Here are some alternatives for people (like me) living in Japan:<p>* Bookmark the normal maps.google.com page on the front page<p>* Foursquare<p>* Japan Map - 'Free for a limited time'
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/japan-map-itsumo-navi/id306683384" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/japan-map-itsumo-navi/id3066...</a>