Rotten Apple GPS Maps

**Chucaro** · 10th December 2012, 09:06 PM

Victoria Police say that in the past two months they have rescued six people who were lost in the Murray Sunset National Park while trying to get to Mildura - more than 70 kilometres away.

Inspector Simon Clemence says he is concerned people using the Apple Maps app could find themselves in trouble.
"If it was a 45-degree day, someone could actually die," he said.

As long as a doctor or an emergency service are using it will be ok

**incisor** · 10th December 2012, 09:08 PM

and navman maps send you stupid places too..

garmin are usually a bit better

they all do it in one spot or another

some just get more press...

Tombie · 10th December 2012, 09:13 PM

Nothing like tall poppy syndrome.

Something the OP loves

**JohnF** · 11th December 2012, 10:09 AM

Today's Courier Mail Newspaper [Couriermail.com] has an article on page 11 that is headlined "Rotten Apple Maps sending drivers nuts."

This article does tell us that Apple's New Mapping System on iPhones is dangeriously inaccurate. For example the iPhone,
"mapping system lists Mildura in the middle of the Murry Sunset park in Northwestern Victoria about 70Km away from the town."

4WD drivers relying on these are getting badly lost where they could die from lack of water, etc,. stuck in soft sand because they were sent of track.

Police "Inspector Simon Clemence said....

"One guy got far enough in to lose phone coverage and he was stuck there. He had to walk out and it took him 24 hours to get to a point where he had phone coverage and we resqued him.

Police have confirmed five vechiles have become stranded in the park, with many more people pressumed to have become lost before finding their own way out...."

"Police agree the error could be a recipe for disaster as teperatures sour over the summer

"This is 4WD terrain with big, deep sand bogs and sand drifts and these people are driving in there with their family truckster and getting stuck," Insp Clemence said.

"That's pretty nasty country out there. There's not much shade and a lot of hot sand and no water at all....

" "My advice is you can't put your faith in technology," Insp Clemence said."

Since I do not have a i-phone or a GPS this does not effect me, but I put this on this forum in-order to save you guys from getting way too lost [ I do wish I had a good GPS though].

So guys do not rely on technology, when you go bush, be careful and carry lots of water, etc.

**Lotz-A-Landies** · 11th December 2012, 06:04 PM

I frequently find the turn-by-turn GPS units take you the long way*, but now one that doesn't even know where its going.

*My Sensis powered GPS will tell me to turn left on the corner of our farm, then takes you on a 7Km scenic tour back to the same corner from the other direction when we get to turn left into our road and then into the driveway of the farm. I usually just turn right at the original corner and save the 7K, but did follow the GPS one time to see which way it wanted to take me. Now I try to use a MAP, it's often quicker.

**Sleepy** · 11th December 2012, 07:29 PM

I have used it around Melbourne with no dramas.....yet.

I am always interested to know more about so-called 4wders getting lost.

Like a bloke I know took his Kluger in the bush to "have some fun". Unprepared, no equipment, no recovery gear, (no idea?) followed GPS and got lost. Luckily he stumbled onto some people who were prepared and gave him some guidance out of the forest. I'm not sure it was the limitations of his GPS that let him down

I always have a map when traveling.....and a compass. (Just in case!)

**OffTrack** · 11th December 2012, 08:26 PM

It's a bit weird. If you search for Mildura, Maps gives you the correct location, but as has been said the name is in on the edge of a block in Murray Sunset.

I've driven that area in a stock Prado (rental before I got the D2) with street tyres and it's a bit hairy for a first timer. BUT to get there you have to turn off the main highway and drive on dirt roads for 60-70km before you get to the sandy stuff.

I tried dropping a pin on the location in Murray Sunset and then shared the dropped pin, and opened up on google maps. Completely different locations!!

Something is definitely up.

cheers
Paul

**Bushie** · 11th December 2012, 08:43 PM

You'll get a similar result if you go looking for Ceduna in Apple mapping

Martyn

**OffTrack** · 11th December 2012, 08:45 PM

They'll get to see some great birds in that spot. It's a favorite location with Victorian birdo's for finding Mallee specialists like the Red Lored Whistler.

**Ferret** · 11th December 2012, 08:55 PM

This is said to be the cause of the problem

The root cause of this, and many of the other errors in city location observed throughout Australia, is actually quite simple and I don't know why Apple haven't fixed it yet. It was a bit of a facepalm moment when I realised what was actually going on with the Australian maps on iOS6.

Basically there are two problems:

1. Apple Maps is marking the centre of local government areas (analogous to a county, for American readers) as a point location, rather than a name for a large area of land (i.e. it's treating them as locations you can navigate to); and

2. In the case that a search query matches both a local government area name, AND a town name ... it preferences the local government area (which as mentioned, is being mapped as an exact point roughly in the middle of the area, generally in the middle of nowhere)

For example, follow the Hume Highway south from Sydney a little way and you will see a point marked as Wingecaribee, east of the highway, roughly in the vicinity of where the town of Moss Vale is (though, as noted, the GUI chooses to display Wingecaribee prominently, but doesn't mark Moss Vale or any other towns at all, unless you zoom in really close). The point marked as Wingecaribee is just a random spot in rugged forested terrain. Nothing's actually there. This is simply the centre of the Wingecaribee Shire. But there is no actual town called Wingecaribee so apart from looking weird, this doesn't hurt anything.

BUT ... keep following the highway south and you will soon come to the next shire, Goulburn Shire. Again, the centre of this local government area is marked as a point, called "Goulburn" and again, it's not anywhere near anything. It's in the middle of some random farmer's field somewhere. BUT THIS TIME, we have a problem, because within Goulburn Shire, there is actually also a town called Goulburn. But if you search for 'Goulburn', you are directed to the centre of the Goulburn Shire, NOT the town. This is completely retarded, as noone ever searches for things by local government area name in Australia (many people don't even know the name of their LGA ... they aren't as prominently known as counties in the US), and even if they did, wouldn't want to be directed to some arbitrary point near the middle of it with no regard for whether there's anything there.

This is what has happened in TFA too. There is a Mildura local government area. Within that, there is also a city called Mildura. But the city isn't marked; only the centre of the LGA. Which as stated, is in the middle of bloody nowhere.

Basically whoever processed the Australian mapping data has interpreted LGA (shire, county etc.) names as locality (town, city) names. And has given them prominence in both display and search results over actual localities. Should be simple to fix, surely. The data is there - it's just being used incorrectly.

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