Tim Cook Personally Apologises For The Awful State Of Apple Maps


I said earlier that even Apple knows just how bad it screwed up Maps. I was talking collectively. As in ‘wow, that Maps team in Cupertino must know something’s up’. Turns out it goes much further than that. Apple’s head honcho Tim Cook has just penned an open letter to the world’s iOS users to apologise for borking Maps so, so badly.

Now before you sigh: yes, it’s another Maps story, ok? But this one is important. The last thing Tim Cook used this language around was Ping, and we all know how that went.

Tim Cook made a few recommendations to Apple Maps users in the meantime, one of which is Google’s own map software. The situation is so bad at Apple that Tim Cook is even recommending Bing Maps to Apple users. Bing. Maps. You know he just cried through typing every single one of those words on the company’s website.

Here’s the full, unadulterated open letter to Apple’s customers from Mr Tim Cook himself:

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO

The letter is posted at the bottom of the Apple homepage all over the world. Here’s to Apple Maps 2.0 and a whole team of engineers being fired. [Apple]


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