It goes without saying: Apple's Maps app has been a bit of a disaster since its launch with iOS 6 earlier this month.
Although Tim Cook said it anyway in a note recently posted to Apple's website — "We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better." — those words didn't exactly gel with how Apple described its Maps app elsewhere on the site.
Specifically, Apple referred to Maps as, "the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever."
We use the past tense when reporting that, however, as Apple has since updated its website to indicate that Maps is, in fact, not that. Don't let it be said that Apple doesn't care about the details (unless you're referring to Maps itself, we suppose).
As reported by Amit Agarwal, at his Digital Inspiration blog, Apple has since updated its description of its Maps app to omit any mention of Maps being amazing, awesome, or any hint that it's the top dog on the mapping market right now. In fact, the entire sentence praising Maps has been replaced with a new sentence that has nothing to do with the app's quality, but rather, its interface.
In total, the new paragraph reads:
"Designed by Apple from the ground up, Maps gives you turn-by-turn spoken directions, interactive 3D views, and the stunning Flyover feature. All in a beautiful vector-based interface that scales and zooms with ease."
Of course, Apple fans might not even notice Maps' "beautiful" interface if they take Cook's advice for dealing with an app that "fell short" of the company's stereotypically high standards. In his letter, Cook advises users to check out alternative mapping apps, including Bing (!), MapQuest, and Waze, if they don't want to just slap a link to Google Maps as a shortcut on the home screen of their iPhones.
Nevertheless, Apple's mea culpa over its Maps application appears to have finally come full circle. Until Apple fixes up the app — and there's no direct ETA for that one just yet — even the company itself appears to be shying away from calling its solution the best-in-class, a rare move for Apple.
For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).
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