Favoring Apple Maps Services
A free Business Connect tool announced by Apple today allows businesses to customize their location card in the Maps app with a brand logo, images, and other key information, such as special promotions or seasonal menu items at a restaurant. Businesses can also highlight various actions, such as ordering groceries via Instacart, making a dinner reservation via OpenTable, booking a hotel at Booking.com, and more.
This is a timely announcement because just yesterday, I recorded a video of what I consider a very crappy experience that’s new to this version of iOS available today. The experience of researching a place you’d like to go and then going back to do a different search takes multiple clicks. It’s also not human friendly how you clear the floating tile, nor is it clear what all of these guides are doing and why there are hundreds of them.
Some of my gripes with Maps on iOS 16:
Pushing the App Store on me both the jump to install Yelp or apps of the POI like CVS/WalMart/Shell/Subway, etc when I’m just trying to find a place to get fuel for my car
If I’m seeing the arrival time to a place (you have to route there to see this), I have to tap 6 times to get back to the search window.
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The very slow animations of zooming and panning around the map.
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Big City Things, algorithmically deciding what to show me. […] Google Maps shows you everything if you zoom in to maximum zoom but Apple doesn’t
This is a pet peeve of mine, too. He links to several TomTom apps that “have zero advertisements or any tomfoolery that makes getting from point A to B difficult.”
Previously:
- Apple Is Building a Demand-side Platform
- The Apple Services Experience Is Not Good Enough
- Google Decides to Monetize Maps
Update (2023-01-13): Nick Heer:
It took me a while to find any Guides for Calgary — where I live — because there is no way I can see to search for them. In addition to the random assortment suggested on the search card, there is a massive list sorted by creator, and select cities can be found on an Explore card — but Calgary is not one of those cities. However you might see Guides listed on the results card if you search for a city. That is, if I want to find suggestions for great pasta spots in Calgary, I need to search for the city I live in and then scroll down the card to find relevant guides. I find that unintuitive, to say the least.
Right now, Guides in Maps feels like an unrealized marketing idea instead of a user-facing feature which means it is, as Chandler writes, more intrusive than helpful.
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Why not get the mapping and navigation part right first? In Germany Apple Maps is (as is Siri in general) a constant disappointment and years behind Google Maps.
I much prefer the layout, voice and UI of Apple Maps but the lack of good, up to date and sensible navigation is just not good enough. The same goes for navigation on foot paths in wooded areas and bike routes.
Is there any Apple service which has gotten better over time? Maps has sucked since the beginning, and still does. Music / iTunes sucks now. Siri sucks. News sucks. Mail sucks. The App Store sucks. Calendar sucks. Podcasts sucks. Weather sucks. Seriously how does a $2+ trillion dollar company make software that's worse than indie developers? None of their apps are best in class, not even close. No wonder they want to control what other apps you can load on an iDevice.
