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Apple Maps Gains New Flyover Locations, Spotlight Suggestions Expand to Denmark, Norway and Sweden

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Apple today updated its iOS 9 feature availability page to note the expansion of several iOS features to new countries.

Apple's Flyover feature for Apple Maps has expanded to encompass Akron, Ohio and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, allowing Maps users to see photorealistic 3D views of the areas, with tools for zooming, panning, and rotating to get a closer look at notable landmarks and points of interest.

mapspuertovallarta-800x450.jpg

In Thailand, Apple Maps users now have access to traffic information, bringing the total number of countries with traffic data available to 34.

Finally, Spotlight Suggestions have expanded to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, making the feature available in 19 countries. Spotlight Suggestions show suggestions from the Internet, iTunes, the App Store, Maps, and more when conducting a spotlight search on an iPhone or Mac.

Article Link: Apple Maps Gains New Flyover Locations, Spotlight Suggestions Expand to Denmark, Norway and Sweden
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/28/apple-ios-feature-availability-update/
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I've been to Akron. It's not that realistic even in person.

P.S. It gets overlooked, but Flyover has expanded much more than just to new cities: it has expanded outward, a number of times, from existing Flyover cities. What used to be just a "city proper" in 3D is now often an extended metro area, suburbs, and beyond, covering multiple smaller cities that never appear in a list. Which means my house is now in 3D! Looks like I wasn't parked outdoors that day.
 
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Google's streetview is infinitely more useful. I've never used flyover nor has anyone I know. It's stupidly pointless. I can understand some of the order things that Apple does, but not this. Is it cool, maybe to some. But Apple Maps on a whole are best left avoided in my experience.
 
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ProwlingTiger said:
Google's streetview is infinitely more useful. I've never used flyover nor has anyone I know. It's stupidly pointless. I can understand some of the order things that Apple does, but not this. Is it cool, maybe to some. But Apple Maps on a whole are best left avoided in my experience.
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I haven't either, but my gut tells me the data is going to be used for some bigger feature down the line. These aren't just photographs after all; they are 3D mapping whole cities.

Disagree with you about Google though. I use Apple Maps because I value my privacy: I don't want a company who sells my information to know the places I travel. Apple Maps has also improved in my city, and as of iOS 9 it will also warn me of traffic ahead and try to reroute me. It still makes mistakes and doesn't always offer the most optimal route, but I've seen continual improvement since it launched.
 
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petsounds said:
...

Disagree with you about Google though. I use Apple Maps because I value my privacy: I don't want a company who sells my information to know the places I travel. Apple Maps has also improved in my city, and as of iOS 9 it will also warn me of traffic ahead and try to reroute me. It still makes mistakes and doesn't always offer the most optimal route, but I've seen continual improvement since it launched.
Click to expand...

stop this. google's and apple's privacy policies are basically the same when it comes to their map services (and other services) regarding privacy. You're missing out on a superior map product: google maps
 
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Nice but overall really disappointed with how seldom Apple updates maps. In my area they haven't updated in about four years. I know because that is when I had a pool put in and Apple maps still doesn't show it. Google has updated theirs at least 3 times since then, including just last week. It is at most a few months old as it shows my neighbor's solar parents that they had installed in January. Not that those are the most important things, but they have also completed a lot of freeway work around me in that timeframe and again that hasn't been updated with Apple maps.
 
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ProwlingTiger said:
Google's streetview is infinitely more useful. I've never used flyover nor has anyone I know. It's stupidly pointless. I can understand some of the order things that Apple does, but not this. Is it cool, maybe to some. But Apple Maps on a whole are best left avoided in my experience.
Click to expand...

It's not really a replacement for StreetView, more of an improved Satellite view.

In that respect, it works very well. It's not supported in my city (Leipzig, Germany, if Apple's listening...) but I do use it when I'm in a place that supports it.

Maps isn't much of a priority at Apple because it doesn't directly generate revenue. At Google, Maps is just another UI for search - finding local businesses, etc. That's not an excuse - it's where Apple needs to improve.

They need to either integrate Maps very deeply in to everything, so it becomes a critical source of information (e.g. when asking Siri for movie times near me, it should check for the closest movie theatre to me, then find out if they have a cloud service to get data from, instead of just farming the request out to Fandango), OR they need to find ways to directly generate revenue from Maps.

Otherwise it just doesn't justify its investment. I mean, iMessage is far and away the most-used App on iOS and they likely don't spend a fraction of the costs on it that they do for Maps (even considering the servers; Maps needs servers too - you don't stream those 3D scenes and textures from nowhere).
 
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I like Apple Maps. In my area, Southern California, it is updated frequently and works very well. I also appreciate how buttery smooth and quick it is. Aesthetically it looks fantastic and sometimes I just kind of pop in to admire it.

Flyover on the other hand reminds me of the Apple Watch heartbeat gimmick. Used it once, raised an eyebrow as to why Apple would funnel resources into it, then promptly forgot about it.
 
wouwout said:
stop this. google's and apple's privacy policies are basically the same when it comes to their map services (and other services) regarding privacy. You're missing out on a superior map product: google maps
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It's not true that the privacy policies are the same and it's not true that Google maps is superior. Apple maps has gone a log way since the beginning and now it's a very good service.
 
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petsounds said:
Disagree with you about Google though. I use Apple Maps because I value my privacy: I don't want a company who sells my information to know the places I travel. Apple Maps has also improved in my city, and as of iOS 9 it will also warn me of traffic ahead and try to reroute me. It still makes mistakes and doesn't always offer the most optimal route, but I've seen continual improvement since it launched.
Click to expand...
Google does not sell your information, it sells ad space. Giving anyone else access to this data would be incredibly dumb.
 
ProwlingTiger said:
Google's streetview is infinitely more useful. I've never used flyover nor has anyone I know. It's stupidly pointless. I can understand some of the order things that Apple does, but not this. Is it cool, maybe to some. But Apple Maps on a whole are best left avoided in my experience.
Click to expand...

It may be "stupidly pointless" to you, but perhaps there are situations where it's a really useful feature for others? For example, as I wrote in response to a naysayer on the last similar thread:

orbital~debris said:
I used Flyover City Tour feature a few times this evening, looking at potential places for a holiday. It's a fantastic resource for getting a spatial sense of a city/place.
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The keyword is spatial. You just can't get the same overall sense of a place with the focused view Street View provides. I'm not saying Street View can't be useful - and I hope Apple integrate a similar feature into Maps - but for an overview, Flyover is wonderful (it's also a delight to use, panning, rotating and zooming; quite the contrary to the finicky interface on Street View).
 
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I like and regularly use Apple Maps, however they do need to speed up their map updates/corrections. I told them about a new roundabout 8 months ago and it is still missing. It is also missing from Google Maps, but has been included in Waze (first) and then TomTom iOS app.
 
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Instead of focusing on useless fly-over they might want to focus on getting the maps and roads right as a start... still tons of roads that are wrong or missing in Sweden.
 
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Instead of being occupied with a useless feature like the flyover, they should update their satellite images. Compared to Google Maps, Apple's images are 2 years old whereas Google's images are updated all the time and most images are no older than a few months. Most people living in settled and established areas may not notice this flaw but the newly developing and rapidly changing areas in Apple's images are pretty stale.

I'm afraid, Apple Maps will never catch up with Google Maps because they are not concentrating on what it needs to be improved and wasting their time on frivolous features.
 
I wonder when they're going to rollout their version of Street View. Apple Street View cars have been spotted but besides that no rumors on that subject.
 
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