Apple had warning of mapping problems

Developers of apps for Apple's iPhone say they gave the company ample warning about quality problems with the new mapping program in the iOS 6 operating system. As soon as they received the first pre-release version in early June developers began informing Apple of their complaints about the maps, CNET reported Wednesday. "I posted at least one doomsayer rant after each (developer) beta, and I wasn't alone," a developer with three iOS apps in the App Store told CNET. "The mood amongst the developers seemed to be that the maps were so shockingly bad that reporting individual problems was futile. What was needed wasn't so much an interface for reporting a single point as incorrect, but for selecting an entire region and saying 'All of this -- it's wrong.'" That developer and several others asked their names and the names of their iPhone apps not be revealed because of ongoing relationships with Apple, CNET said. But they confirmed the problems with Apple's maps were well-documented in the developer community, who had seen four pre-release versions of the software before it made it public debut last month. The problems included mixed up locations, graphical glitches and maps that were less detailed than those offered by rival Google, which provided the mapping technology Apple used until it ditched it for its own mapping program for iOS 6. "I think if Apple really wanted to go down [its own] path, then they should have given themselves a year to get everything right," another developer said.