Police say Apple Maps left motorists stranded in national park

GPS does not require data to work... but still it's hilarious that people can get lost heading to the park because they trust the maps and ignore the big green signs with "Mildura" written on them!

Yeah, GPS doesn't need data. But the maps data on the app needs it!

People are STUPID these days. The GPS tells them to go down a road they KNOW has no bridge, they plunge into a river...the GPS tells them to go down a road they know is too narrow for their truck & get stuck. You see/hear stories like this all the time. The human race doesn't know how to use common sense anymore.

This is a problem of error bands. If the accuracy of the map is meant to be "to within +/- 3 light-years", then it is terrifyingly accurate! However, if advertised as accurate to +/- 200metres (which would be useful) it is an absolute, unmitigated load of old bollocks. It's all relative, as always.

Sheep go where they're told. To the iShop. To the middle of nowhere.

Nice thing about Google Earth is even when you're off line, you can still use it to see where you're at or going to.

Oh my..... this isn't the line for Coffee... darn..

Yeah Mildura is a major town - not just a single pub and a couple of houses. Any mapping service in the country should have that one right otherwise they are hopeless!

34° 11′ 0″ S, 142° 9′ 0″ E are the coordinates if one didn't know.

The rest of them go here and use google

I do prefer http://maps.google.com./ over any other

I know this is going to sound far fetched, so you'd better sit down, but I remember the days when you could walk into a gas station and get a nice big paper map to just about anywhere, FOR FREE...!

If Steve Jobs was still around, he'd have this straightened out in a flash. "You were either holding the iPhone iWrong, or Mildura was never where it was supposed to be in the first place". "And by the way, the iPhone 6 will be out soon. You'd better buy your camping equipment".

In truth, this whole sordid affair could have been prevented, if the iPhone users, had had that self same iStandinline camping tackle in the car when they got lost. They were just being "iR-responsible"!

YES, I remember those free maps. I have one now.

To Pan Wah:

"This is a problem of error bands. If the accuracy of the map is meant to be "to within +/- 3 light-years", then it is terrifyingly accurate! However, if advertised as accurate to +/- 200metres (which would be useful) it is an absolute, unmitigated load of old bollocks. It's all relative, as always"

--> seems you don't understand before you comment my previous post which is I mean for sarcasm. The handheld GPS must be accurate at 7.5 to 10m even at weakest condition when calculating positions, even you're trying to triangulate your position not using GPS receiver (using your provider's cell phone signal, Wi-fi, etc) is accurate less than 100feets! So, using your 'relative' perspective, you say 200m is accurate even from smartphone? not for me.. With that accuracy, how come you could locate a restaurant using your smartphone?

OK, I do recognize this as sarcasm. But, the English is dreadful.."Freak" is a noun, adjective or verb. So, "freaking" would be the present participle. As in; "I'm freaking out. (Notice the verb is compound in the participle form).

The ending, "ly", is generally attached to an adverb. So you need to turn the word "freak" into the adjective, "freakish", before you can further modify it to an adverb, which would leave you with, "freakishly".

A message brought to by your friendly neighborhood grammar troll, in the hope it will make your sarcasm accessible to a wider audience, perhaps even partially consisting of a functionally literate demographic.

How about if we just round that "three light years", up to a "parsec"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec At that distance nobody will be any the wiser, or have a large enough tape measure to prove you wrong.

The slight increase in distance will refine the iPhones map accuracy a bit, while allowing one to say with a straight face, "the iPhone map app's accuracy is "stellar".....

You're right, it doesn't matter, give or take the odd Doppler shift.
Especially at warp factor 9....

PS I wonder if the satnav problem in Australia arises from travelling at relativistic speeds (not allowed on UK roads)?

I can hardly even be bothered to ignore this. Read it again, smell the humour.

To captaincranky

Thank you for your correction, but I do this in purpose.
'freakingly' is urban language, you will see this word often used in many american movies nowadays.

Hm....., "iLemmings"...!

Sadly, a lot of "American movies" these days, are pure garbage. I'm sure all that hipster lingo would go over big at the local camel race though.....