December 10, 2012: Apple fixes an Apple Maps error that brought on a number of motorists in Victoria, Australia, to develop into stranded within the distant Murray-Sundown Nationwide Park.
The early Apple Maps glitch confirmed the city of Mildura practically 45 miles from its precise location. Within the aftermath, Victoria police describe Apple’s navigation app as “potentially life-threatening.” That’s just about the other of “it just works.”
Apple Maps: Flawed from the beginning
The Murray-Sundown Nationwide Park error was simply the most recent in a collection of issues that adopted the discharge of Apple Maps. A extremely anticipated launch in September 2012, Apple first confirmed off Apple Maps at that 12 months’s Worldwide Builders Convention. The corporate shipped the software program with iOS 6 (alongside the iPhone 5).
For the primary time, Apple ditched Google Maps as its default mapping service. Apple Maps additionally provided some intriguing additions — together with the spectacular Flyover function and the presence of AI assistant Siri.
From the very starting, nevertheless, Apple Maps bumped into issues. Along with warping landscapes and distorting landmarks, it additionally exhibited more-serious errors. For example, Apple Maps advised drivers to steer the mistaken method throughout Fairbanks Airport Taxiway in Alaska. Airport advertising and marketing director Angie Spear known as that exact Apple Maps error proof optimistic that drivers put an excessive amount of religion in navigation methods.
Fallout in Cupertino after a disastrous launch
Within the aftermath of the Maps debacle, Apple ousted Scott Forstall, senior vice chairman of iOS software program, after he refused to make a public apology for the Maps issues. And he wasn’t the one casualty in Cupertino after the glitchy rollout of Apple Maps. Not lengthy afterward, Richard Williamson — the supervisor chargeable for Maps — additionally discovered himself navigated out of Apple.
New CEO Tim Prepare dinner admitted that Apple had “screwed up.” He additionally promised to place “the entire weight of the company behind correcting” the Apple Maps issues.
Within the years since, Apple steadily improved its mapping service and added superior options like 3D views of choose cities.
Fixing a ‘life-threatening’ glitch in Apple Maps
The present state of Apple Maps is a far cry from the state of issues on the time of the Mildura mapping mishap. That Apple Maps error proved doubtlessly harmful to drivers.
In an announcement, police in Victoria wrote:
“Local Police have been called to assist distressed motorists who have become stranded within the Murray-Sunset National Park after following directions on their Apple iPhone. Tests on the mapping system by police confirm the mapping systems lists Mildura in the middle of the Murray Sunset National Park, approximately 70km away from the actual location of Mildura. Police are extremely concerned as there is no water supply within the Park and temperatures can reach as high as 46 degrees, making this a potentially life threatening issue. Some of the motorists located by police have been stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water and have walked long distances through dangerous terrain to get phone reception.”
Curiously, on this event, it’s potential Apple wasn’t solely chargeable for the fault. The Gazetteer of Australia, a grasp listing of greater than 300,000 place names and their coordinates, included two references to Mildura — with one being in the midst of the Murray-Sundown Nationwide Park, near a spot known as Rocket Lake.
In different phrases, Apple Maps was truly taking of us to the proper coordinates, however the mistaken spot! Nonetheless, Apple fastened the glitch.
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