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Apple Maps Expands Transit Data to Montreal

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Apple Maps has been updated with all-new transit data in Montréal, providing users with bus, subway, and train routing in Canada's second most populous city. The public transit information is supplied by the city's public transport agencies Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) and Société de transport de Montréal (STM).

Apple-Maps-Montreal-Transit.jpg

Montreal Metro subway and STM bus directions are available throughout Greater Montreal, including the main island and throughout the suburbs of Blainville, Boucherville, Brossard, Châteauguay, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Laval, Longueuil, Repentigny, Saint-Jérôme, Saint-Lambert, and Terrebonne.

Apple-Maps-montreal-transit-2.jpg

Montreal is the second Canadian metro area to support Apple Maps transit after Toronto. However, as we reported last June, transit data actually extends to many cities throughout Southern Ontario, including Barrie, Mississauga, Oakville, Oshawa, Peterborough, Burlington, Hamilton, Guelph, KWC, York Region, and Niagara Region.

Other cities with Apple Maps transit directions include Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sydney, and multiple Chinese metro areas. Transit mode was added to Apple Maps as one of the headline features of iOS 9 last year.

(Thanks, Olivier!)

Article Link: Apple Maps Expands Transit Data to Montreal
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/05/apple-maps-transit-montreal/
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That first screenshot perfectly illustrates what's still wrong with Apple Maps and transit directions. I don't want to take transit for the sake of taking transit, I want the fastest way there and sometimes that means walking a few extra blocks and I don't see why I would have to toggle between walking and transit to see that.
 
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BklynKid said:
That first screenshot perfectly illustrates what's still wrong with Apple Maps and transit directions. I don't want to take transit for the sake of taking transit, I want the fastest way there and sometimes that means walking a few extra blocks and I don't see why I would have to toggle between walking and transit to see that.
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Yea I agree, that's quite the detour for something that would be a short walk away
 
BklynKid said:
That first screenshot perfectly illustrates what's still wrong with Apple Maps and transit directions. I don't want to take transit for the sake of taking transit, I want the fastest way there and sometimes that means walking a few extra blocks and I don't see why I would have to toggle between walking and transit to see that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. I was just about to ask how people's experience has been since it's not offered in my city. I know Google Maps shows the estimated time under each tab for mode of transportation. Maybe that would fix this?
 
BklynKid said:
That first screenshot perfectly illustrates what's still wrong with Apple Maps and transit directions. I don't want to take transit for the sake of taking transit, I want the fastest way there and sometimes that means walking a few extra blocks and I don't see why I would have to toggle between walking and transit to see that.
Click to expand...

The third screenshot is where it does exactly what you want. Walking is the 2nd option in the list.

I tried the McGill/Centre Bell directions and was given much more direct routes including the 24 minute walk option. Perhaps the article author didn't select the quickest route?
 
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BklynKid said:
That first screenshot perfectly illustrates what's still wrong with Apple Maps and transit directions. I don't want to take transit for the sake of taking transit, I want the fastest way there and sometimes that means walking a few extra blocks and I don't see why I would have to toggle between walking and transit to see that.
Click to expand...

Same. I live in Toronto, and the #1 suggested route by Apple Maps to transit to work would take me 20 minutes longer than the one I take by walking 10 minutes up to the bus stop (correctly suggested by Google Maps and Transit app).
 
mw360 said:
The third screenshot is where it does exactly what you want. Walking is the 2nd option in the list.

I tried the McGill/Centre Bell directions and was given much more direct routes including the 24 minute walk option. Perhaps the article author didn't select the quickest route?
Click to expand...

This was the case. I had deselected bus routes to get a subway-only screenshot for demonstrative purposes. But I've updated the screenshot now.
 
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Regardless, of what was selected or not, this sort of thing happens to me all the time in NYC. I want to use Apple Maps but I can't help but think there's a better route and most of the time when I do switch over to Google Maps it tells me a better way.

Apple has taken big steps but more work is needed.
 
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Joe Rossignol said:
This was the case. I had deselected bus routes to get a subway-only screenshot for demonstrative purposes. But I've updated the screenshot now.
Click to expand...

Ah I see... I was reading through the comments starting from the oldest while looking at the (updated) screenshots and trying to figure out just what exactly BklynKid meant. All makes sense now!
 
The main problem is that Apple uses the "best user experience" excuse for not allowing integration of 3rd party maps with iOS while those 3rd party apps are vastly superior and support more cities, don't have outdated map data, can take in account real-time bus movement, know where road crossings are, display information in a much better way and have more intuitive and easier UI.
 
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They're just now adding Montreal transit? Apple Maps: Always several steps (or transit lines) behind the competition.

The only thing Apple Maps has going for it is the tight iOS integration. No wonder Apple refuses to give that up to third party apps because if they did, I suspect substantially fewer people would bother with Apple Maps.

Seriously, if Apple announced that they were killing Apple Maps in iOS 10, would very many people be disappointed? There are several apps out there that do various aspects of mapping/routing so much better than Apple Maps and Apple Maps has been around since iOS 6 and still falters at doing basic things like returning relevant results for a POI search.
 
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The pace new cities are being added is a complete joke for a company the size of Apple. It shows how low-priority Maps is for them.
 
n-evo said:
The pace new cities are being added is a complete joke for a company the size of Apple. It shows how low-priority Maps is for them.
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I'm hoping they will kill Apple Maps in iOS 10. They either need to kill it or get someone on the executive team to have a serious, Steve Jobs-esque sit down with the Maps team and ask them these two questions:

1.) What the <expletive> is Apple Maps supposed to do?

2.) Why the <expletive> doesn't it do that?!?!

Then heads either need to roll right there in the meeting to get Maps on track or they need to decide, as a company, that Maps is not going to be an important project for them, kill it, and allow third party apps to have system-level integration that is granted by the end user.

It really bothers me because there are so many truly great navigation apps on iOS that cover everything from crowd-sourced data, transit, and of course there's Google Maps. iOS could really be an outstanding platform in terms of navigation; but it is seriously hindered because Apple has only blessed their lousy app with system-level access. After almost 4 years of "trying", I think it's time for Apple to take Maps behind the barn and put it out of its misery.

If Apple is going to insist on having a Maps app, I hope they rethink the current app and basically turn it into a dashboard that aggregates data from the other apps you have installed on your phone and streamlines the presentation of the data. That would be truly awesome, I think. That way the user could have data from several sources all in one place and not have to be constantly going back and forth between multiple navigation apps depending on where they are or how they're navigating.
 
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avanpelt said:
I'm hoping they will kill Apple Maps in iOS 10. They either need to kill it or get someone on the executive team to have a serious, Steve Jobs-esque sit down with the Maps team and ask them these two questions:

1.) What the <expletive> is Apple Maps supposed to do?

2.) Why the <expletive> doesn't it do that?!?!

Then heads either need to roll right there in the meeting to get Maps on track or they need to decide, as a company, that Maps is not going to be an important project for them, kill it, and allow third party apps to have system-level integration that is granted by the end user.

It really bothers me because there are so many truly great navigation apps on iOS that cover everything from crowd-sourced data, transit, and of course there's Google Maps. iOS could really be an outstanding platform in terms of navigation; but it is seriously hindered because Apple has only blessed their lousy app with system-level access. After almost 4 years of "trying", I think it's time for Apple to take Maps behind the barn and put it out of its misery.

If Apple is going to insist on having a Maps app, I hope they rethink the current app and basically turn it into a dashboard that aggregates data from the other apps you have installed on your phone and streamlines the presentation of the data. That would be truly awesome, I think. That way the user could have data from several sources all in one place and not have to be constantly going back and forth between multiple navigation apps depending on where they are or how they're navigating.
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Your hoping they kill it?
Well you are going to be disappointed, Apple are adding more and more cities to flyover and 3D, they have had cars out mapping multiple countries for their version of street view. Sure they are behind on some areas of their mapping, but I think maps is going to be one of the bigger announcements at WWDC.
 
bigchrisfgb said:
Your hoping they kill it?
Well you are going to be disappointed, Apple are adding more and more cities to flyover and 3D, they have had cars out mapping multiple countries for their version of street view. Sure they are behind on some areas of their mapping, but I think maps is going to be one of the bigger announcements at WWDC.
Click to expand...

If they don't totally kill it, they need to basically start over.

From the last paragraph of Tim Cook's "apology" letter about Maps in 2012:

"Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard."

So we're supposed to believe that they're working 'non-stop' to make Maps the 'best in the world' yet they can only manage to get transit directions in maybe one major city per month, if they're lucky? At that pace, they will be continuing to add transit support in major cities just in North America long after most of us are dead.
 
avanpelt said:
If they don't totally kill it, they need to basically start over.

From the last paragraph of Tim Cook's "apology" letter about Maps in 2012:

"Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard."

So we're supposed to believe that they're working 'non-stop' to make Maps the 'best in the world' yet they can only manage to get transit directions in maybe one major city per month, if they're lucky? At that pace, they will be continuing to add transit support in major cities just in North America long after most of us are dead.
Click to expand...
Think about where Apple maps was this far into their journey, or even 10 years ago. It will take time, I'm sure they will increase the addition of new cities covered in transit.
 
bigchrisfgb said:
Think about where Apple maps was this far into their journey, or even 10 years ago. It will take time, I'm sure they will increase the addition of new cities covered in transit.
Click to expand...

So because Google spend 10 years on their mapping it means Apple has to do so also?

That makes absolutely no sense, and the entire world would've stopped long ago if everyone had to wait for everyone else to catch up.
 
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