Apple Maps flaw causes runway alerts

25 September 2013 Last updated at 19:42 GMT By Leo Kelion Technology reporter Apple's Maps app directed motorists to one of Fairbanks airport's runways rather than its car park An Alaskan airport has closed an aircraft access route because of a flaw with Apple's Maps app.

Fairbanks International Airport told a local newspaper that in the past three weeks two motorists had driven along the taxiway and across one of its runways.

Apple's app had directed users along the taxiway but did not specifically tell them to drive onto the runway.

The firm has now issued a temporary fix.

Users searching for directions are told they are "not available" rather than showing the earlier route.

A spokesman for Apple was unable to provide comment.

The airport said it had first complained to the phone-maker three weeks ago via the local attorney general's office.

"We asked them to disable the map for Fairbanks until they could correct it, thinking it would be better to have nothing show up than to take the chance that one more person would do this," Melissa Osborn, chief of operations at the airport, told the Alaska Dispatch newspaper.

She added that barricades had since been erected to block access to the final stretch of the taxiway and that they would not be removed until Apple had updated its directions.

The BBC still experienced the issue when it tested the app early on Wednesday, asking for directions to the site from a property to the east of the airport. By contrast the Google Maps app provided a different, longer route which takes drivers to the property's car park.

The Google Maps app sends drivers on a different route

A spokeswoman for the airport said that Apple had finally disabled the faulty directions at about 19:00BST.

Warnings ignored

Apple faced criticism after it ditched Google's service as its default maps option last year.

Complaints of inaccuracies followed, including placing Dublin Airport about 17km (11 miles) away from its true location after apparently confusing the site with a farm named Airfield.

The Australian police went so far as to warn that Apple's software was "life threatening" after motorists became stranded in a national park after being given the wrong directions to the city of Mildura, Victoria.

Chief executive Tim Cook posted a letter to the firm's website apologising for the "frustration" caused and promised "we are doing everything we can to make Maps better".

The company has since taken over several other mapping software developers including Locationary, Hopstop and Embark.

Reviews of its latest operating system, iOS 7, noted that its Maps product had improved, with the Guardian newspaper reporting that Apple's "POI (points of interest) database is getting better".

However, the latest mishap indicates problems remain.

Fairbanks Airport said the drivers involved in the 6 September and 20 September incidents had both been from out of town and had ignored signposts warning them that they should not be driving along the taxiway.

Barricades now prevent drivers following Apple's directions

"They must have been persistent," the airport's assistant manager Angie Spear told the BBC.

"They had to enter the airport property via a motion-activated gate, and afterwards there are many signs, lights and painted markings, first warning that aircraft may share the road and then that drivers should not be there at all.

"They needed to drive over a mile with all this before reaching the runway. But the drivers disregarded all that because they were following the directions given on their iPhones."

The runway the motorists crossed was used by 737 jets among other aircraft. No one was injured.

"All these types of mapping software have flaws but the problem for Apple is that because it's such a high-profile brand, it gets a lot of attention," said Neil McCartney from the McCartney Media and Telecoms consultancy.

"It's very important for a company in that sort of situation to acknowledge a problem when it is reported and then put it right as fast as possible."

Nick Dillon, senior device analyst at research house Ovum, added that Fairbanks Airport's complaint illustrated how hard the mapping business was to get right.

"With Apple Maps the firm has made a rare misstep by releasing a product which has not lived up to its own high standards.

"Apple evidently did not fully grasp the complexity involved in deploying a mapping service and its continuing woes show that it is not an easy thing to fix."

View the original article here

How Apple Gets All the Good Apps

This week Walt Mossberg tells us why he feels Apple has become the "Switzerland of Mobile Platforms" in relation to Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. (Photo: Getty Images)

Apple tightly controls its software and hardware, and is fiercely competitive in battling its rivals, especially in the mobile market. And yet, while the company never creates apps for anyone else's mobile system or device, each of its major mobile-platform foes—Google, Amazon and Microsoft —make many of their apps available for Apple devices. That makes those devices the sort of Switzerlands of the mobile world.

If you buy an iPhone or iPad, you get Apple-written mobile apps and services like Siri, iMessage, iWork, iPhoto and FaceTime, which aren't available on other phones and tablets. But you can get first-class versions of competitors' official apps.

The Wall Street Journal (photo illustration), Apple (iPad) While there are no versions of Apple apps for other mobile platforms, its iOS platform draws many apps from rivals.

So, iPhone and iPad users who prefer apps from other big mobile-platform makers don't have to switch to an Android or Windows Phone or an Amazon tablet. They have access right on their Apple devices to major apps from these competing platforms. But people with non-Apple mobile devices can't get Apple's mobile apps and services.

This is obviously a lopsided situation in Apple's favor. But it stems from the different business models of the big rivals. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are primarily software and services companies, though each makes some mobile hardware (Google through its Motorola subsidiary). But Apple, while famous for making good software, sells that software almost entirely through iconic and expensive hardware, from which it makes the vast majority of its money.

Although Android devices are the most popular, Apple has sold over 400 million iOS devices. So the Apple market is too big to ignore, even for its direct competitors.

The Wall Street Journal (photo illustration), European Pressphoto Agency (iPhone) Apple's major mobile-platform rivals—Google, Microsoft and Amazon—all have official versions of their apps for Apple devices.

Apple device owners can run official apps for Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail, Google's Chrome browser, Google Drive and more. They can get Microsoft-written apps for its Bing search service, its SkyDrive cloud-storage service, its OneNote note-taking service and more. And they can get a host of Amazon's apps, including several apps for Amazon's online store and apps for Amazon's cloud-based video and music steaming services.

Some examples: If you read digital books on your Apple device, you can use either Apple's iBooks app, an official Kindle app, or the official Google Play Books app, among others. If you like asking your phone questions by voice, you can ask either Apple's own Siri intelligent assistant, or the voice feature in Google's search app. You don't get either of those combinations on other phones because Apple doesn't share its apps.

Even Samsung, Apple's major hardware rival, makes a handful of iPhone and iPad apps for the electronics maker's products, including one that turns an iPhone or iPad into a remote control for Samsung Smart TVs. Yes, that's right, you can use an iPhone to control a Samsung TV, courtesy of Samsung.

In the case of Google Maps, the version for Apple devices is more modern, and sleeker, than the one for its maker's own platform.

And these apps from Apple's rivals keep coming. Google just released an iOS version of Field Trip, a location-based app that highlights points of interest; and Microsoft recently released an iOS version of its Xbox SmartGlass app, which links mobile devices to its game console.

Note that I am only talking about apps that are officially published by Apple's rivals themselves, not those from other developers that may mimic or provide workarounds for an app from one rival for another's platform. And I am not referring to services that can be accessed via the browser on mobile devices, only self-contained apps.

So, why do Apple's rivals help make iPhones and iPads more versatile when Apple doesn't return the favor?

Google said: "We want to make our products available to as many people as possible. Our goal is to offer the best possible Google experience across multiple devices and platforms."

Amazon noted it has long had a public policy called "Buy Once, Enjoy Everywhere," that aims to make buying its digital content and physical goods easy on all hardware, not just its own Kindle devices.

And while Microsoft stresses it considers its software to be "first and best" on its Windows phones and Windows 8 tablets, it says: "We provide customers a quality experience across many devices."

Apple, which years ago did put iTunes and its Safari browser on Windows PCs, had no comment on its policy of restricting its mobile apps and services to its own hardware.

There are some major caveats. If you want to live in a Google or Microsoft world, with a single sign-on to those companies' services and all of their apps, an Apple device won't cut it. Certain key apps from Google and Microsoft aren't available on iOS. For instance, you can only get the official smartphone version of Microsoft Office on a Windows Phone (though there are rumors of an iOS version). Google's artificial intelligence app Google Now and its payment app Google Wallet are AWOL on Apple devices. And there are many other reasons, including hardware and user interfaces, why smartphone buyers might prefer Android or Windows Phone devices.

Another caveat: Both Microsoft and Amazon make an array of apps for phones and tablets running Google's Android operating system. But even so there are instances where Apple owners have a slight edge. Amazon's video-streaming app is available for Apple devices, but not Android. And again, Android owners can't run Apple's official apps.

Owners of Windows Phones have much less of a choice in rivals' apps: only one from Google, three from Amazon, compared with a dozen or more from each on Apple devices. Owners of Kindle Fire tablets, which use a modified version of Android, have almost no choices from Amazon's major rivals.

So what does this mean for you? It may not be enough to justify choosing an iPhone or iPad. But if you do, you can still enjoy many of the key apps from other big makers of mobile platforms.

—Find all of Walt Mossberg's columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com. A version of this article appeared March 13, 2013, on page D1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: How Apple Gets All the Good Apps.

View the original article here