Apple Maps-gate: Angry iOS 6 users flood Twitter and forums with complaints

As a vast majority of Apple device owners will know, the company released its latest operating system yesterday, iOS 6, and with that came a number of new features.

However, Apple is hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons today as, having ditched direct competitor Google's map service for its own, angry customers are in an uproar over the performance of the new Maps app. It's a scandal Pocket-lint is now calling Apple Maps-gate, in honour to the Watergate affair that ended Richard Nixon's presidency in the US, and Antenna-gate, that marred the launch of the iPhone 4.

The problem isn't with the presentation of Apple Maps, although some are saying that they preferred the Google Maps layout more, rather the functionality of the software. In short, it keeps throwing up some confusion and, on occasion, downright incorrect results. In the UK and elsewhere.

BBC presenter Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) took to Twitter to point out that, should you search for Luton, you find out that it's been relocated to the seaside. "Got to say this for Apple maps - it's made the idea of moving to Luton a lot more attractive," he posted.

The BBC also points out that the West Midlands town of Hagley has been incorrectly labeled "Dudley" instead, which is more than seven miles away.

Indeed, our own search for another West Midlands town, Stourbridge, failed to find it at all. Not even the train station Stourbridge Town. Instead, Apple Maps would only find Minton Stourbridge LLP, a company based in Paddington, London.

And Ascot, as we've found, is half blurred out.

That, though, is just the tip of the iceberg...

Twitter user @VOOK64 has found that Colchester is not exactly easy to find on the satellite version of the map, being as it's totally covered by clouds. "Colchester looks like a nice place to live," he posted.

Others post that Paddington Station has disappeared (which will be problematic for Minton Stourbridge LLP's business, whatever that may be) and London itself had been relocated to Ontario. However, the worse problem found yet is that a new airfield has mysteriously appeared in Dublin, which has prompted the Republic of Ireland's justice minister Alan Shatter to contact Apple over safety issues.

We suspect that this one will run on and on.

And what's the betting on a Google Maps application hitting the App Store in the near future? Let's just say that it might end up top of the iTunes charts. The only charts from Apple that many would say you can rely on.

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