Oh boy. That isn’t just a little bug Apple has there. Newspapers are full of stories, bloggers are searching for the most funny mess in the maps and so on. Apple even suggested to use Bing maps. Wow.
One newspaper in Switzerland had an article about which are the best maps to use in Switzerland and since it is nice outside, the birds are singing, I set of to look if they are right. I just used my home address to find out.
Bing maps: Catastrophic. The satellite image is unusable and the map has streets that do not exist, but with the name of my street. The spot where my house should be looks quite right. Difficult to say, since it shows it in the middle of an empty field.
And I thought Microsoft actually got something right. No, same old, same old.
Nokia maps: Same crap as Bing, but even the address is wrong. At least Bing had more or less the right spot, but Nokia is completely of.
TomTom: Very, very lousy. It puts the address on a completely other street, which is in fact a driveway and hasn’t even a name in real live.
Google: Lousy. It finds the right street, but stops short about 200m where it should be. Good satellite image, though. The most actual at least.
Via Michelin. Has the street in its whole length, but misses the address like Google.
maps.search.ch: Spot on. Best satellite resolution, but not the newest pictures. It only misses the driveway in the map. But if you try a route planning, it ends behind my house in a cow pasture. At least I can see you and call a farmer to pull you out.
http://map.geo.admin.ch/ The best of all. In some maps it even shows the driveway. No wonder, it is the official agency for maps in Switzerland (and they do the best maps anyway).
That little test explains, why everybody using a navigation system always misses my address.
I have yet to upgrade my iPhone, but since the maps come from TomTom, there is probably no chance anybody would ever find me with that thingy. Ok, I upgraded. Yes it’s wrong. It get’s the my position right, but the address is off and it will lead anybody looking for me into the cow pasture.
Therefore, if you ever want to visit me, learn to use a map. That voice in your car will be very nice to listen to … but utterly useless: „At the next entrance turn right and call for directions, because I am lost!“