What Apple can do to address the largest flaw in Apple Maps

Since its debut with iOS 6 in 2012, Apple Maps has advanced significantly, and I now find it to be nearly incomparable to Google Maps and Waze. I still use Google Maps for planning, though, for one particular reason: the reviews, ratings, and images.

The biggest weakness of Apple Maps

Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Foursquare are the three main third-party sources of information that Apple Maps uses to obtain reviews and photographs in the US. This indicates that Apple Maps typically has an abundance of information about a company or location. Apple Maps also features some photos from Getty Images.

However, the method of gathering information from many sources sometimes detracts from the user experience since it is unclear exactly what will happen when you tap on a review or an image.

• Tap on an image or review from Yelp, and you’re redirected to the Yelp app or website.
• Tap on an image from TripAdvisor and it opens full-screen in the Maps app. Tap on a review from TripAdvisor, and it opens in a web view in the Maps app.
• Tap on an image from Foursquare, and it opens full-screen in the Maps app.

There’s more to this story: Apple began introducing a native ratings and photo system to Apple Maps in the US in 2021. Users of Apple Maps may now rank, comment on, and contribute pictures of the locations they visit. The Apple Maps app then allows you to examine all of this data immediately, eliminating the need for any other apps or websites.

But after three years, it doesn’t seem like users have adapted to this method.
Yelp continues to appear to be the most popular source of information for Apple Maps reviews and photographs, at least in the US. This implies that you are essentially taken out of Apple Maps whenever you tap a review or image. It’s not the best experience, this.

I can come up with a couple potential approaches to solving this issue. Initially, Apple should make a bigger effort to encourage users of Apple Maps to share images, reviews, and ratings of the locations they visit. For example, Local Guides offers points, levels, and badging to users who write reviews and upload photographs on Google Maps.

As an alternative, Apple might reevaluate its partnerships with Foursquare, TripAdvisor, and Yelp in order to include more of each company’s information into Apple Maps. It’s unclear if those businesses would be open to such an arrangement. But as they say, money talks, and Apple is rich.

However, one thing is certain: Apple Maps’ current arrangement of ratings, reviews, and images is inadequate. I can see why Apple first depended on outside partners for Apple Maps, but it’s been 12 years, and this experience is well overdue for an update.

I use Apple Maps for practically everything, including lookaround, driving and walking instructions, satellite imagery, and much more. I could completely replace Google Maps with Apple Maps if it offered a better, more integrated way to handle ratings and images. But as of right now, that isn’t the case.

In the end, I suppose what I’m requesting is that everyone launch Apple Maps and contribute some images, reviews, and ratings. We work as a team!