On Good Friday, it became available in Hungary, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia Apple Maps service has several new functions going back to iOS 13. With the exception of Austria – where this will only be activated later – they include the Look Around (Look Around) as well, it’s easy to use and just like in Google Maps Street View (Street view) view: you can stick a pin in a specific place or click on the binoculars icon in the lower left corner, creating a street view that can be rotated 360 degrees. The function was launched in the USA in 2018, and since then the area where it is available has been expanded twenty times.
This is what the Look Around function looks like from an iPhone (source: Mobilearena) [+]
In addition to looking around the street, Apple’s map service now also offers more accurate 3D models, and Flyover feature also features famous domestic buildings, such as the Buda Castle. In addition, we have also received the indoor map function (you can use it to find, for example, shops and toilets in airports and shopping malls), the voice of the navigation will sound in a more natural European, and lane guidance has also arrived, i.e. the map tells you in advance, for example, which lane will be winding. From now on, Apple Maps will also be able to indicate traffic lights and traffic cameras, it will be possible to plan routes with several stops, and traffic disturbances experienced on the road will be reported. You can search for separate charging points for electric cars, and in the case of a planned trip with an EV, the map takes into account the level differences experienced during the trip and other factors affecting consumption. It will be possible to share the expected arrival time with our family and friends via iCloud. In the case of the latter function, we have to enter in our phone with whom we want to share the time of our arrival with, and iOS will automatically send a notification to these contacts if, for example, the pre-calculated arrival time changes due to an unexpected traffic jam.
The 3D view covers the city center of Budapest in more detail, the new indoor navigation points can also be seen in the image, the shops of the Mammut shopping center are marked precisely by the service (source: Mobilearena) [+]
These functions tend to help people traveling by car, but there are also new options for those who use public transport. You can use Apple Maps to search for nearby stops and stations, you can mark your favorite lines, and from now on the navigation is for us if we need to get off at a specific stop. More precisely, it tells us in advance to get off at the next stop, and then notifies us again when the vehicle we are on has arrived at the appropriate stop. (I used this feature on the subway during MWC in Barcelona, it worked accurately and reliably until the phone lost network underground, so God forbid those who try to navigate the London subway with this! – viragdani01)
Lane guidance and traffic lights in Apple Maps (source: Apple) [+]
You do not need to log in to the service to use Apple Maps, but if you use it with an Apple ID, the application performs the personalized functions of the devices. Among the collected data are search terms, navigation routes and traffic information, which Apple stores in anonymized form associated with random identifiers, so, according to their claim, the search and location data stored on the server cannot be linked to the users. In addition, the exact starting location of the search is stored by the server for only 24 hours, and then converted into an approximate location, this procedure fuzzingthe company calls it.
Of course given a Look Around in this case, the faces, license plates and other sensitive information in the images were obscured. The visible streetscapes are on average two years old, and the function also works in smaller settlements outside of Budapest. It is not yet known how often Apple plans to update the photos in the service.
Left is the before and right is the 3D view after the Easter update in Apple Maps on iPhone (source: Apple) [+]
Developers can integrate the newly available Apple Maps functions into their own applications using MapKit, and with the help of MapKit JS they can also integrate them into a website in the form of an embeddable interactive map. At the same time, it is worth noting that Apple Maps is still only available on Apple’s own devices (iPhone, Mac, iPad) natively, also in the app, not from the web. There is no Android application, so the service can only be accessed via DuckDuckGo on Windows or Android platforms with limited functionality.
