Apple Maps has improved the “Report a Problem” feature with the release of iOS7 and may have just taken the first step towards making the service more hospitable to businesses.
While I have heard very few cases where reporting a problem actually resulted in that problem being resolved, it’s still interesting to see how Apple is slowly building the functionality to give users more control over the business listings.
Here’s a comparison of the Report A Problem screens from iOS6 and iOS7:
Besides being much more readable, you’ll notice that Apple Maps in iOS7 now allows you to report:
- Street or other label is incorrect
Clicking on this brings up a map where the user is instructed to “Tap the incorrectly labeled street or feature”. This is not the way to fix problems with your business listings. This seems mostly targeted at incorrect map data (v. business data). - Location is missing (Should be called “Add or Move a Listing” instead)
Select this option to get a screen where you can move a map pin for the business you just searched for to the right location. Not sure why they called this “Location is missing” as the first screen you get when you click is to move the map pin, which would be non-existent for a missing location.
You have to ignore the pin and click on the “Next” link where you then can fill out your business info. I just did it for Local SEO Guide, Inc. so we’ll see how long it takes for it to get into the Maps. Of note, the screen where you can enter your business info allows you to enter the following data about a business:
- Business Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Hours
- URL (!)
- Category (!)
This is the baby step towards having an actual claiming/updating system for businesses. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait until iOS8 for that to happen….More thoughts later.
