Adding person who lives in occupied territory in contacts

TidBITS Talk
1

I have a friend I want to visit who lives in Katzrin. This is a city in the Golan Heights. When I put it in as Katzrin, Israel in Apple Contacts, Apple Maps cannot locate it. (I get Maps.app cannot open the specified document or URL.).

Of course, it’s not officially in Israel, it’s located in occupied Syria. However, putting in Syria or Golan Heights or Golan doesn’t work either. If I go to Apple Maps, put in a pin in where he lives, and look at the address, it simply says “Katzrin” with no country name. If I put it in Contacts as that, without a country, I get the same error…

How can I put in my friend’s address in Apple Maps, so I can get directions to his house when I visit?

2

I found very interesting explanations about this issue here:

3

That is interesting, but not the issue.

I understand the issue. Katzrin is in territory that the world in general doesn’t recognize as part of Israel. For Apple to say Katzrin, Israel would be getting into a political minefield. However, Katzrin is there, I have a friend who lives there, and I need directions to my friend’s house.

Interestingly, I can’t put Golan into my iPhone contacts because it’s not in the list of Countries and Regions, but I can into the Mac’s Contacts App as the Country. Once I was able to do that (and spell Golan correctly), Maps could find it. Then, it also worked on my Phone.

4

Can’t you drop the pin and then just tap the Directions button to get driving directions to that location? That should work with any arbitrary location.

5

Yes, but I want to be able to get the link from my contacts, so I can ask Siri “Directions to Shalomi’s house”

Funny thing, I stick in a pin, and look at the address, there’s no country. If I copy the link generated from Maps, it doesn’t work.

The problem is that Golan isn’t in the dropdown list of Countries and Regions, so my iPhone can’t enter it. Fortunately, it works on the Mac.

I’ve reported the issue to Apple.