Apple expands Maps capabilities with new Flyover, Nearby and Traffic location data
Apple's efforts to build out its in-house Maps service moved forward on Thursday with the addition of four new Flyover locales, public transit data for Los Angeles, a European expansion of Nearby POI suggestions and Traffic data for Hong Kong and Mexico.
The additions were listed on Apple's iOS Feature Availability webpage, which notes new Flyover support in Aomori, Japan; Bruges, Belgium; Lake Powell, Utah; and Limoges, France. Counting the four cities, Flyover is now available in 220 locales around the world.
Flyover is a tentpole Apple Maps feature that applies high-resolution imagery to computer generated three-dimensional models to create interactive 3D views of buildings, landmarks and other topographical features. Apple is also said to be working on a competitor to Google's Street View, which would provide finer street-level detail for easy metropolitan navigation.
Apple also flipped the switch on Traffic data for users in Hong Kong and Mexico, while residents in the Netherlands and the UK can now take advantage of iOS 9's new Nearby feature. Introduced in the latest iteration of Maps, Apple's Nearby provides automated, proximity-based search of commonly queried points of interest. Results of nearby businesses are split into categories like Food, Health, Services and Shopping, among others.
Previously limited to six countries including the U.S., France and parts of China, Nearby is accessible via Maps and is turned on by default in iOS Search.
Apple last updated Maps in December with Flyover destinations in the U.S., Mexico and Europe.
The additions were listed on Apple's iOS Feature Availability webpage, which notes new Flyover support in Aomori, Japan; Bruges, Belgium; Lake Powell, Utah; and Limoges, France. Counting the four cities, Flyover is now available in 220 locales around the world.
Flyover is a tentpole Apple Maps feature that applies high-resolution imagery to computer generated three-dimensional models to create interactive 3D views of buildings, landmarks and other topographical features. Apple is also said to be working on a competitor to Google's Street View, which would provide finer street-level detail for easy metropolitan navigation.
Apple also flipped the switch on Traffic data for users in Hong Kong and Mexico, while residents in the Netherlands and the UK can now take advantage of iOS 9's new Nearby feature. Introduced in the latest iteration of Maps, Apple's Nearby provides automated, proximity-based search of commonly queried points of interest. Results of nearby businesses are split into categories like Food, Health, Services and Shopping, among others.
Previously limited to six countries including the U.S., France and parts of China, Nearby is accessible via Maps and is turned on by default in iOS Search.
Apple last updated Maps in December with Flyover destinations in the U.S., Mexico and Europe.
Comments
yes, a carOS and not a car. in the most recent podcast, one of the folks at AI outlined all of the reasons why producing a car made no sense, but a framework or OS did. i tend to agree at this point. why make a TV, a highly commoditized product with low margin, when you can make the primary device and interface that users will interact with? same logic seems to apply to cars as well.
it would be cool if they did flyover properly. Four new cities? Really? After all this time? How about if they want something like flyover to be used they actually spend the money to cover just about every town in a country all at once. Otherwise give it up and spend the cash on a street view competitor.
Do or do not: there is no try.
Whoop or Lah: there is no Meh
I imagine Apple's thinking is along the lines of 'how many additional people with iPhones can we cover with each new flyover locale?' This type of thinking, plus the data they have on iPhone ownership by geography, plus the data they surely have on where people travel to, would allow the company to prioritize rollout of such a feature, or any location-based feature, in a way that optimizes the expenditure of their resources applied to the feature.
2) I hope that Apple is finally ready to debut, demo, and release their groundbreaking Maps app and backend, for which I assume they've been working on for the last several years.
Yup. I write thrillers and it's damn useful for double-checking locations.
I also checked the time once by flying over Big Ben, but I suspect their are easier ways to do it.
Flyover is not rendering bitmap images. It's 3D graphics.
The nearby London Eye is animated too.
For searching, those devices and apps are a pain to handle. Very clunky. Worse than Maps.
edit: I zoomed in as far as I could, and then I zoomed in my display. The hands of the clock are obviously not from Fly Over images (expected), but it seems as those the minute hand moves slightly every 5 seconds (unexpected). I just would have assumed it would do it once every minute, and even then I was curious if it would do it in real time once you've already chosen to view that image. I wonder how the real close minute hands turns.
Their 3D map data is already collected by planes and helicopter. Drone collection is the same thing.