The #KalimantanGate in Apple Maps
nix (@nix)
Published on Nix and Friends #borneogate #kalimantangate #apple-maps
Sometimes, it feels quite embarrassing to find out that one of the Indonesia's largest islands is mapped in Apple Maps in a wrong way. This issue has happened for years, and I can even reproduce it today on the latest, shiny, macOS Monterey.
This island has two names. In Indonesia, it's called Kalimantan, while others refer to it as Borneo. This same island is inhabited by three countries, which are Brunei Darrusalam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
And now, what's wrong with the map above? Is the province of South Kalimantan located on the west? West Kalimantan in the middle? Central Kalimantan seems to cover the southern parts of the island, too. Really? Has Apple forgotten the order of wind directions 'cause they removed them from the Safari icon?
The problem doesn't stop here. In fact, the boundaries of the provinces are wrong, too! Let's compare this with Google Maps, shall we?
And also, on OpenStreetMap:
Even Microsoft Windows got that right, too!
It seems that both "West Kalimantan" and "South Borneo" in Apple Maps should be where the real West Kalimantan is located. Except for the bottom part, where for some reason the boundaries for "South Borneo" in Apple Maps extends to the parts of Pangkalan Bun and Sampit, where they're supposed to be located on the real province of Central Kalimantan.
This is also the reason why search results for "Banjarmasin" (the capital city of South Kalimantan) is said to be on the Central, and "Pontianak" (the capital city of West Kalimantan) is said to be on the South, according to both Apple Maps, and sometimes DuckDuckGo, too!
Apple's response so far...
Last April, Reinhart reached out to Apple Support via Twitter, and was met with a generic response:
But come on, seriously? Reporting a whole, gigantic mistake made on this giant island and all its places, from the single Maps app? How many map reports it would take for Apple to fix this thing?
And I believe this wouldn't be fixed if people aren't aware of this giant bug, just like that case of Android burger emoji four years ago. So, yeah...
