Who’s Fixing Apple Maps?

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been reported to be advertising for engineering positions to work on its new maps apps, but the company may also be looking for help from a more unconventional department. Apple has reportedly asked its employees at select retail stores to work on finding and reporting errors in the iOS 6 mapping database.

According to MacRumors, multiple sources have said participating stores will dedicate 40 hours of combined staff time per week to examine Apple’s mapping data and submit corrections and improvements. Changes will reportedly be submitted through a dedicated internal portal on Apple’s systems. While the company’s retail force of almost 40,000 may be large, ifoAppleStore was unsure it would be able to “really put a dent in Maps app errors.”

Apple has been a huge winning stock pick for Wall St. Cheat Sheet Newsletter subscribers. Don’t waste another minute — click here and get more of our CHEAT SHEET stock picks now.

Apple replaced Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) mapping application, which had been part of its mobile devices since the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, alongside the debut of iOS 6. While the iPhone maker’s home-grown application included additional features such as voice-enabled turn-by-turn navigation and a three-dimensional Flyover view, the program has been widely criticized for its various data errors and the lack of public transit options.

chief executive Tim Cook was finally forced to issue a public apology for the new application, accepting that Apple had let its users down, stressing that it was being improved, and suggesting alternatives such as Google’s or Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) web applications and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing maps app. Apple has also said customers were free to report errors in the mapping database through an inbuilt Report a Problem option.

Don’t Miss: Could it be Apple Maps 1, Google Maps 0?