William Gallagher
Apple has announced that its new 3D Apple Maps navigation and exploration features will be coming to more cities, including San Diego, and Montreal.
Apple's announcement of Apple Maps features primarily concerns how all of the additions promised at WWDC 2021, are now live in iOS 15. They remain rolling out to new cities, however, and the company has revealed which ones are next.
Currently, the updated Apple Maps is now available in:
- London
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- San Francisco Bay area
The cities to follow before the end of 2021 are:
- Philadelphia
- San Diego
- Washington, D.C.
Apple also says that Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and more additional cities will be available next year. Apple Maps teams are currently walking in those Canadian cities, building up their mapping data.
"We are thrilled to offer the new Apple Maps experience," said Apple senior vice president of Services, Eddy Cue, in a statement. "Maps is the best way to navigate the world: It is easy to use, beautifully designed, and built with privacy at its core."
"With this update, we are pushing Maps even further, providing more ways for users to discover the natural beauty of the world and explore cities through a new 3D view,," he continued. "Our goal has always been to build the best and most accurate map in the world. The upgrades in Apple Maps are a continuation of that effort, with features and an attention to detail that only Apple can deliver."
Chief among the Apple Maps improvements is a new interactive globe.
"Users can see vibrant details of mountain ranges, deserts, rainforests, oceans, and more," says Apple. "Now even the most remote and precious locations on the planet can be explored right from iPhone."
Not all of the new Apple Maps features are immediately available in CarPlay, however. The enhanced navigation that, includes "road-level 3D," will be coming to CarPlay "later this year."
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9 Comments
Apple seems completely unaware that there is a world outside of London, LA, NYC and San Francisco. Flyover was announced along with the introduction of Apple Maps nine years ago, and yet there are only 17 places in the UK that actually have flyover available, only 6 of the 10 biggest cities, and none of the architecturally impressive or important historic cities like York, Cambridge, Sheffield, Bath etc. Meanwhile Google has managed to drive around and photograph every street in the world, often 3 or 4 times since 2012. Apple has "look around" in two cities in the UK. Look around is much nicer than Streetview, but something is better than nothing.
Apple thinks it's a feather in their cap to perpetually offer eye-candy features in just a handful of cities.
Where do Apple executives live?
The Bay Area.
What cities do they visit?
NYC
So where are things beautiful?
The Bay Area and NYC.
Cheer up, through. Here in Costa Rica we don’t even get navigation and I have to use Google Maps or Waze.
Unfortunately I can understand why Costa Rica is a low priority. Costa Ricans don’t buy iPhones, they are far too expensive. Only tourists and expats (like me) have them, and most of us buy them from the USA because import fees here are prohibitively high.
I honestly doubt the selection of cities is based on Apple's preferences, but rather where local government bureaucracies would allow it. I've always assumed Washington DC would be one of the last because of fear of the 3D maps enabling security risks, so I'm happy to finally see 3D mapping coming to DC.