Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably either heard or experienced first hand how bad Apple’s Maps product is. Apple replaced Google Maps with its own offering in iOS 6 when it was released, and ever since, users have been complaining and pointing out numerous errors, wondering when Google will release a new iOS app.
People will often complain about changes to the products they love, but even Apple is acknowledging how poor its product was. CEO Tim Cook has posted a letter to Apple customers on the company’s website, apologizing for the user experience, and even pointing to some alternatives.
In the letter, Cook says users have already searched over half a billion locations with Apple’s Maps. He doesn’t say how many of those locations were actually accurate.
Here’s the letter in its entirety:
To our customers,
At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.
We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.
There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.
While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.
Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.
Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO
This makes the second out of the last 3 iPhone launches that Apple has had to come out and publicly apologize for a part of. See “Antennagate”. Granted, this is really about one app, and doesn’t really reflect poorly on the device itself.
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