Apple Maps vehicles will be surveying select regions of Finland, Norway, and Sweden through August, collecting street-level imagery and data, according to a list of locations maintained on Apple's website.
The data collected will be used to improve Apple Maps and to expand its Look Around feature, which remains limited to large U.S. cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. Introduced in iOS 13, Look Around is similar to Google's Street View, providing a street-level view of a location with high-resolution 3D imagery that can be zoomed and panned.
One advantage of Look Around over Street View is smoother panning when moving around the map for a more immersive experience. As with Street View, Apple blurs faces and license plates in all of the 3D imagery that it makes available.
In areas where Look Around is available, a binoculars icon will appear in the top-right corner of Apple Maps. Tapping that icon opens a street-level view in a card overlay at the top of the screen, which can then be expanded to a full-screen view. Look Around also appears in the search results for a supported city, below the Flyover and Directions buttons.
Apple also removed the U.K. from its list of locations, perhaps signaling that data collection has finished in that country. In January, Apple said that its revamped Maps experience will start rolling out in Europe later this year.
Apple Maps vehicles have also surveyed parts of the United States, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Portugal, Croatia, Japan, Andorra, and Puerto Rico since data collection began in 2015. In some areas where streets are not easily accessible, Apple uses employees wearing a backpack system to collect data.
Article Link: Apple Maps Vehicles Now Surveying Finland, Norway, and Sweden
