Apple Maps 'Look Around' feature now available for Portland, San Diego

Boy, wish I knew what was taking so long. It was years ago those Apple SUVs cruised around my city.

I have this fantasy that they are still working on automating the process perfectly and one day soon they'll just turn it on everywhere at once. I have odd fantasies.

StrangeDays said:

Boy, wish I knew what was taking so long. It was years ago those Apple SUVs cruised around my city.

Google’s “Street View” took nearly a decade to get where it’s at. It’s only been a couple of years since Apple debuted their “Look Around” feature. And it is probably much more computationally intensive as they’re also incorporating LIDAR data for 3D mapping.

I’d be interested to know what Apple is doing with all that data being collected; GPS, compass, visual, 3D map, etc... Could be used to create a virtual world world for testing things like AR and autonomous driving, not to mention machine learning of real world objects and scene recognition, etc.

mjtomlin said

Google’s “Street View” took nearly a decade to get where it’s at. It’s only been a couple of years since Apple debuted their “Look Around” feature. And it is probably much more computationally intensive as they’re also incorporating LIDAR data for 3D mapping.

True enough but Google repeatedly updated the street view. The street where I used to live was updated easily 3-4 times during that time. But there are places Google never made it to, like Zip 98281 (Point Roberts, Washington) where I have a second property.