Apple Maps to Get Native Ratings System and Photo Uploads for Places of Interest

[MacRumors]

The latest iOS 14 beta 6 includes a new way for users to review places of interest and upload photos to Apple Maps that doesn't rely on third party integrations.

Images via Twitter user BeauGiles​

First spotted by Twitter user BeauGiles and reported by 9to5Mac, the new user interface for places of interest in Maps no longer pulls reviews and photos from the likes of Foursquare, TripAdvisor, and Yelp. Instead, Apple is replacing these third-party services with its own native rating system.

Going forward, users who tap a marker for a place on the map that they have physically visited will be offered the ability to recommend a place using a thumbs up/thumbs down rating that can also distinguish between relevant categories, such as ratings for the quality of products and services in a shop, for example.

Meanwhile, a new "Add Photos to Maps" option in place cards also lets users upload pictures directly to Apple's Maps servers. As outlined in Apple's legal terms for the new feature, the option only appears to users older than 13 years of age and photos are reviewed by humans before appearing in Apple Maps.

Currently, the rating system is only visible on some places of interest in the latest iOS 14 beta, as Apple is clearly still in the initial stages of implementing the feature. In future, however, users shouldn't be redirected to third-party apps in the App Store whenever they want to submit a review or photo of a place of interest in Apple Maps.

Article Link: Apple Maps to Get Native Ratings System and Photo Uploads for Places of Interest

 

[kyjaotkb]

I'm glad they aren't relying on Tripadvisor and Yelp anymore. These apps are not nice to use and Tripadvisor's rating are not trustworthy in my personal experience. It'll be hard to reach the level of trust and information density of Google Maps, though.

 

[itsmilo]

Does Apple Maps tell you what exit to take after a Subway ride yet? Was thinking about trying out AM again but it doesn’t seem to have it. However, it’s a must for me to be sure I always take the right exit here in Berlin 😅

 

[ersan191]

Oh wow, this is kind of a big deal. Now all the Yelp haters can pipe down.

I personally always found Yelp ratings to be far and away the most reliable, but someone made that mediocre documentary about them starring a bunch of bitter owners of underwhelming restaurants and everyone lost their minds. Kind of a big loss for me, but the internet seems to disagree. At least you won't have to open the yelp app to see photos now.

Maybe Apple will come up with an actually good rating system, but Google definitely hasn't so I'm not holding my breath. And a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with no opportunity to type anything is already a really bad sign.

 

[Marbles1]

Apple Maps needs a free, public browser interface.

 

[chfilm]

I appreciate this new feature, though I'm wondering if it will be sufficient to just have thumbs up and down.. By far the most reliable reviews seem to be in foursquare for me so far. Yelp and Tripadvisor are just not trustworthy to me.

 

[matrix07]

A five stars rating could be better than merely thumb up or down.

 

[somethingelsefl]

If you’re an Apple partner (Yelp, Tom Tom, Intel, etc) you can expect to either be bought out or ditched after Apple decides to go in-house.

 

[Ldubrov]

This may well be the most reliable rating system, as it only permits 1 vote per iPhone and only if that iPhone physically visited the location of the business. That’s pretty amazing. Makes it almost impossible to buy fake up-votes, or ruin a business with fake down-votes.
In aggregate, up or down is just as good as 5 star voting system, if you think about it.

 

[Dizbuster]

I agree with this. It boils down to you either had a good or bad experience and recommend the place or you don’t. The ability to provide a brief explanation would be good though.

 

[Caliber26]

Apple Maps needs a free, public browser interface.

This is the reason why I use Google Maps on my Mac 99.9% of the time. I’ll be looking up something and if I need to view its location for whatever reason, it’s so much simpler to open up a new tab with Google Maps.

I keep forgetting Apple Maps exists on the Mac and I find the app to be kind of weird to use on a desktop.

 

[gk4]

I'm glad they aren't relying on Tripadvisor and Yelp anymore. These apps are not nice to use and Tripadvisor's rating are not trustworthy in my personal experience. It'll be hard to reach the level of trust and information density of Google Maps, though.

Never had any issue with TripAdvisor - aside from them being more focused on hotels and resorts and by extension not having many reviews for normal everyday stuff. Yelp on the other hand is well known in how shady they are and trusting anything there is a non starter for me.

 

[lah]

Does Apple Maps tell you what exit to take after a Subway ride yet? Was thinking about trying out AM again but it doesn’t seem to have it. However, it’s a must for me to be sure I always take the right exit here in Berlin 😅

It does here in Paris. I tend to prefer Apple Maps, or CityMapper, as it seems better in France. I only use Google Maps as yellow pages these days.

 

[xxray]

Finally! Thank you! It was so unintuitive to have to download another app and have Apple Maps redirect you to that app every time you wanted to read reviews. Hopefully this will increase the amount of written reviews too (Yelp reviews were often outdated or had few reviews), since people won’t have to download another app and make an account just to write one.

 

[RickDEGH]

I’m confident that that’s up next. Getting the base data in house is the obvious priority but once they do, they can start getting users to build on top of that with reviews and photos of points of interest.

There could be a tie in with the Photos app where machine learning identifies photos of food and correlates that with location data for a restaurant to suggest the user share it along with a star rating.

I already disliked Yelp before for forcing you to install the app to view any useful information but lately they’ve really shown their true lack of character, using workarounds to identify users who choose to remain anonymous with Sign In with Apple and putting in roadblocks to prevent users from using it. See the Sign In with Apple thread. I cant wait to never use Yelp again.

Looks like your wish is being implemented gradually.

 

[I7guy]

Oh wow, this is kind of a big deal. Now all the Yelp haters can pipe down.

I personally always found Yelp ratings to be far and away the most reliable, but someone made that mediocre documentary about them starring a bunch of bitter owners of underwhelming restaurants and everyone lost their minds. Kind of a big loss for me, but the internet seems to disagree. At least you won't have to open the yelp app to see photos now.

Maybe Apple will come up with an actually good rating system, but Google definitely hasn't so I'm not holding my breath. And a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with no opportunity to type anything is already a really bad sign.

I agree. It's a big deal. I do look at yelp reviews on the web, but they limit you. Because you are forced to download the yelp app, I had an instant distrust for them.

I hope Apple's improvements in this space causes a disruption for yelp.

edit: @ipedro beat me to the same thoughts.

 

[mattopotamus]

somewhat related: CarPlay needs to let you interact with locations on your route. Eg, if you are driving and a food place shows, you should be able to click the location right on the screen and navigate there.

 

[kyjaotkb]

Apple Maps needs a free, public browser interface.

We know it almost exists with Duckduckgo results!

 

[PsykX]

Does Apple Maps tell you what exit to take after a Subway ride yet? [in Berlin]

It does in Montreal since the last 3-4 years. I don't know about Berlin or cities in other countries though - but it's a feature to try!

 

[genovelle]

Oh wow, this is kind of a big deal. Now all the Yelp haters can pipe down.

I personally always found Yelp ratings to be far and away the most reliable, but someone made that mediocre documentary about them starring a bunch of bitter owners of underwhelming restaurants and everyone lost their minds. Kind of a big loss for me, but the internet seems to disagree. At least you won't have to open the yelp app to see photos now.

Maybe Apple will come up with an actually good rating system, but Google definitely hasn't so I'm not holding my breath. And a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with no opportunity to type anything is already a really bad sign.

Yelp ratings are better if the business pays them a lot of money. Otherwise good reviews are suppressed

 

[PsykX]

We know it almost exists with Duckduckgo results!

It does exist! I remember Apple using it 2-3 years ago for an event - I think it was WWDC. The problem is it's restricted to Apple only, and they don't really use it themselves.

I don't know how DuckDuckGo got this feature though. Maybe an agreement between both companies?

But yes, an official Apple Maps in a browser would be cool!

 

[PsykX]

Yelp ratings are better if the business pays them a lot of money. Otherwise good reviews are suppressed

Report?
If true, this is a real mafia.

 

[shapesinaframe]

I don't know how DuckDuckGo got this feature though. Maybe an agreement between both companies?

they probably just use Mapkit JS

Apple Maps on the Web - Maps - Apple Developer

MapKit JS brings Apple Maps to the web. This new JavaScript library lets you add interactive maps to webpages — complete with annotations, overlays, and interfaces to Apple Maps services such as search and directions — to enable rich interactions.

developer.apple.com

 

[SkyRom]

whew. Long overdue, this could help a lot. Now if only I could save pins, locations and polygons with layers like Google Earth or ArcGIS, we'd be cooking

 

[b0nd18t]

This is a VERY welcomed change as a small business owner. Yelp is very toxic when it comes to reviews. Our google reviews are far more fair it’s not even close.