Apple adds Maps Flyover support for 7 cities in Spain, Germany, UK and Puerto Rico

Posted:
in iPhone edited June 2015
As part of a feature buildout to its in-house mapping service, Apple on Tuesday added seven international locales to its list of cities supporting Maps 3D Flyover.


Flyover view of San Juan, Puerto Rico


The change in Flyover support is reflected on Apple's iOS 8 feature availability webpage under Maps, but also applies to the Maps app in OS X, as seen in the screenshot above.

New Flyover locations include:
  • Almer?a, Spain
  • Braga, Portugal
  • Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
  • Karlsruhe, Germany
  • Kiel, Germany
  • Kingston upon Hull, Englad
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico
Flyover was initially introduced as a standout Maps feature when Apple first moved away from Google Maps in iOS 6. Flyover combines high-resolution imagery and three-dimensional modeling technology to provide users with 3D visualizations of structures, major landmarks and points of interest.

Aside from platform-exclusive features, Apple is looking to catch up to more mature mapping services by introducing transit directions in iOS 9 and potential image-based navigation assets similar to Google Street View. Earlier this month, the company officially announced that so-called "mystery vans" spotted driving around the U.S. and Europe are indeed part of an initiative "to improve Apple Maps."

Apple last updated its rolling list of Flyover-capable cities in February with additions from Europe and the Americas.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 25
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    Hull?? What about Bristol and Cardiff that've got 430,000 and 350,000 people living there vs Hull's 250k!?
  • Reply 2 of 25
    mainyehcmainyehc Posts: 133member
    Why do you people insist on lumping Portugal with Spain? They are not the same country, and haven't been for most of their existence, except for a few decades during the late XVI to early XVII century… Your title is inaccurate/incomplete and misleading, so please update it accordingly.
    [And I don't care much for the fact that it would make for a 4-line title on mobile browsers, sorry… I am pretty sure you had longer ones before]
  • Reply 3 of 25
    uraharaurahara Posts: 733member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Mainyehc View Post



    Why do you people insist on lumping Portugal with Spain? They are not the same country, and haven't been for most of their existence, except for a few decades during the late XVI to early XVII century… Your title is inaccurate/incomplete and misleading, so please update it accordingly.

    [And I don't care much for the fact that it would make for a 4-line title on mobile browsers, sorry… I am pretty sure you had longer ones before]



    Yeah, Portugal and Spain are different countries. Portugal is smaller. That's why it was dropped from the title. Why do you think it was 'lumped'? It was actually separated! /half joking

  • Reply 4 of 25
    uraharaurahara Posts: 733member

    Why should I care about this feature. 

    It would be much more useful if they added the 'lane' navigation for Germany. So that when you drive you could also see the recommendation on which lane (e.g. second from the right) lane to drive to take the right direction.

    Google Maps has it. That's the main reason why I use Google. Though from design I like Apple more.

    Google Maps is just more functional and useful than Apple Maps.

  • Reply 5 of 25
    singularitysingularity Posts: 1,328member
    Englad? Where is that?
  • Reply 6 of 25
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member
    Hull is a very odd choice.
  • Reply 7 of 25
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by singularity View Post



    Englad? Where is that?



    It's in the United Kingdo

  • Reply 8 of 25
    uraharaurahara Posts: 733member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by singularity View Post



    Englad? Where is that?



    'Englad' is a synonym to 'unhappy' LOL

  • Reply 9 of 25
    frantisekfrantisek Posts: 756member
    I wonder how does Apple choose cities that will be covered.
  • Reply 10 of 25
    strawberrystrawberry Posts: 181member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Elijahg View Post



    Hull?? What about Bristol and Cardiff that've got 430,000 and 350,000 people living there vs Hull's 250k!?

     

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by monstrosity View Post



    Hull is a very odd choice.

     

     

    It's great for me who lives there :)

    I did notice a couple of days ago Google had 'Flyover' data for Hull, so they must be getting it from the same company.

  • Reply 11 of 25
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,631member
    Flyover is a gimmick with no real value or usefulness. Improve road mapping and traffic, Apple.
  • Reply 12 of 25
    They probably chose Hull due to it being picked as "UK City of Culture" in 2017 . . . anyone who is from there - like me - can only smile and shake their head in wonder at this choice ;-)
  • Reply 13 of 25
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Some good folk musicians hail from Hull ... just saying :) It's also it's in the best County in England, I know I'm a Yorkshireman ;) ... haven't been there in 40 years sadly.
  • Reply 14 of 25
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    eriamjh wrote: »
    Flyover is a gimmick with no real value or usefulness. Improve road mapping and traffic, Apple.

    what nonsense. i use FO (not FO Tours or whatever) all the time to familiarize myself with areas. the bird's eye vantage point is a useful one and certainly delivers value to me as a paying customer.

    streetview is useful for certain tasks, too, but that doesnt negate the value of FO.

    once apple introduces their "Walk-Through" feature they'll have the best of both worlds.
  • Reply 15 of 25
    nolamacguy wrote: »
    eriamjh wrote: »
    Flyover is a gimmick with no real value or usefulness. Improve road mapping and traffic, Apple.

    what nonsense. i use FO (not FO Tours or whatever) all the time to familiarize myself with areas. the bird's eye vantage point is a useful one and certainly delivers value to me as a paying customer.

    streetview is useful for certain tasks, too, but that doesnt negate the value of FO.

    once apple introduces their "Walk-Through" feature they'll have the best of both worlds.


    Exactly! Posted this on another thread:
    jungmark wrote: »
    Nice try Apple. We all know you're developing the iVan.

    I think Apple is planning to do something disruptive with maps ...

    This could include:
    • 3D Flyover enhancements and more sites
    • 3D Flythrough with drones
    • Simulated lighting, shadows -- positioning and time of day
    • Street View
    • Crowd-sourced images and videos
    • Indoor mapping
    • Seamless integration of the above.

    There have been great improvements to the mapping APIs available to developers -- almost anything you can do using the dedicated Apple Maps app (both iOS and OS X) can now be programmed within a developers app -- for example: Animated 3D Flyover tours in hybrid or Satellite view, routing, directions ...

    Some of the recently added Flyover cities such as Braga, Portugal * -- have much higher quality and more realistic detail than the 3D renderings of a year or 2 ago. Also, It appears that Apple is reprocessing some of its older Flyover data to give better results.

    * I swear the 3D effect of the Braga Tour seen on my 5K iMac could be used as a basis for a commmercial video. We rewatched the Movie Chef last night. They did a tour from Miami to LA -- hitting all the major cities, showing beautiful videos at each location. I am familiar with some of those places -- the raw footage was obviously processed to improve the look ... LA streets never looked that good!

    Someone, Maybe Apple or its Developers is going to figure out a way to monetize Apple' mapping offerings.

    It's popular to say that Apple will never catch up -- Google has a 5-10 year lead ...

    Someone here, I think it was @mstone, pointed out that maps are perishable -- you have to redo them [at least] every 5 years for them to have any value!
  • Reply 16 of 25
    mainyehcmainyehc Posts: 133member
    urahara wrote: »

    Yeah, Portugal and Spain are different countries. Portugal is smaller. That's why it was dropped from the title. Why do you think it was 'lumped'? It was actually separated! /half joking
    Portugal is a fully independent (since 1143 CE!), sovereign (albeit not much, with the current budget impositions by the EC – that is, Germany) country, with more than 10M inhabitants; Puerto Rico is an “Associate State”, with aspirations to become the 51st state of the US, with only a bit more than 3M inhabitants, so why should it warranted a mention whereas Portugal wasn't? That's Diplomacy 101 for you and the AI staff. I know you are half joking, and that I am probably being too dead serious for this forum, but let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

    I mean, I had to deal with this kind of stuff before when doing *graphic design* (specifically, with gripes on the relative sizes of photos on a book cover for an academic study on two portuguese-speaking countries – yes, two former african colonies; the publisher unwittingly suggested that I reduced the size of the photo on the back cover – to this day, I am still amazed as to how they even let me get away with putting them each on its own cover instead of both in the front one, something I adamantly objected to as it drastically reduced its visual impact –, and an absolute sh*tstorm from the both the editor and the author ensued as one country couldn't be under-represented), so why should online journalists, writing for an international audience, be given a pass?

    For the record, everytime a VIP/politician/corporation does the all-too-common blunder of confusing Portugal with Spain (or any other country/region, for that matter, as Joe Biden did with Poland and Easy Jet with a greek island very recently), well, the aftermath usually isn't very pretty to watch. It is even worse than when people get confused the various people from the UK or the Commonwealth, as, apart from Galician (which is, for all intents and purposes and along with Portuguese, a not-too-distant spin-off from a shared ancestor), we do not even share a common language (and I do know that there are other languages in the former British Empire, but still).

    Portugal, along with Spain and the British, actually had an independent empire of its own; none of them should brag, really, as all three were responsible for huge atrocities and are also effectively dismantled now, but their languages and cultural influence (not all of it bad, it has to be said) remained, so… Common sense dictates that some degree of equality in acknowledgement (let alone respect, but I'm not even expecting that as the current political and economic scene in my country, as of late, is the biggest disappointment in my life and our degree of influence in the international theater is now jack sh*t) should, thus, be warranted.

    You can joke all you want, but though we are very nice to tourists and foreigners in general, and even self-deprecating more often than not (trust me; if you lived here for a while you'd immediately understand this strange self-love/hate dichotomy), we don't usually take this kind of oversight very lightly. /rant
  • Reply 17 of 25
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    nolamacguy wrote: »
    what nonsense. i use FO (not FO Tours or whatever) all the time to familiarize myself with areas. the bird's eye vantage point is a useful one and certainly delivers value to me as a paying customer.

    streetview is useful for certain tasks, too, but that doesnt negate the value of FO.

    once apple introduces their "Walk-Through" feature they'll have the best of both worlds.

    Agreed, I look forward to the best of both worlds too. I'm off to several places in Europe in a few weeks and I was checking out restaurants I used to frequent in the Plaka district in Athens. Without Street View I would not so easily have found out they were all obviously long closed, several in a state of ruin with vines growing all over them and graffiti scrawled all over the walls now. Very sad to see indeed. Barcelona and Venice on the other hand look vibrant and as good as ever despite their economic problems.. Nothing beats being on the ground and looking if you are going to be walking around a place. I just want Street view to be live next ;)
  • Reply 18 of 25
    freediverxfreediverx Posts: 1,423member
    This is such a useless feature. How about updating satellite imagery so it isn't at least 5 years outdated?
  • Reply 19 of 25
    nolamacguy wrote: »
    what nonsense. i use FO (not FO Tours or whatever) all the time to familiarize myself with areas. the bird's eye vantage point is a useful one and certainly delivers value to me as a paying customer.

    streetview is useful for certain tasks, too, but that doesnt negate the value of FO.

    once apple introduces their "Walk-Through" feature they'll have the best of both worlds.

    Agreed, I look forward to the best of both worlds too. I'm off to several places in Europe in a few weeks and I was checking out restaurants I used to frequent in the Plaka district in Athens. Without Street View I would not so easily have found out they were all obviously long closed, several in a state of ruin with vines growing all over them and graffiti scrawled all over the walls now. Very sad to see indeed. Barcelona and Venice on the other hand look vibrant and as good as ever despite their economic problems.. Nothing beats being on the ground and looking if you are going to be walking around a place. I just want Street view to be live next ;)

    Mmm ...

    Greece ... What a disaster, from everything I read. Economy in ruins ... becoming a welfare state.

    It's a pity, that a tourist destination like Greece doesn't take a more proactive part in promoting tourism.

    It would seem that they could pay someone $millions to create Street View and Flyover maps and easily recoup that with increased tourist trade and the supporting jobs.

    I can envision someone with an iPad (travel agent or tourist) running an app [using Apple Maps APIs] that plans an itinerary using 3D Flyover, Flythrough, Street View, Indoor Maps/video, Crowdies, POIs, Routes, Distances, Directions ... *

    Then, just book'em, Dan'l.

    Seriously, Google Maps has good Street View -- and still has better search than Apple maps ... but the rest is just crap -- especially Google Earth, and the transition to/from Google Maps! Navteq Here and OSM are not any better.


    * For my own amazement, I am trying to create such an app -- and it looks pretty good, so far -- I am able to create custom 3D Satellite or Hybrid Flyover tours totally within my app. These use pre-created .gpx files. the next step is to make them interactive. The Apple Maps APIs are quite good -- it's all there for the taking. Once Apple provides Street View and Indoor View -- the race is on!
  • Reply 20 of 25
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Mmm ...

    Greece ... What a disaster, from everything I read. Economy in ruins ... becoming a welfare state.

    It's a pity, that a tourist destination like Greece doesn't take a more proactive part in promoting tourism.

    It would seem that they could pay someone $millions to create Street View and Flyover maps and easily recoup that with increased tourist trade and the supporting jobs.

    I can envision someone with an iPad (travel agent or tourist) running an app [using Apple Maps APIs] that plans an itinerary using 3D Flyover, Flythrough, Street View, Indoor Maps/video, Crowdies, POIs, Routes, Distances, Directions ... *

    Then, just book'em, Dan'l.

    Seriously, Google Maps has good Street View -- and still has better search than Apple maps ... but the rest is just crap -- especially Google Earth, and the transition to/from Google Maps! Navteq Here and OSM are not any better.


    * For my own amazement, I am trying to create such an app -- and it looks pretty good, so far -- I am able to create custom 3D Satellite or Hybrid Flyover tours totally within my app. These use pre-created .gpx files. the next step is to make them interactive. The Apple Maps APIs are quite good -- it's all there for the taking. Once Apple provides Street View and Indoor View -- the race is on!

    Was that amazement or amusement? LOL ... Both maybe? Don't you just hate auto correct at times?

    Greece seems to be just digging its own hole by letting tourism go to the dogs. All that heritage. What a gold mine they inherited and wasted. I almost wonder if some third party private funding for Greek tourism's rebirth isn't called for. Disney style quality at the Acropolis instead of years of crappy looking cranes and tarpaulins everywhere.

    I agree, tourism seems to be way behind the curve in using this sort of tech. I am using street view to work out every last detail of what we will do on the trip and the great thing is we will already be visually familiar with the areas when we get there. But these could be already made and prepared for 'off the shelf' self guided tours with built in tips and suggestions heck even commentaries like museums have of places such as Venice. The GPS would know where you are! Your idea sounds awesome! I'd love to see that when it is ready.
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