Apple Continues Rolling Out Indoor Maps of Airports in iOS 11

[MacRumors]

Apple Maps now provides indoor maps for eight additional airports in the United States, as the new feature continues to roll out in iOS 11.

The recently added airports include O'Hare International and Midway International in Chicago, McCarran International in Las Vegas, Baltimore-Washington International, Miami International, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International, Oakland International, and Portland International.

The feature has also been available for Philadelphia International Airport and San Jose International Airport since iOS 11 was in beta.

When searching for these airports, Apple Maps users can tap "look inside" or simply zoom in to view terminals, boarding gates, security checkpoints, airline check-in desks, baggage claim carousels, information kiosks, restrooms, stores, restaurants, parking garages, and even escalators, elevators, and stairs.

It is even possible to browse by floor, or search for shops, food, drinks, or restrooms in a specific terminal. Tapping on a restaurant, for example, brings up a detailed place card with photos, hours, and additional information.

Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi previewed Apple's indoor maps at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Skip to around the 1:07:50 mark of Apple's WWDC 2017 keynote video to watch.

Apple said indoor maps will also be available at several other major airports, including Los Angeles International, JFK and LaGuardia in New York, San Diego International, Toronto Pearson International, Vancouver International, Heathrow and Gatwick in London, and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Apple is also adding indoor maps to shopping malls, making it easier to find the exact location of stores, restaurants, restrooms, escalators, elevators, and stairs on each floor. Users can also filter stores by categories such as clothes, shoes, accessories, beauty, food, and drinks, with detailed place cards for each.

A few shopping malls currently supported include Westfield's Valley Fair in San Jose and the San Francisco Centre.

(Thanks, Abel La O Fernandez!)

Article Link: Apple Continues Rolling Out Indoor Maps of Airports in iOS 11

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

A nice addition for sure.

 

[JSway]

Sorta like the app Trippie that was on Shark Tank. The were right!

 

[Ruskie]

Your list is incomplete. You are missing Portland International Airport among others that were recently added.

 

[pbush25]

Why is Atlanta, the busiest airport in the country and occasionally the world not included in this list? Too big for Apple to map?

 

[Mike MA]

Why is Atlanta, the busiest airport in the country and occasionally the world not included in this list? Too big for Apple to map?

Because the service just started rolling out?

 

[jmh600cbr]

A feature very useful and welcome. I could have used this last week at Pearson in Toronto.

 

[riverfreak]

A feature very useful and welcome. I could have used this last week at Pearson in Toronto.

Yes. It’s not always easy to find the nearest Timmies.

 

[jarman92]

Glad to see it, but these should have been rolled out months ago with the betas. Is there a single new service announced at WWDC that Apple managed to get into iOS 11 on time? Apple Pay Cash delayed indefinitely, iMessage in the Cloud delayed indefinitely, indoor maps were pretty much never mentioned again and are barely trickling out now...wtf?!

 

[kingpushup]

SFO is also basically mapped: has all the shops mapped, theres only two floors, and shops are on the second floor. Still surprising this is not complete so they can add SFO to their list.

 

[Sasparilla]

This is a great feature.

Glad to see it, but these should have been rolled out months ago with the betas. Is there a single new service announced at WWDC that Apple managed to get into iOS 11 on time? Apple Pay Cash delayed indefinitely, iMessage in the Cloud delayed indefinitely, indoor maps were pretty much never mentioned again and are barely trickling out now...wtf?!

I know what you're saying - but thinking back to the full launch of Maps as broken as it was at iOS rollout (was it iOS 6?) - I'd rather have them get all the big kinks worked out then release the software even with feature delays.

Apple isn't alone in this BTW, Google actually has custom chips in their new Pixel 2 phones that are disabled currently because the software isn't ready and won't be ready for months. Microsoft has disabled stuff in Windows 10 after Betas that weren't enabled till the next release. Complex software is hard.

 

[lunarworks]

Glad to see it, but these should have been rolled out months ago with the betas. Is there a single new service announced at WWDC that Apple managed to get into iOS 11 on time? Apple Pay Cash delayed indefinitely, iMessage in the Cloud delayed indefinitely, indoor maps were pretty much never mentioned again and are barely trickling out now...wtf?!

Since these are based in the cloud and not baked into the OS there was no pressing need to include them with the release.

 

[avanpelt]

Because the service just started rolling out?

That's not a valid excuse.

ATL is the world's busiest airport (and has been for several years now). If Apple wanted to make the airport mapping useful to a larger percentage of its user base, they would start with the airports that have the highest volume and work their way down to smaller airports.

Apple might eventually catch up with Google in the mapping department in 5 or 10 years. Until then, I guess I'll just keep using Google Maps (which has had ATL mapped in detail for several years now).

 

[B4U]

The young man who went on Shark Tank with the app called Trippie is doomed...

 

[erinsarah]

That's not a valid excuse.

ATL is the world's busiest airport (and has been for several years now). If Apple wanted to make the airport mapping useful to a larger percentage of its user base, they would start with the airports that have the highest volume and work their way down to smaller airports.

Apple might eventually catch up with Google in the mapping department in 5 or 10 years. Until then, I guess I'll just keep using Google Maps (which has had ATL mapped in detail for several years now).

I am friends with the guy who manages this dev project. While I would hardly call myself someone with insider info, I do know that it's up to the team to negotiate and work with each airport authority to set this up (same is true for their mapping efforts in malls). So there could be just a load of red tape, legal issues, or resource availability on either the Apple side or the airport side delaying the rollout of this airport. So...breathe...we all survived up til now without ATL being mapped...we can manage a bit longer...

 

[doelcm82]

That's not a valid excuse.

ATL is the world's busiest airport (and has been for several years now). If Apple wanted to make the airport mapping useful to a larger percentage of its user base, they would start with the airports that have the highest volume and work their way down to smaller airports.

Apple might eventually catch up with Google in the mapping department in 5 or 10 years. Until then, I guess I'll just keep using Google Maps (which has had ATL mapped in detail for several years now).

Maybe Apple hates Delta. That’s a valid excuse.

 

[riverfreak]

It’s also not just about mapping, but developing contacts and protocols for keeping the maps up-to-date.

 

[dominiongamma]

Because the service just started rolling out?

You are defending Apples slow response time? No excuse when they had years to play catch up
[doublepost=1508341510][/doublepost]

That's not a valid excuse.

ATL is the world's busiest airport (and has been for several years now). If Apple wanted to make the airport mapping useful to a larger percentage of its user base, they would start with the airports that have the highest volume and work their way down to smaller airports.

Apple might eventually catch up with Google in the mapping department in 5 or 10 years. Until then, I guess I'll just keep using Google Maps (which has had ATL mapped in detail for several years now).

100% agree I still won’t uae Apple maps because still to this day it has taken me to places that do no not exists or the wrong way. Google maps is still the king

 

[DisNerd]

The young man who went on Shark Tank with the app called Trippie is doomed...

PointInside did this about 300 years ago in far more locations on iOS 4. Whoop de doo.

 

[xero9]

Too bad YYZ, YVR, and EWR for example were on their list of initial rollout airports, yet it's missing any these so far.

 

[avanpelt]

I am friends with the guy who manages this dev project. While I would hardly call myself someone with insider info, I do know that it's up to the team to negotiate and work with each airport authority to set this up (same is true for their mapping efforts in malls). So there could be just a load of red tape, legal issues, or resource availability on either the Apple side or the airport side delaying the rollout of this airport. So...breathe...we all survived up til now without ATL being mapped...we can manage a bit longer...

I'm breathing just fine. As I said, I'll keep using Google Maps, which has had ATL mapped for years.

 

[sully54]

Too bad YYZ, YVR, and EWR for example were on their list of initial rollout airports, yet it's missing any these so far.

Agreed. YVR indoor maps are definitely not live yet.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I am friends with the guy who manages this dev project. While I would hardly call myself someone with insider info, I do know that it's up to the team to negotiate and work with each airport authority to set this up (same is true for their mapping efforts in malls). So there could be just a load of red tape, legal issues, or resource availability on either the Apple side or the airport side delaying the rollout of this airport. So...breathe...we all survived up til now without ATL being mapped...we can manage a bit longer...

Not to mention, security. I would not be at all surprised if these mapping exercises and their results had to pass through TSA (just as we all must before boarding).

That said, I noticed in recent trips to LAX and Washington National that the existing maps already give you a pretty good idea where you are in the terminals as well as the names of many of the restaurants and retail shops on the concourses. They seem to be adding gate numbers, which could be useful, but I think most of us will still follow the signs.

 

[truthertech]

Sorta like the app Trippie that was on Shark Tank. The were right!

Yes, that was a millennial classic. Good for him trying to come up with something, but problem was he became distraught when they told him there was nothing proprietary, all he had was one or two airports with basic maps of where restaurants were with a 167 downloads, and many mapping services were already offering more and there was nothing to invest in. He thought he deserved a "win" (investment) because he "worked hard" on it while he was going to school, and they didn't understand what he had gone through.

 

[MikeAnd]

That's not a valid excuse.

If it makes you feel any better, they also don't have SFO yet, and that airport in their own backyard. But even the UA app doesn't currently have SFO, and it's one of their fortress hubs, so the issue there could be due to construction.

ATL is the world's busiest airport (and has been for several years now).

If you look at the airports that have been rolled out so far, it's pretty clear that raw passenger volume is not the primary determinant of which airports get mapped first.

Until then, I guess I'll just keep using Google Maps (which has had ATL mapped in detail for several years now).

FWIW, in airports where they overlap (e.g., SJC), the Apple Maps internal airport mapping is considerably more detailed than the Google Maps equivalent. But, of course, a less detailed map is still better than none at all! Hopefully they'll continue to introduce new airports at a fast clip.