This is a necessary facility but I can't see how it will solve Apple's quality problems. Just spot-checking my personal pet peeve, they're still showing a hotel in the middle of Oakland that was torn down several years ago, even though their aerial image, which is also very outdated, shows the site as a vacant lot.
Nobody has incentive to remove their defunct business from Apple's maps using this tool. Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public or their own internal quality people prowling around.
Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public
Doesn't this already exist? There's a pretty big option after selecting any venue in Apple's Maps app that allows users to report it closed, update the data, that sort of thing. I reported loads of these in my local area shortly after it was release, and they certainly appear to have been updated.
Or even, now that I think about, just some kind of internal cross-checking tool that would fix up problems like this. If they've got a 3-d box model of the alleged thing, and they've got imagery, and there's no way to reconcile the image with the model, someone should look into that.
I have to imagine the smart folks at Apple are aware that businesses close and that they need a way to keep track of that. It's obviously not this particular tool, but there is surely someone working on that problem within Apple.
Nobody has incentive to remove their defunct business from Apple's maps using this tool. Apple either needs real crowd sourcing from the public or their own internal quality people prowling around.