Redirection of 'maps.apple.com': A hint of what's to come?

Eddy Munn

macrumors 6502

Original poster

• Jul 17, 2012

• #1

Just as a curious thought, http://maps.apple.com/ redirects to the iOS 6 preview page for the Maps application.
Nothing outstanding until you see it's the only iOS feature which will redirect instead of showing an error page.

There must be a logical reason why this URL exists, and is being redirected.
This had me thinking as to whether Apple is working on a browser accessible version of their Maps application?
Why would only one feature of iOS 6 have it's own domain?

Even more curiously, http://maps.apple.com/uk, or any other extension of that URL redirects to an 'Error 404' page on Google!.

I posted this thread in this section because of it's relevancy to iOS 6 maps.
Please post your thoughts.

 

Last edited: Jul 17, 2012

andybno1

Suspended

• Jul 17, 2012

• #2

considering they have their own maps app now it wouldn't really be a surprise if we seen an online version

 

C

CyBeRino

macrumors 6502a

• Jul 17, 2012

• #3

maps.apple.com used to redirect to maps.google.com. Why, no one knows.

Now they've fixed it so that http://maps.apple.com/ redirects to the Mapps app page, but any other url starting with that still redirects to google. So maps.apple.com/blahblah will redirect to maps.google.com/blahblah. Which doesn't exist, so you get google's 404.

The original redirect is indeed curious, but this appears to just be an oversight.

 

LostSoul80

macrumors 68020

• Jul 17, 2012

• #4

Redirects to http://maps.google.com/<...>
Nothing surprising, anyways.

 

B

batting1000

macrumors 604

• Jul 17, 2012

• #5

Redirects me to: http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/maps/

 

ErikGrim

macrumors 604

• Jul 17, 2012

• #6

maps.apple.com is for translating web links to google maps to provide compatibility. Nothing to see here.

 

brylliant

macrumors regular

• Jul 18, 2012

• #7

Eddy Munn said:

Just as a curious thought, http://maps.apple.com/ redirects to the iOS 6 preview page for the Maps application.
Nothing outstanding until you see it's the only iOS feature which will redirect instead of showing an error page.

There must be a logical reason why this URL exists, and is being redirected.
This had me thinking as to whether Apple is working on a browser accessible version of their Maps application?
Why would only one feature of iOS 6 have it's own domain?

Even more curiously, http://maps.apple.com/uk, or any other extension of that URL redirects to an 'Error 404' page on Google!.
Image
I posted this thread in this section because of it's relevancy to iOS 6 maps.
Please post your thoughts.

Click to expand...

I am guessing a full version of the new Maps. Like maps.google.com, but done by Apple 😉

 

Mad Mac Maniac

macrumors 601

• Jul 18, 2012

• #8

andybno1 said:

considering they have their own maps app now it wouldn't really be a surprise if we seen an online version

Click to expand...

I think a native Mac app is more likely than a web version. That's just more Apple's style and it could be integrated a lot more, sync'd through iCloud, etc.