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If their coverage for Look Around is good it's huge for me. I use Street View all the time in Google Maps.



Apple Maps burned me so badly on a road trip. There was a huge slowdown on the interstate and it had me get off at an exit before it. It had me drive about five miles on a side road, do a U-turn, and then took me back to the exact same exit I got off on telling me to get back on the interstate. I will give it another shot with iOS 13.


Yikes, that's the kind of crap Waze used to do to me (before they were bought by google-so it's been awhile).

This stuff must be highly dependent on location. I've used apple maps since it came out. The first year was a little sketchy. After that, it's been pretty good. I use it for my job and I'm on the road a LOT and 99% of the time it's dead on. Every once in a while it will prompt me to make a u-turn instead of just turn across the street. There is one area with two smaller towns where it outright sucks. I know not to type in the address for those places but search in maps for the business name and tap that for directions. (I've compared the address of the business with what was typed in and it's always exact but for some reason it leads to two very different locations.)

I've used it all up and down the east coast with no issues. It's given me alternative routes for at least the last 2 to 3 years. And over the last year or so, it will prompt if an alternative route is faster and ask if you want to change the route.

The only time I sent in a request to update information (a business had closed), it was years ago and they updated it within a week or so.
 
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How about the basic ability to plan a trip that stops at multiple destinations? Google Maps has for years allowed me to say "let's go to A, then to B, then to C, then back home." Sometimes when I have a number of different destinations, I just want to put in a list of addresses and have Apple Maps spit back, "this is the most efficient route for you to drive to all of your destinations," or at least let me manually add multiple destinations.
Yep!
 
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Shame the Look Around feature is basically not ready for anyone yet. I was looking forward to trying that.
 
In this guide, we've highlighted all of the new features that are in the Apple Maps app in iOS 13.

Road Hazards and Traffic Conditions

When viewing the main Maps interface, the app now displays road hazards and traffic conditions so you can see the route ahead at a glance. Previously, this information was available, but only when turn-by-turn directions were activated.

mapsoverviewtrafficroadconditions-800x405.jpg

In iOS 13, traffic information is visible on the main map too.

This already existed in iOS 12.

Here's a screenshot from late May (before WWDC; after a tornado rolled through town) showing road hazards and traffic information on the main map without turn-by-turn directions being activated:

D7oW94wWsAIY1gJ.jpg



Favorites

Favorites is a new Maps feature that lets you search for specific places and then add them to a list. Favorites are meant for places that you visit frequently, and Home and Work are already added by default.

You can add any place you go to often to the Favorites list, such as a favorite restaurant or coffee shop, or a friend's house. Tapping on one of your Favorites brings up directions to that spot right away, so think of it like a speed dial option for Maps.
The list of Favorites might be new, but you've been able to mark POIs on the map as 'Favorited' for a long time. The benefit was that favorited POIs would have a little heart icon and stay visible on the map when zoomed out.
 
Look Around fills in the last piece that I occasionally still used Google Maps for. Apple not only matched Google but beats it in my opinion. The ease of use of navigating via Flyover and now Look Around is far superior to Street View.

It was all worth the growing pains. Apple owns a critical piece of the data and experience used throughout the entire Apple ecosystem.

Remaining at the mercy of their main competitor would have been a massive strategic mistake. Steve Jobs made the right call moving to an in house Maps app.


So just a case of waiting till it’s globally available
 
Unfortunately, none of these features address the main problem which is lack of an extensive database of POIs like Google has. Anyone remember iOS SIX? 7 cycles later and still no dice. Carry on

useless to me, but if you need that go with Google. Best map app by far is the one you use.Where I live, Google still has a lot of bad location data. I reported to Apple and Google, at least Apple fixed it. Carry on
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Last piece? I'd be interested to know how you've gotten around the traffic piece and the illogical routes piece. I've tried Apple Maps many times. Every year it gets updated and every year it fails. Google Maps will suggest alternate routes in traffic. Apple Maps gives me directions from my home to work that is the most illogical route anyone would ever take. It's terrible. But I will be trying again. (sigh)

doesn't do that for me, and gives plenty of alternate routes. Google never picked some location that are in the middle of the ocean where I live (sigh)
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Outside the US (Heck even outside of California really) Apple Maps is a barren wasteland of nothingness and shouldn't even realistically be offered.
Apple puts zero effort on outside-US.

Worked great when we were in Tokyo, and Mexico City
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I was taken aback for a moment this past weekend. We were using Apple Maps GPS for navigating to a beach. Near the end of the route, Siri said "You'll need to park your car alongside (road name), and walk the rest of the way." We were like "Wha?????" Found that really cool. :eek::D:cool:
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It probably heavily depends on the area. I prefer Apple Maps over Google Maps 90% of the time, but sometimes Siri will choose U-turn routes instead of more logical alternate routes that Google offers.

it is all relative, google once had me get out in the Bowery (very dangerous place)
 
I really like the improvements to maps. Another little hidden gem (off topic) is that you can now use HomeKit sensors as flow control items in the ShortCuts app - finally!!
 
This is all cool, but some other simpler things would make me more excited...

1.
just today, I try to simply share a link to an apple maps location on my computer.
I click "share". and there is no copy link...I have to put in a note, then drag that icon to my email (not using apple mail)
And then I'm not really sure its gonna work.
trying to share a location in an email not using mail makes me choose google maps...its obvious, a short url.

2.
often I want to go to a friends house
when I type their name into apple maps it doesn't pull up their address...I'll ONLY get businesses.
and inconsistency it may work with some contacts, and I don't know why!

3.
Its a pain in the ass to report a problem. you have millions of people who want apple maps to get it right and will report problems...


I know I could keep a list going and going and going....
 
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It is so nice of the Apple Maps team to provide us with a beautiful interface into a location search with almost always zero or totally messed results and a navigation to constantly go havoc. Thank you so much.

Latest gem: “navigate me to the next Burger King”. Started navigation to a town on Belgium North Sea coastline. I was in the inner part of Switzerland at the time. It was a 900km trip it suggested. Google had no issue finding the one in 12km distance.
 
How about the basic ability to plan a trip that stops at multiple destinations? Google Maps has for years allowed me to say "let's go to A, then to B, then to C, then back home." Sometimes when I have a number of different destinations, I just want to put in a list of addresses and have Apple Maps spit back, "this is the most efficient route for you to drive to all of your destinations," or at least let me manually add multiple destinations.

Maybe iOS 14. That's the other problem. Built in apps on iOS only get feature updates once a year in September.
 
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I'm not sure if some of these 'features' are really features unless they're available to use. If it takes years to role out to part of the rest of the world it's not really what you'd call an available feature for the majority of us. 3D view/flyover is still not available in most places and I while I would like to be wrong, I don't imagine detailed maps or look-around will be either.
 
Yikes, that's the kind of crap Waze used to do to me (before they were bought by google-so it's been awhile).

This stuff must be highly dependent on location. I've used apple maps since it came out. The first year was a little sketchy. After that, it's been pretty good. I use it for my job and I'm on the road a LOT and 99% of the time it's dead on. Every once in a while it will prompt me to make a u-turn instead of just turn across the street. There is one area with two smaller towns where it outright sucks. I know not to type in the address for those places but search in maps for the business name and tap that for directions. (I've compared the address of the business with what was typed in and it's always exact but for some reason it leads to two very different locations.)

That's good to hear! That scenario I described was between towns on an interstate. I've had some wonkiness with Waze also. One time it wanted me to turn left, drive a mile, and do a u-turn to drive back to where I could have just turned right to get to the business. I didn't do what it said for that one.
 
I'm not sure if some of these 'features' are really features unless they're available to use. If it takes years to role out to part of the rest of the world it's not really what you'd call an available feature for the majority of us. 3D view/flyover is still not available in most places and I while I would like to be wrong, I don't imagine detailed maps or look-around will be either.

Click the link below, pick your country and see when Apple is gathering data for it: LINK

So far, Apple has rolled out updated detailed Maps data for everyone of the U.S. states of Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and some users (but not all) have guide data for Texas, Louisiana, and Southern Mississippi. They have completed vehicle imaging for all the U.S. (may still be doing some of Alaska), and is currently in the process of doing pedestrian imaging for multiple Western states.

They are currently in the process of doing vehicle imagery for multiple other countries as well.

As for Look Around, they may be a little slower in rolling that out compared to the new Maps data, but I imagine this information was collected at the same time they did the vehicle imaging.
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Maybe iOS 14. That's the other problem. Built in apps on iOS only get feature updates once a year in September.

Actually, they can get upgraded 3-5 times a year. 12.4 is primarily bringing a feature update to the Wallet app.
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3. Its a pain in the ass to report a problem. you have millions of people who want apple maps to get it right and will report problems...

Up until last month when iOS 13 DB was announced, I was able to get reports corrected within a couple days, a week at most. It was very simple, and I have made 100s of corrections.

Here in an East Coast state that doesn't have updated Maps data yet, they haven't been very good about making corrections this past month, but I'm hoping that's because they're busy with the new Maps data.

Also FYI, the Maps app has a more detailed reporting section, including the ability to report entrances to locations.
 
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Not everyone lives in vastly populated cities such as Toronto or San Francisco or Dallas. In fact a very large percentage of iOS users do not. Additionally, I think we can agree that just because Apple is "getting better" and "ramping up" doesn't mean it's even close to Google in terms of POI information. Everything is relative

I’m just pointing out why the problem you mentioned has existed and why it’ll be fixed after iOS 13 is released widely.
 
I use Apple maps every day. Works great and with car play, I get a nice big display and directions.
 
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The new map features are great. I am hoping the next country to get these upgraded details and Look Around is Canada.

There are many public security cameras. Can they somehow be used in Apple Maps? The difference is they're real-time views.
 
Last piece? I'd be interested to know how you've gotten around the traffic piece and the illogical routes piece. I've tried Apple Maps many times. Every year it gets updated and every year it fails. Google Maps will suggest alternate routes in traffic. Apple Maps gives me directions from my home to work that is the most illogical route anyone would ever take. It's terrible. But I will be trying again. (sigh)

Again, this is dependent on where you live. I’ve heard wildly differing reviews of Apple Maps depending on where people use it. In Toronto, directions and traffic have been accurate and reliable for years. In fact, I’ve found Google Maps giving me completely nonsensical routing far more often than Apple Maps has.

As a result, I haven’t had Google Maps on my phone for several years. I use Flyover in Apple Maps very routinely to visually familiarize myself with an area or check on a certain building. On occasion, I’ve had to see something from sidewalk level and have gone into Google Maps in the browser to check Street View. Look Around is that last piece that fills that final outstanding feature.

Apple owning the data stack for Maps going forward is going to correct the problem you mention. Not only will Apple gain first party control of changes and can update them instantly without going through a third party, once iOS 13 is widely deployed, every iPhone in every car, even if the Maps app isn’t actively running, is going to contribute live ping data to Maps and give everybody’s iPhone user accurate traffic information as well as improve directions through machine learning.
 
I guess it depends on where you are. Points of interest in Toronto are very thoroughly populated.........
Because Toronto is the centre of the known universe. It’s awesome here, especially for tech.
[doublepost=1563320600][/doublepost]“ETA Sharing”
Loved this feature on my BB Tour.
Can’t wait to use this sharing feature with iMessage.
 
The list of Favorites might be new, but you've been able to mark POIs on the map as 'Favorited' for a long time. The benefit was that favorited POIs would have a little heart icon and stay visible on the map when zoomed out.

It's even better in iOS 13.

Shame the Look Around feature is basically not ready for anyone yet. I was looking forward to trying that.

It's available to those of us on the iOS 13 DB and PBs, and while it's currently only available in the California Bay Area, Las Vegas, and parts of Hawaii, it's enough to see how nice of a feature it is.
 
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Every year I SO want to use Apple Maps, but every year I'm disappointed. Currently running iOS 13 beta in Barcelona, and Apple doesn't have one iota of transit info. Haven't even tried POIs but I imagine they're equally terrible :(


Actually, Apple Maps Transit is acknowledged to be much better than Google Maps. Sorry that it hasn't quite rolled out to Barcelona, it's great in Madrid, though that doesn't help you.

If it helps, once it is there it will be more accurate and have a better interface than GM. Apple could have done what Google did and simply import all the generic data at once for AM, but, just like with Look Around, Apple has set out to surpass GM. With Transit, Apple has set teams out to customize each region. This is much more expensive and time consuming than what Google did, but it makes for a much more accurate and better experience, including protecting your privacy, something that Google doesn't. Here's a link that explains why it takes so long.

https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/193899/why-apples-transit-maps-are-rolling-out-so-slowly
 
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