Multiple destinations in Apple Maps

[hesper]

Using Yosemite on 2009 iMac. I would like to map a trip with multiple (6 to 8) stopping points. Is this feasible and, if so, how?

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Using Yosemite on 2009 iMac. I would like to map a trip with multiple (6 to 8) stopping points. Is this feasible and, if so, how?

Nope, you can't. Baffling, I know, but I'm still baffled over how utterly horrible Apple Maps continues to be with its database of businesses. If you want to get where you are going reliably, I recommend using pretty much anything else.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Use Google Maps instead.

 

[chscag]

Amen to both replies!

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Amen to both replies!

Yeah, I'm beyond disgusted. My wife and I wasted 2 hours on a Saturday driving around trying to shop for a pool or hot tub. Searching for "pool sales" in Apple Maps gave me a bunch of irrelevant hits, including one for the pool at a condo complex. Another hit took us to the end of a cul de sac in a neighborhood... no businesses/showrooms there. Another hit took us to an office complex, with no indication they had so much as a business office there. Finally fired up Google Maps and salvaged the day. I should have learned my lesson the last time we traveled several months ago and Apple's Maps got every single stop we tried to make wrong. Every. Single. One.

 

[pm-r]

Using Yosemite on 2009 iMac. I would like to map a trip with multiple (6 to 8) stopping points. Is this feasible and, if so, how?

It sounds like from the replies that this is another Yosemite "feature" of removing options etc. — but worse, as Maps is still not improved or even really useable.

I was trying to do a similar thing with Maps a week or so ago with Mavericks and couldn't believe how stupid the app was to just attempt making a simple change. So back to Google Maps and even MapQuest worked MUCH better than Apple's Maps.

 

[chscag]

Apple Maps is still not there.... The other day I had to be at a funeral in Dallas at an address that I had no idea where it was. I started out on my iPhone using Apple Maps and went around in circles for 20 minutes before I finally pulled over and brought up Google Maps. I was at my destination in less than 10 minutes.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Apple Maps is still not there.... The other day I had to be at a funeral in Dallas at an address that I had no idea where it was. I started out on my iPhone using Apple Maps and went around in circles for 20 minutes before I finally pulled over and brought up Google Maps. I was at my destination in less than 10 minutes.

Once I was in Jacksonville, Florida visiting relatives and got horribly confused while following Apple Maps. I grew up there and knew the city like the back of my hand, but all the construction on the highways in particular over the past 20 years left things looking very unfamiliar. I eventually found out why I was confused on this trip in particular. State Road 9A was in the process of being extended when I lived there, with the eventual goal of meeting I-295 on the south and north ends of that highway to make a full circular bypass for I-95. When that was completed, it was renamed I-295 and 9A was dropped on the signage. Well Apple never got the memo, despite that turnover happening something like THREE YEARS earlier. So all my directions were saying "Take 9A" but the signs said I-295 and I'm like "where the HECK am I?", with my disorientation exacerbated by the landscape that had changed dramatically since I fled... I mean moved away. It's just absurd. They have an Apple Store there. You'd think SOMEONE who worked there would have noticed that they had an entire section of the highway misnamed and gotten some attention paid to that.

 

[bobtomay]

...Well Apple never got the memo, despite that turnover happening something like THREE YEARS earlier. So all my directions were saying "Take 9A" but the signs said I-295 and I'm like "where the HECK am I?", with my disorientation exacerbated by the landscape that had changed dramatically since I fled... I mean moved away. It's just absurd. They have an Apple Store there. You'd think SOMEONE who worked there would have noticed that they had an entire section of the highway misnamed and gotten some attention paid to that.

Had a nice green field and trees to look at across the street from my office until about 6 months before Apple maps was released when a truck stop went in. Apple maps shows a pin for that truck stop on their map - in the field behind our building which is owned by our company. Apple started out asking for errors and corrections, so I responded and have done so about once a year since. That pin is still sitting behind our office building instead of across the street from us where it belongs.

Can tell you one thing Apple Maps is better than - the Navi unit in a Toyota.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Had a nice green field and trees to look at across the street from my office until about 6 months before Apple maps was released when a truck stop went in. Apple maps shows a pin for that truck stop on their map - in the field behind our building which is owned by our company. Apple started out asking for errors and corrections, so I responded and have done so about once a year since. That pin is still sitting behind our office building instead of across the street from us where it belongs.

Can tell you one thing Apple Maps is better than - the Navi unit in a Toyota.

Apple had the smaller of the two local hospitals listed in 3 different places and the larger hospital (who owns the smaller one) listed in over a dozen places. The dupes were all properties they owned, like rehab centers, clinics. and so on, but you couldn't tell by looking at the hits. I submitted corrections for the smaller hospital in particular, and Apple removed all listings but an incorrect one. I re-submitted corrections and it went back to the way it was. Another time they dropped all of them. I eventually gave up. I just checked and it's still screwed up.

A couple years ago, I had need to call the local police in a pinch after some Kirby "salesman" aggressively tried to talk my wife into letting him into the house, him unaware I was outside with my dogs (he turned away with a grin and walked off the moment I walked back in with two intimidating dogs on full alert running past me). I could not get a correct number for the local police from Apple Maps or Siri (that's another feature that seriously needs fixing). They had half a dozen listings, none of them right, while Google nailed it first try. It turns out Apple's listings were all random city government offices. I now just have the number in my contacts to eliminate this as ever being a problem in the future. I just checked and it's still not fixed, despite me angrily filing a "correction". This is a really serious problem... literally a matter of public safety. You'd think Apple would at least have a handful of people who do nothing but make sure emergency service listings are accurate.

 

[MacInWin]

Are we talking Maps in OS X or in IOS? I ask because this is an OS X forum and the OP mentioned Yosemite, but some of the posts seem to be in mobile situations. Don't want to confuse the OP. On OS X, no multiple stops in Maps. But it does drop a pin directly on MY house when I ask it, which way too many GPS units don't. I constantly hear from repairmen, visitors, etc, that their GPS cannot find my home. What's ironic is that the house has been here 10 years, so you'd think by now the GPS database for pretty much every system would have kept up.

 

[MacInWin]

On another note, Lifeisabeach said, in part:

Another hit took us to the end of a cul de sac in a neighborhood... no businesses/showrooms there. Another hit took us to an office complex, with no indication they had so much as a business office there.

I used to write what would now be called a blog on GPS navigation back in the early days. The reason you end up in neighborhoods and office complexes is that the GPS database gets addresses for companies from sources such as the government. But the problem with those databases is that often they show the home addresses of the owners, particularly for small businesses or sole proprietors. So you look up the POI in the map software and end up in a housing neighborhood, or an office complex where the owner has a small office instead of the store/restaurant/business. If you think about how mapping software has to work, the fact that you can get it going in such a small device is pretty amazing. But I never expect it to be perfect, or even close to it. It's just an assisting device and you must always check the route it is proposing before just blindly following it.

 

[pm-r]

…
… … ...
Can tell you one thing Apple Maps is better than - the Navi unit in a Toyota.

And it seems one shouldn't rely on any 2014 Nissan Sentra GPS either…

Police: GPS may have told couple to drive off Cline Avenue bridge : East Chicago Community News

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Are we talking Maps in OS X or in IOS? I ask because this is an OS X forum and the OP mentioned Yosemite, but some of the posts seem to be in mobile situations. Don't want to confuse the OP. On OS X, no multiple stops in Maps. But it does drop a pin directly on MY house when I ask it, which way too many GPS units don't. I constantly hear from repairmen, visitors, etc, that their GPS cannot find my home. What's ironic is that the house has been here 10 years, so you'd think by now the GPS database for pretty much every system would have kept up.

Same problems exist on both platforms.

EDIT: to clarify... it seems to get house addresses down pretty good. It's when you search for businesses and even try to go to a business address that Maps persistently fails.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

On another note, Lifeisabeach said, in part:I used to write what would now be called a blog on GPS navigation back in the early days. The reason you end up in neighborhoods and office complexes is that the GPS database gets addresses for companies from sources such as the government. But the problem with those databases is that often they show the home addresses of the owners, particularly for small businesses or sole proprietors. So you look up the POI in the map software and end up in a housing neighborhood, or an office complex where the owner has a small office instead of the store/restaurant/business. If you think about how mapping software has to work, the fact that you can get it going in such a small device is pretty amazing. But I never expect it to be perfect, or even close to it. It's just an assisting device and you must always check the route it is proposing before just blindly following it.

I totally recognize that. But Apple's Maps gets it so wrong so often while Google Maps is near perfect. Like the examples I gave... its search algorithms alone are pathetic. "Pool sales" shouldn't be giving me a hit for the community pool at a condo complex. And yeah, sometimes you blindly follow a route because you don't know in advance what's at the end of the route (yeah yeah, a phone call would do wonders). What are we supposed to do... search for a business; then double-check where it really exists (if it still does), then struggle to tell the app to take me to the "real" location? What a nuisance. What's the point in even using a mapping software that gets so much so wrong, especially when the alternatives are FAR more trustworthy? An argument can be made that Google has had a lot more time to refine this, but Apple doesn't even have basic listings for emergency services listed properly after, lessee.... 3 years. That's an eternity in this industry and there's just no excuse for it. Apple soliciting people to submit corrections, then failing to actually act on those corrections, isn't helping endear them to anyone.

 

[MacInWin]

LIAB, what I do is to research on where I want to go online, get an address or two that I want to visit, then put the address in the SatNav software. I don't trust ANY database for POI information at all. And it's really immaterial whether Apple or Google or Garmin or anybody is "more accurate" because until they are perfectly accurate (and they will never be perfect), you cannot reliably use them to find POI but can use them to find addresses. And the enemy of all mapping applications is time...the older the database the more likely it is to be wrong. Stores open and close, restaurants appear and disappear, shops open and fail. And pretty much as soon as you update the database, it's out of date again. That's why Toyota, Nissan, etc, cannot compete with online mapping apps. Frankly, Apple ought to just get out of the mapping business. It's not in their basic business model and they aren't willing to spend resources on it that it takes. If Google wants to map, let them, then either buy the database from them (not likely) or just leave the market space. People won't stop buying iPhones because there aren't any maps natively on it. They will go to the app store and get the map software that works best for them.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

And the enemy of all mapping applications is time...the older the database the more likely it is to be wrong. Stores open and close, restaurants appear and disappear, shops open and fail. And pretty much as soon as you update the database, it's out of date again.

This is why I think Google's Street View is a exercise in futility. Are they going to re-image the entire world on a periodic basis? I think not.

Frankly, Apple ought to just get out of the mapping business. It's not in their basic business model and they aren't willing to spend resources on it that it takes. If Google wants to map, let them, then either buy the database from them (not likely) or just leave the market space. People won't stop buying iPhones because there aren't any maps natively on it. They will go to the app store and get the map software that works best for them.

Bingo. You'd think Apple would put the resources into it for the sake of the customer experience that they pride themselves on, but they aren't, which is just baffling to me. I absolutely do like having the integration of Maps on desktop and mobile, and being able to easily flip a route from my desktop to my iPhone is AWESOME! It's just too unreliable to use on the go.

 

[MacInWin]

As a former aviator, I can pass along our mantra, the 7 Ps:

Proper Prior Planning Prevents **** Poor Performance

'nuff said.

 

[vansmith]

An argument can be made that Google has had a lot more time to refine this, but Apple doesn't even have basic listings for emergency services listed properly after, lessee.... 3 years.

Even when places are easily found on the map, the Maps application (at least on mobile) has issues of disappearing POIs at different zoom levels. I've seen subway stations, for example, simply disappear depending on how far zoomed in I am (I mentioned this elsewhere but it works here). Why should I have to fiddle with zooming to see if a place actually exists?

Frankly, Apple ought to just get out of the mapping business. It's not in their basic business model and they aren't willing to spend resources on it that it takes. If Google wants to map, let them, then either buy the database from them (not likely) or just leave the market space. People won't stop buying iPhones because there aren't any maps natively on it. They will go to the app store and get the map software that works best for them.

The frustrating part is that they probably won't. One possible solution might be to move away from TomTom and licence data from another mapping company. That might be a headache for a while but it might help salvage things. Or, Apple could simply, as you suggested, concede and/or licence something else or just abandon the maps game altogether (although, given that most mobile platforms now come with maps as standard, I think it might be better to include something than nothing).