Apple rolls out improved Apple Maps for Australia

Users in Australia are reporting that Apple has updated its Apple Maps service to provide improved navigation and mapping details, though not everyone is impressed.

Apple has most recently been surveying Australia for Apple Maps from February 2021 through June 2021, and now the resulting data is being rolled out to users.

Not sure if this was turned on as of this morning's event, but it would appear that Apple Maps now has speed limits and widespread 3D buildings now in Australia. Yet to see if this is available via CarPlay. I'm certain this wasn't here before pic.twitter.com/jW7PMWoUAv
— Matthew Jones (@merckxite) October 19, 2021

"New Apple Maps data for Australia just dropped," said another local Twitter user. "It's better but still a mess - a whole bunch of weird locality names below the suburb level, rocky headlines the same shading as beaches, the individual building shapes are all a bit off."

The improvements follow the similar rolling out of new iOS 15 Apple Maps features, such as improved navigation, and 3D buildings, to Italy and Andorra.

10 Comments

tnet-primary 13 Years · 242 comments

About 3 years ago

How ironic…given that Australians aren’t allowed the leave their houses. Yuck yuck 😂

leighr 15 Years · 256 comments

tnet-primary said:

How ironic…given that Australians aren’t allowed the leave their houses. Yuck yuck 😂

Just for clarity. It’s only two states (New South Wales and Victoria) that are currently locked down. The rest of the Australia has had very little lock down, and very few COVID cases since they pandemic began. South Australia has only had one week of lockdown this year, and a couple last year. So we’re certainly out and about!

Ofer 8 Years · 270 comments

tnet-primary said:

How ironic…given that Australians aren’t allowed the leave their houses. Yuck yuck 😂

Yes, you’re right, it’s so funny that people are dying of a pandemic and that parts of Australia are going into lockdown in order to try and save lives. So very funny.

/s

chipped 11 Years · 11 comments

tnet-primary said:

How ironic…given that Australians aren’t allowed the leave their houses. Yuck yuck 😂

Just Melbourne has the hard lockdowns still, everywhere else is open.

Also I wouldn’t mock a system that works. Australia has had 60 deaths/1M pop as opposed to other developed countries like USA which has 2200 deaths/1M pop.

entropys 13 Years · 4316 comments

The lockdowns did reduce deaths to way below deaths from the flu in a normal season.
It isn’t as simple as that though as life must go on.

How many small business owners have lost their life savings, how many people with mental health or worse, suicides have been exacerbated by this approach? Do these deaths that have actually happened outnumber those extra that might have died from Covid with a more open approach? We will never know, and public health officials will shy away from looking at it, but best not be too quick to think we did the best out of a wide range of unpalatable choices.
I would also observe that Australia has quite a few geographical, climate and lifestyle differences that would always result in better outcomes than colder climes. Even within Australia, it is no coincidence that locations like Melbourne with a colder climate, higher density and it must be said different ethnic demographics and cultural differences are more vulnerable than Brisbane.

No doubt, public servants and those that work for large corporations have had a very good Covid as a result of these lockdowns, but that is not the case for everyone.
best to consider the costs as well as the benefits of any approach.