Where is the bad Maps data coming from?

Yankees368#IM

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Ok, so I am trying to understand where the faulty maps data is coming. I know that POI data is pulled from sources like Yelp and Open Table, but that info isn't making its way to Maps.
I happened to search for a local restaurant yesterday, and I found that the location was off by miles, not even in the correct town!
I checked Yelp, and they had the correct address and town, as did Open Table.
So, where in the world is Apple getting an address with the wrong town entered in? Is it coming from TomTom? Nope, using TomTom's web route planner, it shows in the correct town.
So where in the world is iOS maps pulling this incorrect data from? I just don't get it.
 
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Roo Zilla

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Most likely, the problem is on multiple fronts. Even if Tom Tom's data were perfect, there's a better than good chance that Apple is messing them up somehow. The POI problem is just lack of data. For example, Yelp's data might be great in the bigger cities in the US, but it's useless in places like China. I'm pretty sure Yelp is nowhere near as popular in some other countries as it is in the US. The same goes for Open Table. The mess with Apple maps in Japan stems from the fact Japan uses a different system of location than most countries, and it'll probably take Apple a bit of time to sort through that. Google's maps are so successful because of nearly 7+ years of Google vans traveling throughout the world, and 5+ years of crowd sourcing from iOS and Android. Whatever problems there is with maps, either the street view vans or the crowd corrects them. Apple maps will get better with time. It's a question of how much time though. Obviously, the crowd sourcing aspect is much more powerful in 2012 than it was back in 2007, since there are literally hundreds of millions more iOS devices that can all potentially contribute data. I suspect Apple is relying a lot on crowd sourcing to help build its maps. Eventually, if they want to build something like Streetview, a very useful feature btw, Apple will also have to start sending out vans with cameras to photograph every possible thing they can.
 

Yankees368#IM

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Problem is, I'm talking about New York, Long Island specifically. Google benefits from having a great web platform for users to submit map corrections on, Apple doesn't have that. Submitting corrections on the phone itself is tedious.
Also, I checked the TomTom data, they have the POI I'm talking about in the correct place.
So, if TomTom Yelp and Open Table have the correct info, where is Apple getting bad info from?
 

Roo Zilla

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Like I said, there's probably a lot of things Apple is doing wrong too. The info is just not on their servers yet, or possibly misplaced. I suspect that's the case with the vast majority of such issues. I also think that it's more than likely they're using TT's mapping data, but not necessarily their POIs. They're probably using Yelp and Open Table to let Siri recommend restaurants, but not necessarily using their location data.

---------- Post Merged at 10:37 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:36 AM ----------

Sorry, but I'm behind the Great Firewall at present, and can't access YouTube.
 

Yankees368#IM

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It's not particularly easy. Since there is no web portal to submit corrections on, you must submit them through the phone. You should be seeing a "report a problem" button everywhere, so use that. Not a great way, but it's something.

---------- Post Merged at 10:40 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:38 AM ----------

They're probably using Yelp and Open Table to let Siri recommend restaurants, but not necessarily using their location data.

---------- Post Merged at 10:37 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:36 AM ----------

Sorry, but I'm behind the Great Firewall at present, and can't access YouTube.

So then where is the location data coming from? None of the sources I can find list either of the incorrect addresses. TomTom, Yelp, Open Table all have it correct.
 

Roo Zilla

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Just use Apple maps. You don't even have to report anything, just using it will allow them to extract data. For example, if all of a sudden, they see a bunch of iPhones all travelling in the same path at relatively the same speed, they can probably guess there's a road there. The crowd sourcing aspect of drawing data will probably be much faster than what Google had to go through 5 years ago since there's so many more iOS devices than in the past.
 

Yankees368#IM

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Just use Apple maps. You don't even have to report anything, just using it will allow them to extract data. For example, if all of a sudden, they see a bunch of iPhones all travelling in the same path at relatively the same speed, they can probably guess there's a road there. The crowd sourcing aspect of drawing data will probably be much faster than what Google had to go through 5 years ago since there's so many more iOS devices than in the past.

I'm sorry, but that isn't the type of issue I'm talking about. The road data is, for the most part, just fine.
But no amount of crowd sourcing, short of users taking the time to go in and correct bad data, will fix incorrect addresses for POIs.
 

Roo Zilla

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It's not particularly easy. Since there is no web portal to submit corrections on, you must submit them through the phone. You should be seeing a "report a problem" button everywhere, so use that. Not a great way, but it's something.

---------- Post Merged at 10:40 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:38 AM ----------



So then where is the location data coming from? None of the sources I can find list either of the incorrect addresses. TomTom, Yelp, Open Table all have it correct.

They did acquire a couple of companies to make their own maps, like Placebase and Poly9. It's possible they're using POIs from one of their acquisitions, but that's just a guess. It's also quite possible they're catching up to the data. Not all location data is in a unified format, different companies do it differently, so perhaps they just haven't had a chance to "get around" to it yet. Apple maps should get better, and I believe it will get better very fast.
 

kch50428

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Keepers of POI databases will often include some false data points that they can use to track stolen data... and if they "forget" what's real and what's not, and pass the bad data on as real - that's where data can become bad. When you find bad data, use the reporting tool that exists within the Maps app and report it and it will eventually get fixed.
 

Roo Zilla

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I'm sorry, but that isn't the type of issue I'm talking about. The road data is, for the most part, just fine.
But no amount of crowd sourcing, short of users taking the time to go in and correct bad data, will fix incorrect addresses for POIs.

Sorry, that was a reply to the other guy who asked how he can help. Clicked the wrong button and didn't reply with quote.

POIs correction will probably come from multiple sources. Like I said in my previous post, it's possible they're just catching up to data they already have access to. That could be the case with data from Yelp and/or Open Table. It's also quite possible to update POIs from just lists of businesses, which again, will have to be formatted into whatever form Apple maps uses in their servers. The final option of course, is to wait for the crowd to update it. It happens a lot more often than you might imagine. Business owners tend to want their businesses to be found, so they'll probably be the first to manually update their locations via whatever means necessary. That's what happened early on with Google maps.
 

Yankees368#IM

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My overall question, however, is how can there be so many layers of incorrect data for one single POI? I found this one just by chance, so how many others with completely wrong information are there, and why does this one have 2 separate incorrect addresses?
 

kch50428

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My overall question, however, is how can there be so many layers of incorrect data for one single POI? I found this one just by chance, so how many others with completely wrong information are there, and why does this one have 2 separate incorrect addresses?

Does it really matter?? Just report the map correction to Apple via the reporting tool, and move on with life.
 

Yankees368#IM

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Does it really matter?? Just report the map correction to Apple via the reporting tool, and move on with life.

I guess if anyone wants to figure out the root of the issue, yes, it does matter. The app clearly can't be trusted for even basic POI lookup. It's not my job to question and report every POI I come across. That's Apples job. Why should all the info suddenly be untrustworthy? I don't always know the info is wrong, so how can I correct it?
 

kch50428

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I guess if anyone wants to figure out the root of the issue, yes, it does matter. The app clearly can't be trusted for even basic POI lookup. It's not my job to question and report every POI I come across. That's Apples job. Why should all the info suddenly be untrustworthy? I don't always know the info is wrong, so how can I correct it?

All the info is NOT untrustworthy... just one little bit that you harp on being bad, yet will take no action to fix... You whine about a problem, then refuse to help solve it... smh. If you're not going to help fix anything, quit complaining.
 

Jaguarr40

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I guess if anyone wants to figure out the root of the issue, yes, it does matter. The app clearly can't be trusted for even basic POI lookup. It's not my job to question and report every POI I come across. That's Apples job. Why should all the info suddenly be untrustworthy? I don't always know the info is wrong, so how can I correct it?

It is a very simple answer although you might not think so... Read the open letter from TIm Cook on what they (Apple) are doing on their end and as far as on our end as "END USERS" the more we use the maps and they more we use the reporting link inside the app to assist Apple and the more you just plain use the app, It WILL get better I assure you.

When Apple is embarrased about an App they have put on their new IOS as a native app they will fix it, This is not a perfect worol and neither is Apple but at least they take a hands on approach, Admit their mistakes and take action to fix it. Thank you for your post......:D
 
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Yankees368#IM

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All the info is NOT untrustworthy... just one little bit that you harp on being bad, yet will take no action to fix... You whine about a problem, then refuse to help solve it... smh. If you're not going to help fix anything, quit complaining.

The data clearly is untrustworthy.. If the info is correct literally everywhere else BUT here, how can I trust any of the data? And yes, I did submit a correction, as well as for many other POIs.
My point is that this data isn't incorrect anywhere other that iOS maps. I would like to know where the poor data is coming from, so maybe users don't have to be responsible for Apples poor data, and have it fixed in bulk.
 

kch50428

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The data clearly is untrustworthy.. If the info is correct literally everywhere else BUT here, how can I trust any of the data?
You're declaring the entire app worthless based on how many data points? I've found Google to have bad data points in POIs... therefore Google's Maps & Search are totally worthless in whole. How can I trust any of Google's data after finding errors? I applied your logic.... smh.
 

Yankees368#IM

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You're declaring the entire app worthless based on how many data points? I've found Google to have bad data points in POIs... therefore Google's Maps & Search are totally worthless in whole. How can I trust any of Google's data after finding errors? I applied your logic.... smh.

My point is that these are data points that aren't incorrect anywhere else. Data points of popular places, which for reasons I can't figure out., have 2 layers of incorrect information.
Google had issues when they started out because the service was really a first of its kind. This is not.
I guess I'll just have to accept the method of "just keep using incorrect directions until they aren't incorrect sometime in the future."
I didn't need to be a cartographer with Google Maps on iOS before, I shouldn't have to be one now.
 

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