Apple today added a handful of new locations to the 3D Flyover feature in its iOS and OS X Maps applications. The new locations include Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Boise, Idaho in the United Sates, Venice, Italy, and other cities around the globe.
First introduced in Apple Maps when it launched in 2012, the Flyover feature allows users to take close-up, 3-dimensional looks at buildings, landmarks and various other areas of interest.
Learn how to view places on a map where you shot photos with your iPhone, so you can visualize and relive these locations, track your travels, and more.
Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Google Maps, arguably the best consumer mapping application in the world.
Maps first started as a C++ program designed by two Danish brothers Lars and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen at the Sydney-based company Where 2 Technologies.
After pitching their idea for a web-based version to Google management, the search giant in its never-ending pursuit of new revenue sources snapped up the young startup in October 2004.
Under Google's stewardship and the oversight of current Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who in 2005 became Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google, the project quickly transformed from a relatively unimpressive desktop program into a full-blown web service.
Since its inception, Google Maps has been praised by critics and haters alike for its accuracy, coverage and the rapid pace of development resulting in new feature additions on a regular basis. It's been imitated by both Yahoo and Microsoft, and later by Apple, but none of these technology giants has come close to touching Google Maps.
A handful of unmarked minivans have been spotted driving around California over the past several days with what appears to be roof-mounted camera equipment. No one seems to know what the vehicles are up to, but CBS' Bay Area affiliate was able to confirm with the DMV that at least one of the vans is leased to Apple.
More specifically, the minivans feature custom X-shaped frames atop their luggage racks, fitted with what appears to be 12 cameras. It also has a pair of cylindrical antennas, which the news outlet speculates could be LiDAR sensors—a laser-based technology used in self-driving vehicles, as well as high-resolution mapping.
Apple Maps has an impressive feature called Flyover that taps high-resolution aerial photography turned into three-dimensional terrain, landmarks and buildings that can be rotated around in the full 360-degree freedom.
It's pretty awesome and also quite expensive to create. Apple basically has to fly a fleet of special aircraft to do terrain mapping in the sky. That's why, as of this writing, Flyover was available in a little more than a hundred locations around the world.
As spotted by Dutch website iCulture.nl, a dozen new cities and landmarks across Europe (and some in the U.S.) have received their Flyover treatment in Apple Maps.
Google has bumped its Maps for iOS app to version 4.2, bringing out a few new features and improvements that enhance your experience concerning searching for restaurants, retrieving weather information and more.
You can now find restaurants by cuisine type in Google Maps 4.2 for the iPhone and iPad and (at last) access weather information for other cities around the world, not just for your current location.
After introducing nine new markets to its three-dimensional Flyover view in its in-house mapping service earlier this month, Apple has now brought 3D aerial imagery along with virtual city tours to three new locations across Europe.
Specifically, customers who live in the city of Strasbourg, Dijon or Millau in France, Hungary's Budapest, Sweden's Malmö or in the city of Rotterdam located in the Netherlands are now able to enjoy a highly-detailed 3D representation of their city or take a City Tour.
HERE Maps had been available in the App Store briefly before it got pulled in December 2013 because “iOS 7 ruined the experience”. Nokia later admitted the app was “a rushed product” that “went horribly wrong” because it was “never thoroughly proven.”
The Finnish firm has now officially confirmed that HERE Maps will return to the iPhone in early 2015 following today's release of HERE for Android and a relaunch of a new web-based experience over at here.com.
“Our iOS app development team is working hard on this and we plan to officially launch HERE for iOS in early 2015,” said the team. The revamped iOS navigation app will be joining several big-name mapping products in the App Store from the likes of Google, Garmin, TomTom and many more.
Nearly two years after supplanting the stock Google Maps iOS app with its own much-maligned service that resulted in Scott Forstall's ousting, Apple's web-based Find My iPhone service available over at iCloud.com seems to have adopted Apple Maps backend for all users, reports 9to5Mac.
Previously, using the web-based version of Find My iPhone used to rely on Google Maps data. The move could indicate plans to roll out a web-based Apple Maps accessible to anyone through a web browser, allowing the iPhone maker to better compete with Google Maps.
Apple this week added a handful of new locations to the 3D Flyover feature in its iOS and OS X Maps applications. The new locations include areas in France, landmarks in Arizona, and other popular spots in the US, New Zealand and Sweden.
First introduced in Apple Maps when it launched alongside iOS 6 in 2012, the Flyover feature allows users to take close-up, 3-dimensional looks at buildings, landmarks and other areas. With today's additions, there are over 100 Flyover locations.
A new job listing hints the Apple Maps team is working on improving community crowdsourcing, as well as better Siri and Passbook integration. First spotted by 9to5Mac, the listing calls for a 'Maps Community Client Software Engineer' to join the Cupertino firm's growing Maps group.
According to the position's description, the engineer will focus on "high level UI development of the 'Report a Problem' feature." They'll also be working on the frameworks and plugins that enable Maps to "integrate deeply and seamlessly with other applications" such as Siri and Passbook.
Apple has added 10 new companies to the list of data providers for its Maps app, according to Apple Maps Marketing. In a post, first spotted by 9to5Mac, the site says it was given the information by the Cupertino company itself in response to an inquiry.
The inquiry was in regards to submitting one of its clients with a few hundred locations to Apple Maps Connect. Apple replied, saying it's currently only accepting submissions from businesses with 1,000+ locations, but it could reach out to several firms.