Apple Maps Introduces Transit Data for Denver, Colorado

[MacRumors]

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive Transit information for the city of Denver, Colorado, enabling iPhone users in the area to navigate using public transportation, including buses, subways, and commuter rails.

Transit routing was introduced in iOS 9 with support for a limited number of cities, but Apple has since expanded its public transportation coverage for over 20 cities around the world and 30 cities in China.

Apart from Denver, Transit directions are available in Apple Maps for Austin, Sydney, Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Toronto, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

Ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics, Apple has also added Transit support for cities including Montreal, Portland, Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, and the state of New South Wales.

(Thanks, Ram!)

Article Link: Apple Maps Introduces Transit Data for Denver, Colorado

 

[MH01]

New South Wales is a state, not a city.

Interesting China gets more coverage than the rest of the world.

 

[boshii]

Atlanta was recently updated with transit directions as well.

 

[kildraik]

I'm surprised with a system as awesome and useful as Dallas, transport info isn't available.

Whereas Austin has one train, and is next to useless.

Etc, etc, etc.

 

[wbrat]

Transit routing was introduced in iOS 9 with support for a limited number of cities, but Apple has since expanded its public transportation coverage for over 20 cities around the world and 30 cities in China.​

Few thousands to go and this feature may be actually useful for most of users...

 

[Gooberton]

Absolutely mind blowing

 

[dgl289]

Wow, they have such a slow pace...

For goodness sake, how, in the whole world, don't they expand the "Nearby" feature already? Spain and other nations are wating.... This is a iOS9 feature and iOS10 is already here in beta and still no "nearby" feature or "3d buildings in navigation" or transits in most places in Europa.....

Apple releasing unfinished projects.... not good.

 

[hagar]

"Over 20 cities in the world..."

Consider my mind blown! That part time intern hired by Apple to manually fill up the Maps DB is clearly paying for itself.

 

[Nramos33]

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive Transit information for the city of Denver, Colorado, enabling iPhone users in the area to navigate using public transportation, including buses, subways, and commuter rails.

Transit routing was introduced in iOS 9 with support for a limited number of cities, but Apple has since expanded its public transportation coverage for over 20 cities around the world and 30 cities in China.

Apart from Denver, Transit directions are available in Apple Maps for Austin, Sydney, Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Toronto, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

Ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics, Apple has also added Transit support for cities including Montreal, Portland, Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, and the state of New South Wales.

(Thanks, Ram!)

Article Link: Apple Maps Introduces Transit Data for Denver, Colorado

This is fantastic! Now you can see that the only bus one the route just passed and it'll be another hour before the next bus comes.

I love my hometown, but Denver's public transportation is a mix of why bother and you should have bought a car.

 

[JosephAW]

Why does it require an entirely new iOS version just to update a map app?
All my other map apps are still being updated and we are using iOS 8 and earlier.

 

[Karma*Police]

The current pace is too slow IMO. I suspect Apple already knows this and the new maps development center in India will hyper accelerate data and transit updates once it's up and running.

 

[MH01]

The current pace is too slow IMO. I suspect Apple already knows this and the new maps development center in India will hyper accelerate data and transit updates once it's up and running.

That depends on where you live. If you live in China, progress is fine. If you don't live in a demographic Apple cares about , 10 data centres in India will not help.

 

[MordechaiCarver]

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive Transit information for the city of Denver, Colorado, enabling iPhone users in the area to navigate using public transportation, including buses, subways, and commuter rails.

Pssst...we don't have subways here in the Mile High City. Quit copying and pasting from your templates and do some research (which is usually required in journalism...even if it's a tech blog).

 

[barkerja]

After watching a few Maps videos from this year's WWDC, it's apparent that Apple cares more about just providing transit data, they're providing an experience (as cliché as that sounds).

While it's not an excuse, it explains the slow rollout. There's A LOT more involved than just feeding some data and showing times/routes.

I highly recommend the watch: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/241/

After understanding what really goes into transit directions on iOS, you kind of have a better understanding of what's truly involved.

 

[Creek0512]

iOS 10 Screenshots

 

[Karma*Police]

That depends on where you live. If you live in China, progress is fine. If you don't live in a demographic Apple cares about , 10 data centres in India will not help.

They're not developing data centers in India for maps. They're hiring a ton of maps engineers. My guess is that they'll work on relatively low level stuff like cleaning up data, adding/refining transit, image cleanup, flyover, etc.

 

[MH01]

They're not developing data centers in India for maps. They're hiring a ton of maps engineers. My guess is that they'll work on relatively low level stuff like cleaning up data, adding/refining transit, image cleanup, flyover, etc.

by data centres I meant the engineers they are hiring, I should have been more clear. Point still remains, 10 times the engineers will not change the fact that apple is targeting a certain demographic to update its maps. Some people will not see thier cities updated. At present China has 30 cities and the rest of the world has 20, says a lot.

 

[Creek0512]

by data centres I meant the engineers they are hiring, I should have been more clear. Point still remains, 10 times the engineers will not change the fact that apple is targeting a certain demographic to update its maps. Some people will not see thier cities updated. At present China has 30 cities and the rest of the world has 20, says a lot.

It says a lot about China's communist government in that all of their transit infrastructure is centralized, so Apple only had to add support for 1 system to support all of those cities.

 

[MH01]

It says a lot about China's communist government in that all of their transit infrastructure is centralized, so Apple only had to add support for 1 system to support all of those cities.

Are you saying all the transport systems in China fall under one system? From my experiece travelling in communist and ex communist countries, that is furthest from the truth.

 

[Karma*Police]

by data centres I meant the engineers they are hiring, I should have been more clear. Point still remains, 10 times the engineers will not change the fact that apple is targeting a certain demographic to update its maps. Some people will not see thier cities updated. At present China has 30 cities and the rest of the world has 20, says a lot.

But that's what any sensible business would do... target where you have most users, most potential for growth and/or lowest hanging fruit. The hiring of all those engineers should dramatically accelerate the pace at which Apple adds other cities and updates data across the globe which benefits all users.

 

[MH01]

But that's what any sensible business would do... target where you have most users, most potential for growth and/or lowest hanging fruit. The hiring of all those engineers should dramatically accelerate the pace at which Apple adds other cities and updates data across the globe which benefits all users.

Agreed. And this is what apple is doing, focuses where the most profit is to be made. Im just pointing out that from TC bowing in the keynotes, to launching more and more stores in China, China is its number one target.

 

[Creek0512]

Anyone else notice the rate Apple is adding cities to transit directions has accelerated recently? After launching in September with 10 cities, Apple only added Boston, Sydney and LA last year. Then, Apple didn't add any new cities in the first 3 months of this year, but since April they've added on average a new city (or region) every week, almost doubling the number of cities supported (not counting China).

 

[one more]

Great, keep on spreading, it's a big world!

 

[Creek0512]

Looking at Maps on my iPhone, they didn't just add Denver, it looks like they've added transit directions for the entire Front Range, including Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs.

 

[hagar]

I highly recommend the watch: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/241/

After understanding what really goes into transit directions on iOS, you kind of have a better understanding of what's truly involved.

I just watched this video and, while interesting, I'm not convinced. They could have chosen to roll-out the data provided by the public transit companies and made the feature actually usable for millions of users. And then gradually roll-out the fancy part with the station layouts and exits. Most users just want to know which line they need to take and at what time. They can figure out where to go in a station themselves. While it's a nice add-on, in the end it's just Apple being Apple and trying to reach some superiority or exclusivity where it's not needed.

20 cities worldwide is a joke.