Comments on: Google street maps misaligned in China

By: Carlos

Carlos — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 02:16:24 +0000

China Map Fix.ipa
29/10/2010

This app fixes the offset.
In Itunes store or Installous

By: Google Maps in China: FIXED! (iPhone/iPad) | ERWIN.co

Google Maps in China: FIXED! (iPhone/iPad) | ERWIN.co — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:47:58 +0000

[...] great in Beijing, but it has never worked accurately in Shanghai or many other parts of China. Countless requests to Google and Apple to fix the problem go unanswered, so we’re forced to take [...]

By: EMRE

EMRE — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:28:05 +0000

WHEN I CHECK MY CURRENT LOCATION ON MY IPHONE, “MAP VIEW” SHOWS 500-600 METERS FAR AWAY FROM MY ACTUAL LOCATION, BUT “SATELLITE VIEW” SHOWS THE EXACT POINT SUCCESSFULLY. IF YOU SEARCH FOR A DIRECTION, GOOGLE MAPS GIVES YOU THE DIRECTIONS ACCORDING TO MAP VIEW, SO YOU CAN GET DISAPPOINTING RESULT. BECAUSE IF YOU ARE ON A HIGHWAY, CAN SHOW YOUR LOCATION IN OTHER PLACES AND CALCULATES THE DRIVING DIRECTIONS VERY DIFFERENTLY. THIS WILL MAKE YOU IN TROUBLE

By: ABCMaps

ABCMaps — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:10:52 +0000

ABCMaps is upgraded to version 1.30, English support added.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abcmaps/id379582726?mt=8
Find out where you are really in China. If you travel in China,
sometimes you will be troubled by China maps offset. The ABCMaps application is to align automatically the maps to the real place .
If available in your area, real-time traffic conditions will be
displayed over the road as color-coded lines by click “Traffic” button.

What’s New In Version 1.30
1. English support added
2. Traditional Chinese support added
3. Small bug fix for iOS 3.0

By: ABCMaps

ABCMaps — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:50:50 +0000

For iPhone,if you want to solve the China maps misalignment issue. Try
ABCMaps applciation.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abcmaps/id379582726?mt=8

In China, the built-in iPhone Maps application is distorted and will
show you a position that is 300-1000m randomly from reality. The
ABCMaps application is to align the maps to the real place.

ABCMaps is Chinese only applcation now. However, it is so easy to use.
So even you can not read Chinese you can use it also. The English
version will come out in the future.

By: Mark Bourne

Mark Bourne — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:49:28 +0000

I have to have my iPhone (with screwed Google map), my Nokia N97 (with good Google map and Nokia Maps) and to make doubly sure Google is not screwed altogether for whatever reason on the day, my China GPS built into my Honda Odyssey. The car is too big to put in my pocket, so when I am really screwed with the 500m offset in the iPhone then I put my SIM card into my N95 which has always worked perfectly!!!

Across the border – iPhone works perfectly!!!!!

This is really pi&&ing me off with the lack of responses from Google.

By: thepeasant

thepeasant — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:28:56 +0000

weird, google maps on windows mobile works really well. the maps are all aligned. i just switched to iphone recently and was shocked about this as well. the thing is the one in windows mobile is localized, meaning theres no pinyin or english.. its pure chinese maybe thats why its more accurate

By: E71 + Iphone

E71 + Iphone — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:45:34 +0000

The maps on Iphone are misaligned but work perfectly well on E71 anywhere in China. This is in my opinion phone specific.

In Nokia E71 both the satellite & maps mode are showing correct location.

In Iphone 3Gs, only the satellite mode shows correct location.

I have both tested, side by side, in South China. In HK and Macau Iphone does work correctly.

For Iphone, not great because maps really help here in China (and for that I turn to my E71).

By: Eki

Eki — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:32:18 +0000

I Had the same problem during my trip of Macau > HongKong > Shenzhen > Zhuhai > Macau. My GPS was working fine in Macau & Hongkong, but once I crossed the border of Hong Kong – Shenzhen, I began noticing the location showing on the GPS was few hundreds meters away from where I was suppose to be. I thought the GPS was mulfunctioning. But when I later crossed border of Zhuhai back to Macau, my GPS reading became accurate again. So it’s clear that the map of mainland China has been manipulated.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:20:33 +0000

Thanks for the confirmation. It drives me crazy, because it’s so close to being fantastically useful, yet ruined for no good reason. I get lost enough – or get suspicious of taxi drivers enough – that I’d be using this all the time. Now there’s so much guesswork involved. What’s confusing is that Google seem to source the map data from a Chinese company, Mapabc, anyway.

I have noticed, however, that the map data on OpenStreetMaps is correct, GPS-wise. I’ve downloaded the Shanghai maps into my iPhone using OffMaps, an app for offline map browsing. This works with GPS perfectly – great – but the quality of the maps is extremely poor for Shanghai. Sometimes it works to at least get your bearing and then switch over to Google maps.