That’s where Apple Maps left us on Wednesday afternoon.
On recent trips elsewhere, I’ve found Apple Maps to be very much improved, and I had mentally declared it my go-to mobile mapping app.
So when we landed at the Tri-Cities airport in Pasco, Washington, and picked up a rental car, I quickly plugged in my iPhone, opened Apple Maps, and asked for the proper route to our destination, the Courtyard in Walla Walla. Maps quickly displayed a series of instructions, and displayed a turn-by-turn map.
Coming out of the airport, it directed us to enter the roundabout and take one of the exits to a certain street. The problem was that there was no roundabout in sight, and there was only one way ahead, a right turn onto a highway on ramp. Okay, I know the app can quickly locate you and get you back on course. But instead, Maps seemed confused. It stuttered. It repeated itself. It said to turn at the corner. There was no corner, as we were now on a highway heading to Richland, not far but not where we were supposed to be going.
After several exasperating minutes waiting for the arrival of better instructions, we declared defeat. Took the next exit, found a parking lot to stop and regroup. At that point I switched to Google Maps. Bingo. A new instruction set took over, and we made the hour drive to Walla Walla without another error.
Had we stepped into an Apple Maps dead zone? Was this an isolated issue? I don’t know, but it was unsettling, for sure. Since no one has to look at a map any more, were lost without these turn-by-turn directions delivered to our cell phones.
But if that’s the biggest travel glitch we run into on this trip, I’ll consider us very lucky!
* Update: I think we’ve located the problem. We were using Apple Maps via Apple CarPlay on our rented vehicle, an Infiniti SUV (much larger that the car I had reserved, but it what was available on the ground when we arrived last week).
The problems appear to stem from the implementation of CarPlay, which somehow added a significant delay to the app’s tracking of our position and driving directions.
As an experiment, we used Apple Maps yesterday without using CarPlay and the accompanying display. Unemcumbered by all that, Apple Maps performed flawlessly, as we had been used to previously.
So the problem isn’t with Apple Maps, but with Apple CarPlay. And not CarPlay generally, since we’ve used it many times elsewhere without issues.
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Whenever I’d get a new device, one of the very first apps I’d download would be Google Maps. It’s indispensable!
Getting ready to drive from Wisconsin to the Oregon coast. Just purchased two paper maps. still like using them.
Luddite are you?
Not at all. But most of S. Dakota,Montana and Idaho will be without internet and spotty wireless, and stored maps aren’t always accurate. Already experienced that before.
Palolololo-
Yes! Good “old fashioned” paper maps (tho’ impossible to re-fold!)
Cheers
I was grumbling to my kid about how my GPS was giving me really screwy directions and sometimes gave instructions from the wrong side of the road, taking circuitous routes for seemingly no reason, and not adjusting quickly for changes. My kid told me that the Map app is not receiving the kind of support from Apple as before and it’s not as reliable. Don’t know how he knows, but there must be something to it because I’ve never had these issues before.
Apple Maps failed me again today.
It started okay. And was fine for a few blocks.
Then we went through an intersection. After we went through, it said “go through this light and turn right at the next lights.”
It turned out to be late in directing us through the intersection. Luckily, I knew the street we were supposed to turn on, and so recognized it ahead.
I think this is the heart of the current problems. Apple Maps is slow in communicating, so that the direcxtions are too little, too late.
And it couldn’t help us recover, and appeared to lose track of where we were for long minutes.
On our last trip, it worked flawlessly, and I felt it had surpassed Google in ease of use. That was in California. This trip it is very, very different. Very disappointing.
Recently had Apple Maps send me to the wrong house despite a perfectly correct address, unfortunately I can only use Apple Maps with the vehicle in-dash display. As soon as I realized the error I put the addess into Google Maps on the phone. Google got the house correctly.
Yeah, Apple Maps still has significant problems.
Google Maps got me from one side of Uganda to the other without a hitch, including exactly what exit to take out of each roundabout in the traffic nightmare that is Kampala. I had little to no cell data much of the way, thus could not use directions, but had loaded the maps onto the phone to use in offline mode, that worked beautifully!
Apple Maps failed again yesterday here in Walla Walla.
It was one of those short trips where it wasn’t really needed. I just wanted the small advantage of knowing when I was getting close to the turn I was supposed to make.
First symptom: Apple Maps was delayed be perhaps 15-30 seconds, so I would receive its direction after passing a landmark it used as a reference.
“Go through this light, and turn right at the next light onto Main Street.”
Well, by the time that instruction arrived, we had gone through the first light and already turned onto main street. In another setting, we would have just wandered while waiting for the delayed instruction and found ourselves lost once again.
And then it followed with another error. It directed me to turn left onto 1st Ave from Main Street. But 1st Avenue is a pedestrian mall and blocked off from traffic, and has been this way for quite a few years.
It is now pretty clear that at least in this part of the country, Apple Maps is broken.
We have used it in Portland, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it was quite robust. I preferred it to Google Maps. But this is a whole different story.