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Inside iOS 9: Apple Maps Gains Transit Mode and Nearby Search

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Apple Maps launched in September 2012 as the default mapping app on iPhone, but soon faced widespread criticism for having incomplete data, providing incorrect directions and lacking features over Google Maps. The controversial launch resulted in Apple CEO Tim Cook issuing a rare public apology, while former iOS chief Scott Forstall was ousted from Apple just one month later.

Apple_maps_ios-9.jpg

While there is still room for improvement, Apple Maps has gained several new features over the past three years. iOS 9 continues that trend, adding a long overdue Transit routing and new Nearby search mode alongside existing features such as turn-by-turn navigation, real-time traffic information, Flyover photo-realistic 3D views of select metro areas, Siri, local search and iCloud support.

Transit

Transit-Apple-Maps-250x279.jpg
Apple Maps is now a multi-modal mapping app with the addition of public transit routing via bus, subway, light rail, train and ferry. You can view entire stations or individual lines on a map to choose the best possible route.

Apple Maps transit directions are currently available in Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, London, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington D.C. and several cities in China.

Some extended areas of Connecticut and New Jersey near New York City and Southern Ontario cities near Toronto such as York Region, Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton and Waterloo Region also support transit.

Nearby

nearby_hero-250x279.jpg
You can now search Apple Maps based on categories such as Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, Services, Fun, Health and Transport, and within each category you can search deeper for specific places.

If you tap on Food, for example, you can then filter your results based on Popular, Restaurants, Groceries, Fast Food, Cafés, Bakeries and Desserts. A list of locations is displayed with aggregated Yelp data.

Nearby categories such as Food, Fun, Shopping and Travel can also be accessed from the Spotlight Search menu on iOS 9.

Article Link: Inside iOS 9: Apple Maps Gains Transit Mode and Nearby Search
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/16/ios-9-apple-maps-transit-nearby/
I'm kind of surprised Boston isn't included in the Transit feature yet. Our transportation authority has been rolling out fancy new data about all the trains for a while now, and just last year (or the year before, I forgot) they opened up and made publicly available all the data about real-time bus and train locations and timing. This has resulted in many cool apps that take advantage of the data.

Seems like low-hanging fruit for Apple (put intended) to include Boston. Wonder why they decided to skip it for this round.
 
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I'm surprised the transit directions are so limited in terms of cities. This was based off Apple's acquisition of HopStop, I believe. Hopstop supported a huge number of cities - I previously worked for a small urban transit authority in New England and we provided our data to them many years ago.

It'll be interesting stacking this against Google. I do hope they make transit stops more visible on the base map. One of my frustrations with Apple Maps was determining where I was in relation to a Metro station - particularly with apps that used the Apple Maps base layer. For instance, when I wanted to locate the closest bikeshare dock to a Metro station, I'd typically need to open Google Maps, find the station, figure out the cross streets, then open Spotcycle and find the cross streets there.
 
oneMadRssn said:
I'm kind of surprised Boston isn't included in the Transit feature yet. Our transportation authority has been rolling out fancy new data about all the trains for a while now, and just last year (or the year before, I forgot) they opened up and made publicly available all the data about real-time bus and train locations and timing. This has resulted in many cool apps that take advantage of the data.
Click to expand...

We've had that in the Seattle / Puget Sound region for about 10 years - Boston's rather late to the game.

HopStop covered Seattle, but like many cities we got left out as well. Hopefully Apple will pad this out soon... Also, I hope it works better than Google's transit directions - routes that use our bus tunnel seem to confuse them. Last time I tried using Google Maps for this, it directed me to an above-ground stop that is only used when the tunnel is closed.
 
Why start the article out with the failure of Apple Maps? That was over 3 years ago. Isn't it time to move on? I do miss Scott though :(
 
This is a good thing. Hopefully Apple continues to improve Maps and add innovative features. Then Google Maps can incorporate those innovations as well, while developing some of their own. Which Apple can incorporate. Each company pushing the other benefits consumers.
 
I don't get why I read a lot of comments, not necessarily here but on the Internet, saying Apple maps is bad and sucks.
I love using Apple maps it's great and works.
 
Huge fail for the transit directions in London: they don't include National Rail services (trains) so are useless for anyone living in South London.
 
Tried in San Francisco today. It was a surprisingly good experience. I love how they show the subway station maps. The user interface is much nicer and user friendly than Google Maps. Also the routes look much more accurate on the Apple maps (i.e. no routes going over buildings etc, which was a big annoyance on Google Maps).
Well done Apple!
 
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