So now the police have set about putting up warning about various mapping product. At least the Australian police seem to have cartographic experts who are qualified to put out warnings about cartographic products!
So a few weeks back I was driving from a place called Raichur (North Karnataka) to Bangalore. Yes its a place not too many people have heard about just like Mildura. I was using Google Maps for directions and somewhere along the way this wonderful app located me somewhere in the middle of Czech Republic. Obviously I was a little concerned when the map showed me off by a few thousand miles. To add to the misery, there not a soul in sight for kilometers and I had to continue driving hoping that the direction in which I was headed was correct. I was in Czech Republic for about 40 Kilometers after which it put me back in India.
Fortunately, I did not approach the police about the incident and also I do not believe that the Indian cops are very keenly interested in cartographic issues.
So, What is the point? Well, clearly nobody is perfect. The problem with Apple is that there are just too successful. They have the highest profits in the mobile industry. The company is therefore under a great deal of scrutiny. Also, the millions of blogs that follow the company need fodder to write about and hence they hang onto any obscure report that may materialise.
I would like to know how many of the blogs the Australian Apple Maps incident have actually spoken to the officer involved!
The blogging community need to leave Apple alone. They have made a mistake and have admitted to it. They are not crowdsourcing data, which means that their product development is on a different slope as compared to Google. Let them do what they believe is right and then time will let us know if the approach was right or not.
Till then, just let them be.
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