I’m not exactly sure when Siri added Japan Transit directions, but it didn’t work 3 weeks ago. I had basically given up hope on this Apple Maps wish list item, but had some free time today to kill with Apple Watch and viola. Transit directions. Transit is tricky because place names, especially Japanese place names and directions, depend on the context. For example when I asked iPhone Siri for the ‘next train to Gotanda’, I got a few route options to a place in Iwate prefecture. When I asked for the ‘next train to Gotanda station‘, iPhone Siri got it right. Apple Watch Siri however got it right every time.
Based on Siri tests in JP language mode so far, it seems like a solid service addition that users will find useful. I suspect it will be a very nice fit with AirPods Pro and will give it the noisy station acid test. It will be interesting to see online reactions and analysis from Japanese users. It will also be interesting to see if or when Apple announces transit directions for Siri. Traffic has been showing for months in Apple Maps Japan with no official listing on the iOS feature availability page.
Some Japanese Twitter users have noticed and are complaining (tongue in cheek faux angry Greta style) that Apple Maps no longer displays the Sea of Japan name in English or Japanese language settings. It may be connected with recent South Korean moves to get international recognition of ‘East Sea’ instead of, or in conjunction with Sea of Japan. For reference Yahoo Japan Maps does not list any sea names, while Google Maps sticks with Sea of Japan but Google uses different place naming depending on the device region setting.
Apple Maps
Yahoo Japan Maps
Google Maps
Apple might be preparing to follow the Google Map naming method with updated map assets, it might not, we shall see. Whatever the reason, removing a place name altogether is one way to avoid having to deal with a problem of what to call said place.
Now that Apple is in full holiday season vacation mode, here is one last look at some promised ‘coming later this year’ services that didn’t make it (and a last minute one that did).
Apple Maps 2.0 USA The highly detailed Apple Maps 2.0 remake was first announced in mid 2018 with a rollout to be in place for the United States by the end of 2019. The West Coast and Upper East Coast made the cut but half of Mississippi, the rest of the Southeast and most of the Central US are still missing (look for the green). This is not a good sign that Apple can deliver on their promise of providing better map services in Japan before the Tokyo Olympics.
Apple Maps 2.0 details are important progress but don’t fix everything
Apple Pay Ventra The native Chicago Ventra transit card on Apple Pay is a big deal that was announced back in March. It represents the first major native transit card for the USA on Apple Pay. The much smaller Portland transit system HOP card landed safely in Wallet in May, but Ventra is still listed as ‘coming soon.’ The fault is not with Apple but with Cubic Transportation Systems who operate transit fare systems for Ventra, New York OMNY, Transport for London (TfL) Oyster, Sydney Opal, Washington DC Metro, and many more. For all of their supposed system expertise, Cubic was extremely slow rolling out Apple Pay Express Transit on TfL and has yet to deliver a single native transit card on Apple Pay or Google Pay. I hope Cubic does a better job in 2020.
Apple Pay Octopus The Apple Pay Octopus ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ saga of 2019 was strange and ultimately sad. The Apple support side was all ready to roll with iOS 13. Octopus Cards Limited announced Apple Pay support back in July with ‘coming soon’ website artwork that was pulled when the launch was officially delayed on December 19. My take is that OCL parent Hong Kong MTR made, or was forced into, a political decision to limit services, starting with the unexplained service outage of Smart Octopus during the Hong Kong Polytechnic University siege. This is not a popular opinion.
Readers have reported riot damage to MTR infrastructure and suggest this might be a reason for the Apple Pay Octopus delay. I don’t buy it. Hong Kong MTR, or someone higher up, wants to limit services and control movement, not open them up. But this introduces great risk: moving people are moving money. Limit services and the flow of people, and you limit the flow of money. In this scenario Hong Kong doesn’t have a future. More than anything, I hope Hong Kong gets it’s future back in 2020.
Yahoo Japan Maps has the best cartography in Japan in comparison with Apple and Google and remains the local leader. They are the only major map that gets notoriously difficult map places like Shinjuku station just right for road and rail navigation. No fuss, no layer on/off nonsense. And they keep improving things like the latest cartography tweaks. Compare today’s Shinjuku station screenshots at the same zoom level and see for yourself:
Yahoo Japan Maps Shinjuku Station area October 24 2019
Japan App Store reviews are fun to read because the Japanese write wonderfully scathing reviews. Never ‘this sucks’, but a numbing dry, oh so super dry analysis of everything wrong. Every last detail. It’s the ultimate put down kiss off because, while Japanese are endlessly forgiving of honest mistakes, they have zero tolerance for professional ‘I know better than you’ fools who make mistakes.
So they are, rightfully, ripping the CASHLESS iOS/Google Play Rebate Map app for being useless with a parade of one star reviews. Too bad the App Store doesn’t come with a zero review star. I have used the iOS app these past few days and it suffers the same problem of Apple Maps Japan Point of Interest mess: unreliable data, poorly managed, seldom updated.
Case in point, the Cafe Colorado in Ikegami is listed in the CASHLESS map for credit cards only, but the store owner got AirPay just for the CASHLESS program and proudly displays the full range of cashless options next to the register with the CASHLESS 2% rebate logo. He has assured me that all options are good for the rebate.
Cafe Colorado Cashless
The Suica receipt does not show any sign of a rebate
But the receipts do not show any sign of a rebate. This might be normal for a post-transaction rebate via JRE POINT, it might not. It might be a AirPay problem. I called the CASHLESS Rebate program customer support line and was instantly connected to a person with no voice machine option nonsense. The support person was nice and quickly said the map data is not current, the best course of action is asking the store. I called again and talked with another nice support person who basically gave me the same answer. Neither answer was the one I was looking for. A mystery to be solved another day.
A Japanese friend complained about the CASHLESS rebate program so far, “How does the Japanese government expect people to use cashless when it’s serving up so much stupid with it.” Very well put, the once mighty Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) tripped and fell on a stupid stick gouging out their collective brain. Let’s hope they find it and start serving up some common sense. Until then, forget the CASHLESS smartphone map and stick with the ground truth.
UPDATE: According to Japanese media news reports the maps mess is not a METI mistake, many settlement companies input wrong data sets into the maps database and now it has to be sorted out. Hopefully sooner than later.
