Australia fire department:Apple Maps creates 'dangerous' situations

[techbeck]

Late last year, a local police force in Australia warned motorists to avoid using Apple's Maps app in iOS 6 after the software led some drivers into what it deemed a "potentially life-threatening" situation. For its part, Apple worked quickly to resolve the erroneous directions, which steered travelers towards an isolated section of Murray-Sunset National Park rather than their intended destination ? the city of Mildura. But it seems the company's woes in Australia haven't ended just yet: the Country Fire Authority in Victoria is slamming Apple for persisting inaccuracies in Maps that it says have resulted in "dangerous" errors in its FireReady brush fire awareness app. According to the CFA, many towns in the vicinity are falsely located on Apple's maps.

"Users report that towns are located on their maps at the center of the district rather than on the actual township itself," an Authority spokesperson told the Sydney Morning Herald. Officials have repeatedly tried to contact Apple seeking a quick resolution to the issue, but are being asked to log mistakes via the app's built-in report feature. That's apparently not good enough, with the CFA now urging users of the FireReady app "to disregard Apple Maps township locations and instead focus on street names and the location of incidents and warnings in relation to their GPS location." Of course, if Apple's best efforts to improve Maps aren't satisfactory, the CFA could also opt to replace Cupertino's offering with Google Maps; there's now a developer SDK for doing just that, after all.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/13/3985458/australia-fire-authority-says-apple-maps-creates-dangerous-situations

[Growled Member]

You'd think most people who know to use Google maps by now.