Apple updates maps to remove Mildura ghost-city in Australian desert

“As Apple pushes out an update to iOS 6 maps to remove the now-notorious ‘desert Mildura,’ I'm going to sound an unusual note of fairness to Cupertino for the mistake,” Richard Chirgwin reports for The Register.

“It wasn't actually Apple's fault,” Chirgwin reports. “It looked bad compared to Google Maps, because the Chocolate Factory has spent an awful lot of money, time and petrol on StreetView and other ways to improve the "ground truth" of its maps - but Apple hasn't yet had the chance to correct the data it uses as inputs, to any great extent.”

Chirgwin reports, “To be blunt, there is a place called Mildura whose location is given as exactly where Apple put it - at least, there is in an authoritative source for such a location... In this case, the Australian Gazetteer - the authoritative list of 300,000-plus placenames, complete with coordinates - includes two Milduras. One is the ‘real’ town, the other is an entry for ‘Mildura Rural City,’ coordinates -34.79724 141.76108. It's this second entry that points to the middle of the Murray-Sunset National Park, just near a spot called Rocket Lake.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: The damage is done. Not that Maps needed any additional damage. So, there you have it.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Y" for the heads up.]

Related article:
Apple Maps could be life-threatening, Australian police warn – December 10, 2012
Apple promises to fix Maps glitches by rearranging earth's geography (with video) – December 6, 2012
Apple's Eddy Cue racing to overhaul Maps – November 28, 2012
Apple to Maps manager Williamson: Get lost – November 27, 2012
Days after Tim Cook's apology, Apple's Maps shows improvements – October 12, 2012
Tim Cook open letter: We fell short with new Maps app; we are extremely sorry – September 28, 2012

Apple’s smart Maps maneuver

“It might seem as if Apple chose its iOS 6 release last week to practice the biblical directive to love one’s enemy. For, by ejecting Google Maps from updated iPads and iPhones, Apple hath caused glorious comparisons to shine upon its foe,” Brad Hill writes for Engadget. “If most people were unaware of comparative feature sets and quality aspects that distinguish Google Maps from Apple Maps, every tech-loving person on God’s earth is an expert now.”

“I argue that replacing Google Maps with Apple Maps was shrewd, inevitable and an indicator that Apple understands the true battle it wages,” Hill writes. “By grafting its own Maps product into the nervous system of its mobile OS, Apple accomplishes two important things. First, the company’s primary mobile competitor is exorcised from the main body. This outcome might be viewed as the remedy to an ailment that never should have occurred... Second, Apple positions itself to harvest future local ad revenue. Apple Maps, despite its spatial confusions, has 25 percent more business listings (100 million of them) than Google does.”

Much more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Joe Architect" for the heads up.]