Roger Fingas
Apple on Monday quietly added public transit directions for Apple Maps users in Seattle, Wash., allowing them to navigate the city's various networks without a third-party app like Google Maps.
Riders should now be able to get native iOS directions for the city's bus system and many other transportation options. These include the city's diverse rail networks, namely streetcars, Link light rail, and the Seattle Center Monorail.
Currently, Apple Maps supports public transit in a few dozen cities around the world. Among these are places like Berlin, Beijing, Chicago, London, Toronto, Mexico City, San Francisco, and New York City. Montreal and Portland (Ore.) were added earlier this month.
Transit directions were finally restored to Maps with last September's launch of iOS 9. They were temporarily absent from iOS 6 through iOS 8, as Apple switched from Google to different data sources, despite Google already having comprehensive content.
The change proved troublesome, since the updated Maps not only lacked public transit options, but initially had missing or inaccurate map data in many cases. Indeed reports about users becoming lost or stranded because of the app were semi-regular occurrences until Apple made a concerted effort.
Andrew O'Hara
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
6 Comments
Wot? No Tokyo? Perhaps Apple Japan could get round to this by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics? In the meantime, I'll use Google Maps, which is still MUCH better than Maps.
C'mon Apple—Google is eating your lunch over this.
Letting out a provincial NW shout as I type this. As my kids now negotiate the town by city bus, this should be of immediate utility to them. Integration with third party bus app was pretty good actually but this should make it more solid, I hope. Thanks Tokyo for letting us cut the line ...(!)
OneBusAway is far better.
Apple has been adding new places almost every week, seems like a pattern.
I think transit is about to bust wide open.
Also, when they say they're adding "a city", it usually means they're adding the whole metro area, not just the center city.
In Montreal, they probably added 50+ cities when they came live here.