AppleInsider Staff
Apple recently expanded its Apple Maps lane guidance feature to cover Austria, South African and Switzerland, providing users in those countries access to localized onscreen assets designed to keep drivers abreast of upcoming highway or freeway deviations.
Quietly announced in an update to Apple's iOS Feature Availability website, expanded lane guidance availability adds to Apple Maps' ever expanding list of capabilities.
Accessible in the U.S. and China since the launch of iOS 11, the feature pulls from local navigational aids to inform drivers of upcoming lane changes.
On iPhone, for example, a graphical overlay at the top of Apple Maps displays a set of arrows representing highway, freeway or tollway lanes. When approaching a junction or exit, one or more arrows are highlighted to denote which lane a user should be in to continue on their desired route. A similar UI is presented when using Apple Maps to navigate via CarPlay.
Lane guidance is billed as a safety feature, and comes in handy when driving long distances on unfamiliar roads.
Apple expanded lane guidance availability late last year with an expansion into Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the UK. In January, the company added Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden to the list. Including the recent additions, lane guidance is now available in a total of 14 countries.
Apple is continuously building out its mapping platform, and just this week expanded Transit data to cover major metropolitan areas of South Carolina.
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3 Comments
I would love Apple to do the same kinda of public updates with Siri, people seem to have a misconception that Siri hasn't changed at all, when that couldn't be further from the truth.
While comparisons to Google Maps are inevitable with varying support from area to area / region to region, individual experience does vary.
However, I can't help but to notice that Google Maps is 13 years old and Apple Maps is 5 years old... yet the difference between them is far smaller than what these age differences would suggest.
Strange, I just got lane guidance today in Finland, and that isn’t even on the list. One area Siri doesn’t get much recognition for is language support. Although I wish they would support local place names while using English. I can’t use voice either for asking directions or getting navigation instructions. Siri makes a complete mess of Finnish street names and there is no way to turn that off.