<story><title>Apple Botches China and Japan Maps in iOS 6</title><url>http://www.techinasia.com/apple-ios-6-maps-china-japan/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prewett</author><text>My Chinese friends tell me that there is a government requirement that maps databases have an offset.  I&apos;m guessing the Google car isn&apos;t permitted to drive around in China, because they lease maps from Mapabc [1], which presumably has the offset.  If you go to ditu.google.cn you get accurate maps without the offset (but it&apos;s only in Chinese).&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps&lt;/a&gt;  (see the &quot;Copyright&quot; section)</text></item><item><author>olalonde</author><text>To be fair, Google Maps in China isn&apos;t great either. See &quot;Map View&quot; vs &quot;Satellite View&quot; here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.637323,114.030954&amp;#38;spn=0.001513,0.00284&amp;#38;t=m&amp;#38;z=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.637323,114.030954&amp;#38;spn=0.0...&lt;/a&gt;. It&apos;s off by a few hundred meters (the corresponding satellite view for the previous map view is actually here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.640363,114.025936&amp;#38;spn=0.003025,0.005681&amp;#38;t=h&amp;#38;z=18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.640363,114.025936&amp;#38;spn=0.0...&lt;/a&gt;). I assume Google is aware of this issue since they don&apos;t overlay map data over their satellite view like they do almost everywhere else around the world. The fact that they can&apos;t drive their Street View cars in China doesn&apos;t help either.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>w1ntermute</author><text>&amp;#62; there is a government requirement that maps databases have an offset.&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by offset? Mapping companies are forced to make their data be inaccurate?</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Botches China and Japan Maps in iOS 6</title><url>http://www.techinasia.com/apple-ios-6-maps-china-japan/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prewett</author><text>My Chinese friends tell me that there is a government requirement that maps databases have an offset.  I&apos;m guessing the Google car isn&apos;t permitted to drive around in China, because they lease maps from Mapabc [1], which presumably has the offset.  If you go to ditu.google.cn you get accurate maps without the offset (but it&apos;s only in Chinese).&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps&lt;/a&gt;  (see the &quot;Copyright&quot; section)</text></item><item><author>olalonde</author><text>To be fair, Google Maps in China isn&apos;t great either. See &quot;Map View&quot; vs &quot;Satellite View&quot; here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.637323,114.030954&amp;#38;spn=0.001513,0.00284&amp;#38;t=m&amp;#38;z=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.637323,114.030954&amp;#38;spn=0.0...&lt;/a&gt;. It&apos;s off by a few hundred meters (the corresponding satellite view for the previous map view is actually here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.640363,114.025936&amp;#38;spn=0.003025,0.005681&amp;#38;t=h&amp;#38;z=18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://maps.google.com/?ll=22.640363,114.025936&amp;#38;spn=0.0...&lt;/a&gt;). I assume Google is aware of this issue since they don&apos;t overlay map data over their satellite view like they do almost everywhere else around the world. The fact that they can&apos;t drive their Street View cars in China doesn&apos;t help either.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>olalonde</author><text>Ha, that explains it. This kind of censorship wouldn&apos;t be unheard of in China and it seems much more plausible than Google doing such a poor job.</text></comment>