I mean, seriously, how do they keep everything so close to perfect and how do they map even the smallest roads ( I imagine, satellites help, but satellites don’t know nor can read the name of some small roads/paths ) Not only that to mix into all that, the almost perfect voice directions.
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It’s an accumulation of multiple datasets, waypoint information, roadmaps, sattelite and streetview imagery, 3D maps, height maps – acquired from companies they buy or make deals with. This happens constantly behind the scenes and it’s stuff that we, the user don’t even notice.
It is far from perfect though. Most of the data is the most accurate in bigger urbanized areas. That’s where it is most used of course and where the paying customer resides. If you use it in areas that are lesser inhabited and traveled, you will notice some discrepancies. This already happens in countries outside the US. I was in italy last week and had some minor issues using Apple maps. Seems like north italy uses quite old data. This is probably the case for many other, smaller countries, too.
So, yes, it is a big deal – and there is still work to do because map data constantly changes and companies are competing for the most (accurate) datasets.
Fun fact: there are still around 200 000 GPS related car accidents in the US (as of data from 2021)
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