Apple Maps Reviews

by Prettymsdance

AppleMaps used to compare to Google Maps because it recognized U-turn areas that Google Maps didn’t, entrances that Google didn’t, and had great turn-by-turn directions. However, Google has always had the best traffic data. With the recent iOS 15 update, Apple Maps with voice guidance does not do great with turn-by-turn directions. It still tells you ahead of time when you’re 1/4 miles away, but very very frequently, it doesn’t tell you when to actually turn. It is really infuriating for places you’ve never been before because the point is not to look at your phone while driving. I’ve used Apple Maps for my job for two years and have never had this issue. It only happened after the iOS 15 update. Please fix this! And now when I go into any apartments, Apple Maps only guides me to the apartment complex, not the building or door itself. It used to guide me to the apartment building of the customer. I hate it now and went back to Google Maps because of all the missed turns.

by Cmart_96

Apple Maps was never a great navigation app in my experience: it constantly lags/crashes if your phone is in the sun for more than 10 minutes, the voice navigation waits until last minute to tell you to make a turn/exit and suddenly you find yourself at a crossroads: either miss the turn/exit and accept being late, or Tokyo drift your way back on course. However, any redeemable qualities it once had its now lost with the newest iOS update.

One of the few decent things about AppleMaps was that it gave you 3 volume options for the navigation voice over (high, medium, low). Since the update, the ability to manage the volume of the navigation voice has seemingly been removed; instead, you now have 3 pointless options (on, silence, only announce emergency update). Jamming to your favorite song as you’re cruising down the interstate? Well, you better hope there aren’t any updates along the way because the navigation voice will violate your eardrums without any remorse, and now there’s no option to lower the voice without lowering your music too. It baffles me how they managed to make AppleMaps even worse than it was.

by 732678

Every time I use apple maps, I almost get in a car accident. Today seriously shook me up, as apple maps re-routed 4/5 different times while i was on a 70 MPH highway. It told me to merge where I shouldn’t, it took me the opposite direction of my destination, and took me down tons of one way streets. The inconsistency of AppleMaps, is dangerous and careless of apple. Not to mention, it has no sense of direction even for the walking feature. AppleMaps does not know which direction you are pointing, and will likely take you the wrong way 8/10 times. Not only that, but when u start the trip, it doesn’t even start you in the right spot, and again shows you a different route to where your destination is. If you are not paying attention, AppleMaps will cause you to crash your car. Sometimes it doesn’t even say what exit to get off of, it just gives you an arrow? Apple maps makes sure that wherever you are going you are taking the longest way possible. It does nothing to avoid traffic and actually helps to build up traffic by steering all drivers to a route that has the most lights. It is clear that the creators of AppleMaps have no dedication to efficiency or correctness. It is lazy and honestly an embarrassment to apple, as most of their products and apps are very helpful. Use google maps, it will save you a lot of time. Get it together apple maps, it’s honestly gross.

by C_e Bristow

I’ve been dealing with the same problem for a while now and have even contacted apple support since it’s a pre installed app and they can’t figure it out. My location indicator is constantly running around and is at least 50-75 yards from my exact location. When I first open AppleMaps it’s either zoomed in like a microscope where everything is blurry or it’s 299 yards away and it takes 8 seconds to be near my location. Another issue is if I try to use it while driving to a specific destination some times it just drives me in circles. I’ve sent apple support screenshots and screen recordings, I’ve let them see it happening live and no one seems to know. Please fix my issue. This is not a $100 dollar phone and for the price we pay for these phones this is very unacceptable. If you review my issue I am having then thank you. Just now at approximately 2am EST I’ve lost my satellite on my maps. There is no landmarks whatsoever.

by Fiendhead

I’ve been using maps since I’ve had an iPhone. Never had an issue with getting step by step directions. For about a year now it doesn’t give step by step directions, or speak the address once the last step is given. It also takes you the LONG way to where you have to go. Extra unnecessary turns to go from one block to the next. Sometimes it doesn’t even tell you where to go. It waits until you pass up where you need to go before it speaks again. I use the map to do Instacart and the map takes me 10 minutes to get to somewhere that’s 5 minutes away. It has a 2 minute delay on telling you when to make a left or right turn after you’ve already made it to the light & if you in the wrong lane now you have to fight to get over to make the turn. Please fix these problems. I shouldn’t have to watch the gps the whole time just to use it when I should be able to be comfortable and secure enoughtrg with the gps to give me correct directions.

by Christian1234567891011

I would give apple maps a 5 star rating because it looks so sleek and clean around the screen on apple carplay or simply on your phone. I hate that when it suggests you to go on a “shorter and faster route” it takes you to a road that it out of the way and congested with traffic. Also, it is crazy to me that apple maps has been in the game for several years, beating competition, but has yet to put an option for police ahead. Lastly the most annoying and simply stupidest feature they have is to make illegal turns that cause people to get ticketed by police or they suggest a speed limit that is either 10 or even 20 miles over the actual speed limit of the given road. Lastly for them to assume that everyone has the peach pass or express lane is absolutely the dumbest thing ever lol. For instance, I do not have it and I got into the lane because maps suggested it, just to be back in traffic. So therefore I basically got ticketed for the stupidest mistake on apple’s end. Absolutely disappointed and disgusted in this. I immediately deleted apple maps and downloaded waze. The best map apps on the platform.

by Kare_bear125

Don’t think I have anything new to say that the reviewers haven’t already said. I want to use all of the Apple apps because you would think they’d be the best to use with the iPhone but maps just consistently disappoints (same with Apple Music). The voice doesn’t speak up in a timely manner and the visual representation is hard to decipher between an exit ramp and the main road. It’s also a terrible scale. It looks like a turn is so much further away than it is and I frequently miss turns. It frequently doesn’t say or write the exit number and it doesn’t take you the shortest route. Today it sent me on a 30 minute detour through some backroads for no reason. The resetting to the same random location everytime you open AppleMaps is also infuriating. And it’s not the most recent location either because I can pull up maps and recenter to the same location for weeks and it will still reset back to some other random location so when I look up things, it looks for them in the wrong area. I don’t get how this company makes so much money and has such terrible apps.

by Bigjooz

As soon as I got home from my unnecessarily lengthy drive, I checked the DSM 5 to see what mental incapabilities siri has because she is definitely not sane. No matter which path I chose, Siri chose a different one. I did not want to get onto the highway. Siri rerouted me onto the highway approximately 5 times. Additionally, it seems clear that She does not know that one ways exist. Upon the 5th attempt to get to my destination without getting on the highway, Siri told me to go straight on a particular road. Well whoop freaking dee. THE ROAD DID NOT EXIST. Siri was using that road as a ploy to get me to merge on the interstate. I had no other choice. The road she said to go straight on was a ramp… for the interstate. I wanted to avoid major roads due to the storm, but Siri had other opinions in mind. This is dangerous and needs oversight. So, I traveled twice as long as I should have, on the interstate, under non-ideal weather conditions, all the way around my destination, for no other reason than the fact that Siri felt a compulsive need for me to travel on a highway or interstate?? I hope Apple Maps never sees the light of day again.

by TechyActor

One star feels wrong, as there are beautiful things about AppleMaps, however it is the bait/switch nature of offering a feature-full app that you come to rely on, that then ends up blowing up your day. It was already a bit dodgey, and I liked some of the ideas in the update, but it was a crazy number of times in the last couple weeks that I had to re-enter addresses, re-locate myself on the map (dangerous and frustrating while driving), insist with repeated searching/pinning that I was NOT going to a location but to its sister-shop, and work around ridiculous suggestions (looked for coffee nearby, and was suggested something over 800 miles away- similar things happened repeatedly... in many cases they looked like sponsored content. Just dumb)... it has been a source of yelling frustration every time I interacted with it. A real shame, as I loved being less reliant on google. Deleted AppleMaps just now... hope to try again next year. IS ANYBODY TESTING THIS IN THE REAL WORLD BEFORE LAUNCHING??? I can't imagine.

by Jhermano

It seems like someone at apple thought they were smarter than the users and being helpful when it turns out AppleMaps can be a huge pain to use for anything but basic navigation. They made the address too sticky so that it is a real challenge to have AppleMaps forget that address so I can enter a new address. Forget about adding any stop you want along the way too. I cannot figure out how to enter what I want instead of the standard list of generic places apple allows. How do I go from A to B but stop at my friends house along the way? Lately, AppleMaps has too many occasions when it thinks I am off the road, literally off in the woods along the side of the highway, or going east when I am heading north and it gets confused telling me to go places that are completely wrong. All this happens in the middle of a trip not during some adjustments to it - pretty bad for such a smart system. I do like the newer features that track traffic but I hate that it tries to detour me around it automatically - I know that might be helpful BUT don’t do it unless I give permission!! There might be another reason I took that route and I can handle the traffic. Please do not think too much for me as a user and restrict what I can do or make choices without asking. Instead, give me the options and tools I need to solve problems, then be helpful with suggestions along the way.

by Trippy T 44

I want to like AppleMaps so bad as it’s the only map app that doesn’t sell every bit of information possible. The problem is AppleMaps is terrible. I live in a city with over a million people so by no means rural, and it constantly takes me on slower routes, the Siri assistant chimes in every 3 seconds, takes weeks for a road closure to be updated and when it’s fixed takes a couple more weeks for the route to open up again. Every single time you launch AppleMaps it opens the last destination which takes multiple clicks to get out of. The browsing experience is so difficult to find new places or restaurants. Not to mention the 1000 Karen’s that flood yelp reviews, don’t think I’ve seen a positive review in my life. Also why is yelp a separate app, I have to open another app to see a review. Please apple I don't want to support Google but AppleMaps is becoming more of a hassle then memorizing routes.

by ;igub Ljb.mn.

The latest update adds much needed visual details and some features but does nothing to improve the quality of the directions you receive from AppleMaps . AppleMaps does not do well in trying to get you around/through heavy traffic and warning you quick enough when new traffic or issues occur on a trip ahead of you on the route. Maps recently took me off a congested highway into even more congested back roads. Other navigation apps I checked were not taking me to where Maps was.
Also, I tried to use Maps this past week to find a hospital entrance and and business. In case of the hospital the directions brought me to a fenced in are at the back of the hospital and the business directions brought me past the entrance and into a strip mall outside the campus of the business.
While all the bells and whistles of detail is great. If I cant get to my destination reliably it makes it hard to use Maps.

by Amberrralrttt

Let me see if I can put this in to words properly. So annoyed. Every time I open AppleMaps and go to type something in search it pulls up my last traveled route and I have to exit out of 2 screens to be taken back to the search screen and it still try’s to pop up the previous traveled location. Point being it makes it very difficult to type in the new location with all these popups. Especially if you’re in a hurry and trying to figure something out. If I want to go to my last traveled location I’ll type it and and the select the auto fill but stop taking me to the same location direction center after AppleMaps has been cleared from my cache. Also if AppleMaps has been cleared from the cache I should t have to go back in and end the route. If I’m out of the application completely that should be a given that I’ve arrived and no longer need directions. Supper annoyed with this new app. Also trying to navigate to the end route button is a pain in my ARSss too. One too many screens to navigate through. Did the developers not give this a trial run before putting it out??

by Snllmb

I really want to make apple maps my default because of the apple ecosystem getting better every time but seems like apple map has a lot of catching up to do.
The looks and the 3d view etc are great. But small things like a search bar in add a stop (instead of just restaurant, gas, parking etc.) is missing. What if I want to add an address as a pit stop?
On the car play when you enter the address and turn the selection knob to Go - it turns either blue or green. Now green should mean selected right? or is it blue? Blue means selected and green is not. I have never seen such conflicting color choices.
While on the freeway, the views for exits are very close to the main freeway thats its hard to figure out which is which when there are multiple branches. Should be more easier to read and driver focused instead of making it more visually appealing.

by ColHogan85

I have been using Apple Maps for over 2 years as a delivery driver and actually prefer it over G maps UI. It has worked quite well for navigation, par with Google in my experience. But I just got the new IPhone 13 and the latest update has broken Maps. It makes critical errors during navigation. Key turns are missed because Siri fails to notify me when to turn. This happens over 50% of the time now, never before. It also has had several key misdirections now to places across town from the desired location. This used to be 1 in 1000 now is 1 in 100.

I love the additions to the the new version but cannot put up with inaccuracies and missing key turns that cost me time and money. I really hope you get this sorted out soon because I really dislike using G maps.

by Xhjrffggfdgjkitffg

AppleMaps unlike other navigation apps actually preserves your privacy because apple doesn’t need to make money from selling your data like they do even though AppleMaps is also free.
I would still love to see the features that other navigation apps offer on AppleMaps like real time tracking of busses and trains with their real time location being displayed on the map like the Transit app does. The data is fetched from the MTA, at least for NYC, anyway so there really shouldn’t be a privacy concern when trying to implement that into AppleMaps. I see that as the only obstacle for a company like apple so I really hope to see that feature in the future. I would also like to be able to turn off the guides function in maps. I would rather be able to do without that so having that option in the future would be nice.

by Cruiseguru

I recently updated my iPhone 12 to iOS 15 and initially I was happy with the improvements to Apple Maps but it quickly regressed. Last night, while driving for Lyft, I chose one of my favorite destinations and tapped on “directions” and it kept stating that navigation wasn’t available due to poor network connection. I forced AppleMaps closed and tried again with the same result. This NEVER happened BEFORE updating to iOS 15! I finally decided to zoom in on my destination, click the pin and surprisingly, directions WERE available! I do prefer Apple Maps over Google Maps and Waze but it definitely needs improvement. Once, it kept informing me to enter a highway even though the rider I was going to pick up was west of the highway frontage road on a side street. It was a complete malfunction. Last week, it failed 2-3 times on one trip with no audio and navigation malfunctioned before I finally got it to work. Do not blame my cellphone signal!

by Marvel28

I still use my Garmin 660 from my old RV because it’s accurate and gives good advances of directions, even if it’s slow to recalculate. Second to that is Apple Maps. It’s an easy to read and understand system that gets me places sooner than competitors. I like I can use it via voice activation, which is better than my 660. Still, it’s very accurate, which is a point of directions in this manner. The next update Apple needs to add on as a setting is for EV charging! So it populates EV chargers in general, or better yet, by charging speed or manufacture. IE. Charge Point or Tesla. They have their own routing pages/options but it would be fantastic to have it integrated into Apple Maps. This is where I want to go, with EV charges: show my my route options. And not just for big cities!

by Anonymous92635

Many people seem to take issue with AppleMaps, whether they discuss its rerouting tendencies or the times stores are open. I, on the other hand, have had no such issues and believe that, given another few updates, AppleMaps could become more significant than Google Maps. I find the Routes to be faster, and I notice the majority of 1-star reviews are either minor issues that do not often happen (I have used AppleMaps for over three years now, and it has never steered me wrong) or old reviews complaining of glitches that Apple has resolved over the past few years. The one issue I would point out is that AppleMaps does make it challenging to place stops during a trip. Apple Maps is a solid app that can get you from point A to point B using quick routes.

by ErinJoan

I just downloaded iOS 15.0 and really love what you’ve done with the recent update to Apple Maps! I was already a big fan of the voice navigation from the last big update. I love hearing “go through this light, then at the next one, turn right”. It’s exactly what I want from a navigator. With this new update, it’s much faster and easier to change the audio options from Voice Navigator, No Voice, or Only Alerts. That’s really helpful to me. I also like the quick access to switching views, from viewing the entire route to zooming in on my location. If I could add a feature, I’d love to have a “baby sleeping” route option where it gives me the route with the most continual motion. Doesn’t matter if it’s a longer route, being able to avoid traffic, stop-sign and red-light heavy streets, and keep the car moving so that the baby can continue to nap in carseat would be so valuable!

by Thefarmersdaughter

…but it won’t let me press send lol

Lots of glitches in the new iOS 15 Maps. Report an issue didn’t work. Exiting a search made the search freeze blank and had to forcibly shut AppleMaps and restart. Also, when switching to 3D the street names and location pin move off of their correct locations.

by OneTrueNate

iOS 15’s Maps app includes this enormous “Editor’s Picks” section below favorites and recents, pushing the guides section far out of the way, and taking up a ton of screen real estate. This feature isn’t something I want, and it makes navigating Maps more cumbersome. I’d have no problem with this, if I could disable “Editor’s Picks,” however Apple offers no way to turn this irrelevant, distracting, and inconvenient nonsense off. Disappointing and emblematic of Apple’s software getting slowly worse and worse.

by Bob162000

I want a map to show roads, not some green peyote induced nightmare. I live in the northeast; I can see green out the window. It was nearly impossible to see secondary roads, and now with iOS 15 and the stupid fluorescent green, it’s beyond hope. Go to central Massachusetts and open the same view in Maps and Google- which would you use? Street name scaling is horrible- the more you zoom, the worse it gets. I am the last in my circle of friends and family to use maps. I now give up; Google it is. How could Apple screw it up this badly?

by Stan340

With iOS 15 the amount of time to walk to a destination is impossible to choose. AppleMaps is stuck on drive time. Not helpful at all for those of us that do most of out Transpotation by foot.
The feature of choosing mode is missed already

by EdenX

AppleMaps was great before. However after this new update on iOS 15 the screen in CarPlay is far too busy. You used to be able to zoom out and get rid of the clutter of stores and locations on the map which made for a nice driving experience. Now no matter what zoom level it shows store locations. That coupled with a more busy map coloring makes AppleMaps look janky and ugly especially in car play.

by BDFRQ

Although the 3d imagery is awesome, it’s like 5 years old in parts of New York City!! Traffic patterns aren’t always up to date and the navigation is just okay. The search function hardly ever gives me what I am looking for. Almost never use AppleMaps…

by Laggytakenpizza

Driving in downtown Boston once in the tunnels wasn’t able update or give directions. Vs previous iOS maps were still updating and able to show proper exits

by Mr-Dirty

The map app still does not allow directions to overlay with satellite imaging. So driving directions look like it was done with a coloring book and crayons. I will stick with google maps they accurately allow me to do what i need.

by #urmom

like AppleMaps is not good nor bad

by Austencious

The updates made to Apple map has been incredible. It’s even more telling when I’m using Apple map in Apple Car Play. I can zoom out more to reveal more areas on the map and the street names now show in full and this is awesome for navigating new areas. There’s still room for improvement, but this update is awesome.

by Shawn675

Ever since I saw videos of the new map redesign being shown back in the betas, I’ve been interested to try it when it was released officially. And you guys definitely did not disappoint with this years update, I’m very interested to see what Apple has planned for Apple Maps in the future, because it has a bright one for sure.

by Bud-v

Maps needs an update. A lot of new construction been happening and done so I would like to see a more updated satellite view.

by Uruguaytx

You need to add the number on houses like google have is so frustrated that you can’t see the numbers .

by Enkeledi

Maps in iOS 15 are awesome, from user interface to public transit schedules. Very well done.

by Nannu S.

Great map details and its better than google maps.