Poking Fun at Apple’s New Maps

Photo
A screenshot from Apple's maps app.Credit Associated Press

When Apple introduced iOS 6, its latest mobile operating system, on Wednesday, it made one of the biggest changes to the software in years: It replaced Google’s maps with its own. And now that plenty of iPhone customers have had a chance to use the new Apple maps for a few days, the reactions have been strong — and often sarcastic.

Over the last few days, Apple customers annoyed with the new maps took to Twitter to complain, uploading screenshots of failed searches, complaining about getting lost and posting comments poking fun at the app’s shortcomings.

Many other reactions around the Web were just as snarky. Tom Scott, a Web developer in London, made a parody video , embedded below, explaining that the new app was having some problems because the new iPhone was capable of seeing parallel universes, including “water world,” “low-resolution world” and “wibbly wobbly world.”

In an interview, Mr. Scott said he felt the fuss over the maps was “a bit of a storm in a teacup” because if the phone weren’t so popular, it wouldn’t be gaining so much attention. But he couldn’t resist piling on.

“I rarely turn down a cheap joke,” Mr. Scott said. He added that he has avoided upgrading his iPhone to iOS 6, because in London the app has been especially problematic. “There are large swathes of the U.K. where the new Maps app is just plain wrong. Basingstoke, one of the locations I mention in the video, is a town of about 80,000 people; Apple Maps has it as a small point in the middle of a field.”

One London Underground station seemed to have some fun at Apple’s expense, offering physical maps to passengers who were using iOS 6.

The map jokes don’t appear to be hurting sales of the new iPhone 5, which comes with the new software installed in it. On Friday, long lines wrapped around Apple stores all over the world; in New York, as many as 1,300 people were lining up outside the Fifth Avenue store in the morning. And Apple had already sold 2 million iPhones last week, when the phone became available to order online.

Eric Jue, Apple’s senior product manager for iPhone, said that even though some customers were experiencing issues with the new Maps app, the company was confident that they would enjoy its new features, like turn-by-turn navigation and Flyover, a feature that shows 3-D models of buildings in major cities. He said the Maps app should get better over time because Apple will collect data from customers to improve the database.