Google Maps FAIL

Remember kids, only Google has the smarts to make good-looking...

Thu, 23 May 2013 05:44:04 -0400

Remember kids, only Google has the smarts to make good-looking webmaps. Those amateurs at Apple can only make embarrassing distortions of reality. Oh, wait.

streetview camera fail next priority for Google Maps: get some...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:11:01 -0500

streetview camera fail

next priority for Google Maps: get some decent bridge height data. should be pretty easy, just record where your camera falls off.

(hat-tip cnet)

of course, that is EXACTLY what I was thinking of.

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:18:31 -0400

of course, that is EXACTLY what I was thinking of.

quite rightly, people have been ragging on apple maps for not...

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:06:21 -0400

quite rightly, people have been ragging on apple maps for not providing public transit directions.

as ever, google shows the way. although frankly i hope my bus driver isn’t using google to show him the way.

“isn’t easy for us to fix at this time” Log...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:16:00 -0400

“isn’t easy for us to fix at this time”

oh, wait, that’s OpenStreetMap I’m thinking of.

(hat tip to Morgan Douglas)

despite appearances no, this is not the Costa Concordia heading...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:25:00 -0500

despite appearances no, this is not the Costa Concordia heading straight for another big rock

here at googlemapsfail we would like to extend the season of...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:57:08 -0500

here at googlemapsfail we would like to extend the season of goodwill to all men, especially Google maps engineers, by highlighting something they have got right for once. yes, it’s on the Isle of Dogs so it almost certainly is fairly fucking dodgy

this morning Google Maps UK switched from using Tele...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:22:04 -0500

this morning Google Maps UK switched from using Tele Atlas’s data to their own, lovingly handcrafted by some guys driving StreetView cars and a digitizing sweatshop in India.

apparently it is almost as good.

“You’d better tell the Captain we’ve got to...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0500

“You’d better tell the Captain we’ve got to land as soon as we can. This plane has to be gotten to an airport.”

“An airport? What is it?”

“It’s a couple of trees in a field in Oxford, but that’s not important right now.”

srsly Google, I’d just turn the hybrid option off if I were you, it makes you look like idiots

StreetView driver is bored of this tarmac road shit but I very...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:28:26 -0500

StreetView driver is bored of this tarmac road shit but I very very very seriously doubt that this is a B road

So a man walks into an imaginary bar…

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:15:27 -0400

So a man walks into an imaginary bar…

euh, bof, vive l’entente cordiale. parce que Google scrape...

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:44:04 -0500

euh, bof, vive l’entente cordiale.

parce que Google scrape les site web, les motorways Eenglish avont les names français. alors le London Orbital (c’est-a-dire “le grandest car park dans le world”) est maintenant “l’autoroute britannique”. parce que les Eenglish sont assez backward que ils avont seulement one autoroute.

dear google maps, if you’re going to scrape wikipedia for british road names (and we won’t talk about the copyright infringement right now), please. try. to. scrape. wikipedia.org. and. not. wikipedia.fr. you. retards.

hat tip to the Grauniad. driving directions: circumnavigate...

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:31:11 -0400

hat tip to the Grauniad.

driving directions: circumnavigate around John Prescott (approx. 3 miles) and turn right. You think I’m joking? here are Google’s directions for how to get from Tony Blair to Tessa Jowell

what are the chances of there being two airports so close...

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:32:00 -0400

what are the chances of there being two airports so close together? you’d have thought they might talk to each other before building the second one

fortunately, Google Maps saves the day with clear driving directions from one to the other.

note: please be careful not to follow their helpfully marked side-roads straight through a cargo shed or a car park hedge. also, do not even think about doing this. apparently airport security take a dim view

(Incidentally, full credit to Google for fixing most of the foul-ups we’ve spotted so far. You might even get the impression their engineers read this blog or something)

Clearly Google Maps surveyors don’t go south of the river...

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:30:08 -0400

Clearly Google Maps surveyors don’t go south of the river at this time of night guvnor.

Second attempt slightly better. Someone should tell the Port of London Authority about the obstruction to navigation in midchannel though

Special guest appearance from our friends at the Ordnance...

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:16:03 -0400

Special guest appearance from our friends at the Ordnance Survey:

A footpath running directly through a huge tank of shit

(thx to osm-talk-gb for the spot)

Ok, Google isn’t the only offender here. Pretty much every...

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:20:12 -0400

Ok, Google isn’t the only offender here. Pretty much every mapping site gets it wrong sometimes.

but seriously, how. fucking. hard. can it be to dedupe your placename dataset

I’m sure the people of Lockerbie love this.

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:46:47 -0500

I’m sure the people of Lockerbie love this.

that’s one big fuck off hospital you have there Seamus

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:34:03 -0500

that’s one big fuck off hospital you have there Seamus

modern driving is far too easy, doing U-turns over the central...

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:09:00 -0400

modern driving is far too easy, doing U-turns over the central reservation then jumping off a flyover puts the excitement back into life.

As does this suggestion which frankly is almost Nelson Piquet Jr-like in its callous disregard for the structural integrity of your car.

Free clue to Google - having such good aerial imagery makes it really obvious how shit your routing database is. Maybe you could get some volunteers to trace over the imagery and build a better database at zero cost to you. oh, inexplicably you appear not to like that idea

(thx osm-talk for the spots)