After upgrading my old iPhone 3G to the new iPhone 5 I quickly discovered that the default Maps App could no longer find anything in my area. Frustration quickly set in as Apple's incremental upgrades have always exceeded expectations.

It's a polarizing topic as it seems you either live in an area where the map data is actually better than before, or you live in an area where the map data is severely degraded.

In an effort to figure out how innacurate the data in my area is I did the following:

• Fired up Xcode
• Determined that Apple Maps uses the CLGeocoder Class by peeking at the iPhone's debug console in Xcode while doing live searches in Apple Maps
• Scraped an official list of towns and cities in the province of Ontario.
• Coded up something quick in Xcode to get the results of a couple thousand searches using this as a starting point. Searches always included the province name to be more specific.
• Ran a quick analysis of the results - not perfect but enough to get a perspective on the matter.

So Apple basically screwed over all iPhone users in Canada this time around. What's troubling is that many of these towns don't even appear on the map.

Unfortunately I'm locked into another 3-year contract. The Apple website states that the new Maps App is the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever. I got suckered. I know I know. Add the web-based Google Maps back to the Home Screen and stop complaining right?

The problem is three-fold

1. In my area the map is missing or has completely misplaced over 1500 towns and cities - absolute basic map data that should have been there from the start. This should be an easy fix that does not require the cloud! Just datamine a good quality map from a government website.
2. The CLGeocoder Class used to match strings to geo coordinates is just plain stupid! This is another fix that probably needs to be re-engineered from the ground up without the cloud. For example if the search query includes a province name why would it give results out of province? Some people use shortforms, long forms and typos, all of which should be handled easy by the search algorthm. I guess Google excels here :-(
3. Finally they need to fix the Report a Problem interface. Too many options and when trying to place a pin in the right location it forces satellite view which is like staring at a Gaussian blur (again in my area) making it impossible to work with.

Apple feel free to contact me through my personal website if you need some help :-)

Update (Saturday 2PM) - 25,000+ page views in the past 24 hours. Thanks for visiting!

Apple has acknowledged the problem however there's still lots of work to do.

Searches like "Bracebridge Ontario" look correct at first glance but when you zoom in the pin is in the middle of nowhere! Try it yourself. Once we see bigger towns like Bracebridge get fixed we'll know Apple is on it.

Searches like "Beeton Ontario" with a population of 3,000 still yield no results at all. This is one example of hundreds.

All of these towns, cities and regions are on the Official Road Map of Ontario so there is no reason why they shouldn't be on Apple Maps!!

Update (Sunday 1PM) - Looks like Apple toned down their false advertising.

Searches like "Alban Ontario" continue to drop pins on restaurants (in this case Albany Pizza) ...

Searches like "Palgrave Ontario" look correct at first glance but drop pins 5+ kilometers outside of town on some back road. This continues to be the norm for rural Ontario searches with a thousand+ towns seemingly missing or relocated in the new Apple Maps.

Update (Monday, October 1 8AM) - Close to 40,000 page views in the past few days!

Thanks to the hundreds of fellow Canadians who have contacted me with their stories of turn-by-turn sending them to the wrong spot or search not being able to find their town anymore! At least we can laugh about it :-) And the thousands that have tweeted or linked to this page is unbelievable! Apple take note!

• 2028 cities and towns searched
• 688 are not even on the map! Error Code 8
• 551 are clearly incorrect (wrong country, street names that are similar to town names etc.)
• 389 were close but not good enough (for example turn-by-turn might send you off a bridge but you'll get rescued close to where you want to be)
• Only about 400 results were actually correct.