Location

Boston transit data and Amtrak routes for Northeastern U.S. launch on Apple Maps

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 19, 2015

In addition to bringing Yellow Pages-powered business listings to Apple Maps customers in Canada, the Cupertino firm has apparently refreshed a Maps backend in the United States, adding transit directions for Boston and multiple Amtrak routes in the Northeastern United States.

The longest Amtrak route available runs from Chicago to New York. As first noted by MacRumors, other supported routes with transit directions include the Northeast Regional, Acela Express, Keystone, Lake Shore Limited, Pennsylvanian and Maple Leaf.

Apple partners with Yellow Pages on local Maps business listings in Canada

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Apple and Yellow Pages have partnered to bring Apple Maps customers in Canada rich business data like address, phone numbers, URLs, category, hours of operations, photos, ratings, reviews and more.

“We are pleased to bring our YP.ca local business listings data to Apple Maps,” said Matthieu Houle, Vice-President, Digital Media of Yellow Pages, in a media release Monday. Apple's Maps acknowledgements page now lists Yellow Pages as a data provider in Canada.

Waze 4.0 is out with fresh look, revamped map, reduced battery consumption and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 19, 2015

Waze, the popular social-mapping location data startup, today pushed a major update to its GPS, maps and social traffic application in the App Store.

Featuring a refreshed design and cleaner maps with emphasis on safer driving, the new Waze 4.0 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad also brings reduced battery consumption allowing the app to run longer in the background, and much more.

Leaderboards and more added to Foursquare’s location check-in app Swarm

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 21, 2015

Foursquare's dedicated check-in app, Swarm, has been adding missing features ever since the startup split the main mobile app's functionality into dedicated place discovery and check-in apps.

The new Swarm 3.0 for iOS, which released earlier this morning, brings back leaderboards after gaining mayorships early in the summer. In addition, messages and notifications have been unified under a single inbox view.

Your worldwide and nearby views are now folded into a single Friends tab and a revamped Here Now section is now located under the Nearby section.

Instagram bringing place, people and hashtag search to the web

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 20, 2015

Following an update last month that added expanded search options to its mobile app, Facebook-owned Instagram has now started rolling out place search and other search-related enhancements for its web version, the company announced Monday.

The new search features are currently rolling out to a subset of Instagram's installed base before going live for everyone so they may not be available to you just yet.

Skype for iPhone updated with location sharing

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 27, 2016

Skype for iPhone has picked up the ability to share a location with others in its latest update in the App Store.

The Microsoft-owned VoIP program was bumped to version 5.14 Monday to make it trivial to share your current geographical location, or your favorite place, with friends and family using the paperclip icon in the chat window. Moreover, this edition of Skype introduces unspecified improvements.

The new version of Skype arrived hot on the heels of a recent update which brought out handy web link previews in the chat window and replying with dictation on Apple Watch.

Swarm by Foursquare brings back mayorships

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 22, 2015

Foursquare unveiled Swarm in March of last year to give the location check-in ability of the main iOS app a brand new place of its own. Not all of the features of Foursquare for iOS have made it into the dedicated app, namely mayorships.

Arguably the most popular feature—especially if you're into the check-in game—mayorships are now back in the latest Swarm 2.5 for iPhone update.

You can earn them by checking in more than anyone else, which will unlock a shiny new mayor crown.

Apple acquires GPS firm Coherent Navigation

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Apple appears to have quietly acquired San Francisco-based GPS firm Coherent Navigation, MacRumors reported on Sunday. Several of the company's employees, including the CEO and co-founders, all started working for the iPhone-maker in recent months, and its domain servers were recently updated to point to Apple.

Among Coherent's technology is something called High Integrity GPS, which offers greater accuracy and precision and higher signal integrity versus standard GPS. It accomplishes this by combining signals from both mid-earth orbiting GPS satellites low-earth satellites used by data provider Iridium for voice and data.

You can now check in to places from your wrist with Swarm for Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 5, 2015

Swarm, Foursquare's dedicated location check-in application for the iPhone, received a nice little update Monday, adding the Apple Watch component which allows you to easily check in to places and see who’s nearby.

This is especially handy considering that Foursquare's main iPhone and Apple Watch app lacks this functionality as it's now focused on finding places to eat, drink and visit.

Waze now tells you how long you’ll be stuck in a traffic jam

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 2, 2015

Waze, a crowdsourced GPS, maps and traffic service owned by Google, has refreshed its iPhone and iPad application with a few new features.

Now available at no cost in the App Store, the new Waze 3.9.4 is much faster than before. More importantly, it has added a cool new feature which tells you how long you'll be stuck in a traffic jam.

Other features like navigation, route select and re-routing have been sped up significantly, an important feat given that you'll be using the app while driving.

Foursquare for iOS enables Handoff with Mac, brings Citymapper directions

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 1, 2015

Foursquare, the world's top crowd-sourced local search and discovery service and mobile app, has pushed a refresh to its iPhone and iPad places-discovery application available at no cost in the App Store.

Among other new features, Foursquar 8.1 enables Handoff support between iOS and the Mac and lets you easily access Citymapper from the app. For those wondering, Citymapper is a fast-growing, real-time transit service available on the iPhone and coming to the Apple Watch next month.

Twitter prepping Foursquare tagging in tweets

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 23, 2015

You will be soon able to tag specific locations in tweets thanks to an expanded Foursquare integration, the micro-blogging platform announced in a tweet Monday.

“We're working with Foursquare so you can tag specific locations in tweets,” reads the message. The new features is “coming soon,” added the firm.

Currently, users can add additional location context to their tweeting by adding a general location label, such as “SoMa, San Francisco," to their tweets using Twitter for Android, Twitter for iOS, twitter.com or other mobile apps.