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Apple IT Technology

Apple Maps Was Down For All Users Earlier Today (engadget.com) 74

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple Maps is down and has been for a few hours today, 9to5Mac reports. Users are noting on Twitter and Apple Support that the service isn't working on phones, Apple Watch or CarPlay and searches for certain places or points of interest result in a "No Results Found" response. Apple has noted on its system status site that all users are experiencing issues with both Maps search and navigation. Update: It is functional again.
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Apple Maps Was Down For All Users Earlier Today

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  • All users? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15, 2018 @01:19PM (#56790502)

    So, IOW, no one at all is affected?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15, 2018 @01:20PM (#56790508)

    Works for me

  • by Anonymous Coward
    If this happened once all cars are self driving, the entire country would grind to a halt. Economic output would plummet and we could be facing recession.
    • by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Friday June 15, 2018 @02:04PM (#56790756) Homepage Journal

      Other than OTA updates, self driving cars are completely autonomous. So probably not.
       
      My boat did not sink when I took it from San Francisco to Monterey and we went out of cell phone reception. The nav software in the chartplotter just did it's thing. I think it was last updated in 2005.

      • Cars do not have all map data on a hard drive. Your boat probably has the waterways in your region downloaded, since that data is so much simpler.

        A car that is FSD would plan its route, and cache the relevant data it needs (traffic light positions, speed limits, construction alerts, geo-coordinates, all kinds of metrics needed for the car to maneuver the route.

        If Apple Maps were supplying the data, your car would not have been able to enter FSD, since you wouldn't have been able to find your destination. Yo

        • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

          My point is that nobody in their right mind would ever ever ever use apple maps to stream data for autonomous driving for exactly the reasons you're stating. I don't know how you think that would ever work or how any halfway sane engineer would sign off on that as safe.

  • by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Friday June 15, 2018 @01:28PM (#56790562)
    Do you want to get lost in space? This is how people get lost in space.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    And shit like this is why I will stick with my TomTom instead of a damned phone to navigate.

    My TomTom isn't dependent on a network connection, someone else's servers, or anything outside of my car besides the actual satellites. And, nobody gets to track me for advertising purposes.

    On-line stuff has a bad habit of failing you at the least opportune moments.

    There's nothing more hilarious than one of the phone zombies who finds themselves out of signal range -- no Facebook, no music streaming, no cat videos .

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      And shit like this is why I will stick with my TomTom instead of a damned phone to navigate.

      You do realize there are oodles of offline map apps that can navigate without any connectivity, right?

      I have Navigon, but there are a number of others... including TomTom. And they all work way better on the phones than the physical dedicated devices.

      Well, except for the GPS, that's usually a bit better in the dedicated devices... but you can also get external bluetooth GPS units that enhance GPS reception to the le

      • Do any of them take traffic conditions into account? I use my phone to navigate to places where I already know the route just so I'm not caught off-guard.

        • Do any of them take traffic conditions into account?

          Some of the offline navigation apps do take traffic conditions into account as long as you have a data connection to pull traffic info over (some may store historical traffic info to use offline? Not sure about that though). It's usually an extra fee to access.

          I still don't trust any other app for traffic more than Waze though, since the other apps are getting just city traffic data feeds and Waze gets that plus all of the live user tracking and reporting

      • by Anonymous Coward

        And shit like this is why I will stick with my TomTom instead of a damned phone to navigate.

        You do realize there are oodles of offline map apps that can navigate without any connectivity, right?

        Not really an 'app guy', because I don't give a fuck. My work phone is used for calls, emails, and the odd text message. When I get home, it stays in the laptop bag until the next workday. My personal phone has no data plan at all.

        I don't walk around tethered to a phone, because gadgets and technology aren't thin

        • My personal phone has no data plan at all.

          Don't need one for ANY of the offline map apps I mentioned.

          ?I can easily go several days without even touching a cell phone.

          Oh yeah? I can (and have) gone WEEKS with no cell or data connectivity. I guess that makes me more manlier or something. (spits in bucket).

          My TomTom has maps for the US, Mexico, and Canada and I update it every 3-6 months.

          The TomTom (and other) offline map apps can download over wiFi maps for anywhere in the world on demand. I've used the Na

      • by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Navigon's dead. At least in Asia/Pacific they're discontinuing the service. No more updates.

        • I see what you mean, I could download maps for areas but after that got a message saying they were discontinuing development on the app - it must have been a bit ago as it's not been re-formatted for the iPhone X. Sorry to hear that as I kind of liked the app, but at least I have a few others - and the Navigon app still technically works.

    • And shit like this is why I will stick with my TomTom instead of a damned phone to navigate.

      My TomTom isn't dependent on a network connection, someone else's servers, or anything outside of my car besides the actual satellites. And, nobody gets to track me for advertising purposes.

      On-line stuff has a bad habit of failing you at the least opportune moments.

      There's nothing more hilarious than one of the phone zombies who finds themselves out of signal range -- no Facebook, no music streaming, no cat videos ... just them and a phone which can no longer do anything for them. They just stare at their phone like their world has just collapsed.

      I'll stick with my dedicated iPod and GPS which are immune to this crap, and doesn't include ads, analytics, or DRM.

      So you haven't worked out how to download offline maps on your phone?

      • So you haven't worked out how to download offline maps on your phone?

        My phone does this automatically for the area around my home and work.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        So you haven't worked out how to download offline maps on your phone?

        I don't have a phone, you insensitive clod!! ;-)

        Or, more accurately, my phone is capable of phone calls and SMS messages, and I have yet to find any discernible reason or compelling need to change that.

        Social media, cloud services, streaming ... and being constantly tracked by ad agencies ... none of these are compelling to me.

        After several decades in the tech industry, I'm over gadgets and toys for the most part. No smart home, no smart

        • Social media, cloud services, streaming ... and being constantly tracked by ad agencies ... none of these are compelling to me.

          You don't need to use any of those things (and if you have an iPhone don't need to be worried about ad tracking, just opt out of sharing anything with Apple).

          The iPhone is not a toy, or rather it can be WAY more than a toy. It has a number of incredibly useful tools, I use it way more as a toolbox than a toy. I can measure things with it, I can have access to maps at any time rega

  • Works for me.
  • Apple Maps is Down, 'All Users' Affected

    I am not affected in the sense that I am still mobile and able to find new and unfamiliar places. I have my old Thomas Bros maps in the trunk. Haven't used them in many years but hey, they are backups. :-)

  • by Anonymous Coward

    But I've been going round and round in circles.

  • Unlike so many phone addicts, my brain still works. I get around without an electronic map at all! Honestly, it's still possible!
  • by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Friday June 15, 2018 @02:06PM (#56790778)
    Welcome to the cloud. This is a reminder that critical services in the cloud are a risk. As we all (should) know, the cloud is just someone else's computer that you are renting time on. With the cloud you are outsourcing the management of computing services to someone else. To be fair, your cloud provider may very well be able to run services more reliably that you can, and the accounting / cost models may make fiscal sense (expenses vs. assets, etc.), but it's important not to forget that there is nothing magic about the cloud. Failures can and do occur. Apple maps may or may not be a critical service for you, but the point is the same.
    • The thing is, if the companies running those servers knew a tiny bit about server redundancy they'd have backup servers in place to take over as soon as the primary servers were found to be faulty.

  • by wonkavader ( 605434 ) on Friday June 15, 2018 @02:51PM (#56791020)

    Because every single person on the planet prefers something else to it.

  • Because honestly, Apple maps going down won't make those 5 people any more or less lost on a daily basis.

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