Apple Maps' Look Around feature works in three more U.S. cities

Apple has rolled out its "Look Around" feature of Apple Maps into three more cities in the United States, giving users the ability to see Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. at street level on their iPhone or iPad.

Enabled on Friday, the latest trio of cities in Look Around is now available to view from within the Apple Maps app in iOS and iPadOS. The rollout is happening relatively rapidly and should be available to all users globally by the end of the day.

The addition of Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. to the roster, as spotted by MacRumors, follows earlier rollouts in Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, San Francisco, and Oahu. Apple hasn't offered a timeline for future Look Around updates, but updates seem to arrive every few months.

The feature, Apple Maps' answer to Google Maps' Street View, can be accessed by going to one of the locations where Look Around is available. After tapping the binoculars icon, a specific street can be selected and previewed in a small window, which can be expanded to a full-screen view by tapping the preview.

Once inside Look Around, the feature works relatively similar to Street View, in that the view can be changed by swiping the display, while tapping part of the road in the distance will move the camera to that point. Unlike Street View, Apple's version is more animated in its transition between locations.

Look Around is part of a relaunch of Apple Maps, which now offers a generally improved experience to users, including Apple-collected data and high-resolution 3D imagery.

28 Comments

Appleish 715 comments · 8 Years

About 4 years ago

Wow. Just checked. Works great. So much more better than the Mountain View Ad Company. No more Google street view for me.

cornchip 1943 comments · 11 Years

WOOHOO! BRING IT!

although, to be fair, at this rate my city will be getting it around 2033.

slurpy 5388 comments · 15 Years

The quality and UI experience is SO much better than Google maps. Especially the transitions.

curtis hannah 1834 comments · 12 Years

cornchip said:

WOOHOO! BRING IT!

although, to be fair, at this rate my city will be getting it around 2033.

There is still a surprising amount of major cities that don't have flyover yet. To expect look around to have nationwide coverage like street view feels like it will take decades. At least those living in the now 9 cities it not covers can find it useful.

mjtomlin 2690 comments · 20 Years

curtis hannah said:

cornchip said:

WOOHOO! BRING IT!

although, to be fair, at this rate my city will be getting it around 2033.

There is still a surprising amount of major cities that don't have flyover yet. To expect look around to have nationwide coverage like street view feels like it will take decades. At least those living in the now 9 cities it not covers can find it useful.

Look Around support should start to build up at a fairly rapid pace, I'd think. The longest and hardest part is actually going out and collecting the data. Then, priority #1 is updating the actual map, once that's done for a city/region, then they can move onto Look Around. Which I assume takes quite a while to stitch all those images together and lay them over a 3D surface. Which is a huge difference from Street View which are just flat photos stitched together a'la QuickTime VR.

I'd love it if the next step is to use Look Around data to enhance FlyOver. It would be awesome to be able to zoom down from the sky right into Look Around. And then the opposite, jump up in to FlyOver mode.