iPhone owners around Bangkok upgraded to Apple’s newest mobile operating system iOS 6 last night… and, like many people around the world, they were less than impressed with new Apple Maps function that replaced Google Maps.
The main complaints seem to be:
– Loss of Google Maps’ Transit, Traffic, and StreetView functions
– Not much English language for landmarks, streets, etc.
– Points of interest are out of date
– Inaccurate or incomplete maps
“Even though I switched to English in the settings all street names are in Thai, data material is pretty old, more than 5 years at least,” said Bangkok techie @bm_ on Twitter. “That was a bad decision for the user, cause of some childish fight with Google.”
“iOS 6 maps are missing a lot of things in Thailand….but it sure has A LOT of bars listed on soi cowboy :p #priorities,” tweeted @daveoli.
Reviews of Apple Maps from around the world were equally indignant.
“How bad could it be? The answer, I’m sad to say as an Apple fan, is very bad indeed. Almost unusably bad. Maps takes all the trust Apple has built up among its users over the years — trust that its products just work — and squanders nearly all of it in one go,” Chris Taylor wrote for Mashable.
As tech blog The Understatement sees it, Thailand is one of the countries that will be hurt most by the introduction of Apple Maps: “The biggest losers are Brazil, India, Taiwan, and Thailand (population: 1.5 billion) which overnight will go from being countries with every maps feature (transit, traffic, and street view) to countries with none of those features, nor any of the new features either,” wrote Michael DeGusta.
It’s a big bummer because Thailand uses Google Maps’ Traffic and Transit features more than almost any other country in the world.
Suppose we’ll have to wait for the Google Maps iOS 6 app, eh Bangkokians?
