The L.A. Times Names Its Favorite Flops of the Year

SternisheFan writes "Salvador Rodriguez and Deborah Netburn of The Los Angeles Times have a rundown of the top 10 tech gaffes of 2012. From their article: 'As 2012 comes to a close we take a look back at the biggest "oops" moments of the last year. Whether it was an advertising misstep (Facebook's "Chair" commercial), or a product released before it was ready (Apple Maps), or just an idea that was ill-received (homeless men as Wi-Fi hotspots), we tried to compose a list of the times when the major players lost control of the narrative. It's also a reminder that everyone makes mistakes--even exacting tech companies.'"

Comments

Until? Google still has data problems

[SuperKendall]

The data behind Apple Maps is actually pretty decent at this point for most areas. There may be some that it's behind, but I'm not sure where that would be - almost all the early data gaffes appear to have been fixed.

Google still has data errors also, of the same magnitude. Searching for "Airport" in Denver does not list at all the main airport, Denver International Airport.

The other issue Google has is it is way too eager to give you SOME result when it can't figure out what you want. So it makes up something, like claiming a baptist church in wyoming is the place to find a "demon statue" .

It also means that when you zoom all the way in to Denver International Airport on the map and search for "airport" again, you get some absurd results (but still not the airport you have filling the screen on your map).

Also personally I have found that Apple Maps has better routing for driving than Google. For metro use, there are a number of transit apps that have better presentation of data than Google does in their mobile app, and also some have real-time position data that Google Maps does not show.