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Australian Police Warn That Apple Maps Could Get Someone Killed
First time accepted submitter jsherring writes "Police in Victoria, Australia warn that Apple's glitch-filled Maps app could get someone killed, after motorists looking for the Victorian city of Mildura were instead guided to a wilderness area. Relying on Apple Maps to navigate through rural Australia seems rather foolish but it has become common practice to rely on GPS navigation. Besides reverting to google maps, perhaps Apple should provide strong warnings to use other navigation sources if navigating to remote locations."
Apple Maps sucks. There is no two ways about it, and Apple certainly deserves stick for it.
I have also never been to Australia, but I am capable of making a couple of observations:
If you're driving to a location you don't know, in an environment where getting lost could get you killed:
1. NEVER rely on one source of information for getting you to your destination. I wouldn't rely solely on Google Maps to get there either, even though Google Maps have been accurate and reliable for me in the past. Check Google Maps and a good old fashioned map before leaving. After all, what happens if you you lose reception or battery half way there?
2. Make sure you bring basic survival gear for your environment; in my home area that would be water, food, very warm clothes, blankets, a spade, a torch and
considerably more petrol than you think you need.
Its exactly this.
The Apple apologists are suggesting that you shouldn't trust a map application, but should somehow magically trust other map sources.
The flaw in this thinking is that if a popular mapping company was selling paper maps at local gas stations that sent you in the wrong direction into the middle of nowhere, then we would also expect a government office to come forth and announce the serious risks associated with trusting that particular paper map.
On top of this, the iPhone maps are now different than the one they used to provide.. the old one was of much better quality. So a person may have come to trust the maps built into their iPhone because they were of good quality, but now suddenly they arent of good quality even though its the same damn iPhone. That "upgrade" was actually a full-blown downgrade.
So yes, we expect the government to announce the risks associated with trusting Apple's maps, because not only are they no longer good maps, Apple after the fact went and edited everyones existing maps to be of much worse quality.
"His name was James Damore."
What is amazing, is that people will follow the turn by turn indication of a GPS unit in priority of any road indication or even indication given by a local.
I had to argue with a friend to take a direct road to the highway, he wouldn't. He didn't even follow my car, or even the big green sign that indicate the highway: at some point he decided to turn in the direction the GPS told him to. What's wrong people: I was doing that road several time a day every day and my wife has been living there for more than 30 years. What are the fucking chances that the GPS knows better ?
GPS have transformed people into lemmings.