While Apple plans to debut its own mass transit directions service for Maps in iOS 9 as soon as June, the rollout will not be as ambitious as some users may have hoped. In its first iteration, Apple’s Transit service will only support approximately a half-dozen cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe, in addition to China, according to sources…
In the United States, the planned launch cities are San Francisco and New York, two major metropolitan areas that are known for public transportation, while Toronto will be likely Canada’s sole representative for the iOS 9 Maps Transit feature at launch. In Europe, Apple is said to be gearing up to first launch the feature in London, Paris, and Berlin.
While Apple has accumulated its own data for North America and Europe, Apple is working with longtime partner AutoNavi to source transit data for China. Pre-existing agreements currently prohibit Apple from collecting its own transit maps data in China, according to a source, and Apple already utilizes AutoNavi data for pre-existing Maps features for iPhones in China.
While these are the planned cities for this fall’s iOS 9 launch, Apple is already working on its next round of cities. Apple considers Boston, Massachusetts and Tokyo, Japan as its next two priority cities after the initial launch, but Tokyo support may be farther out due to the region’s expansive transit service offerings. Los Angeles, pictured in our mockup above from last year, is low on Apple’s transit priority list, the sources added.
As we noted in our original article on the transit feature for iOS 9 Maps, Apple has developed the ability to dynamically add more cities to the Maps app over-the-air, not requiring a full iOS software update. Apple will also be able to notify users via a push notification as support is added in their current city of residence, we noted in our previous report. Apple does not yet notify users of new geographical support for features.
Apple currently plans to unveil its Maps Transit features at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on Monday, June 8th. Besides this new Maps tentpole feature, Apple plans to introduce a new systemwide typeface called San Francisco, a Home app for controlling approved HomeKit devices, several security and optimization upgrades, enhancements to the Messages and Health apps, iPad split-screen apps, and a new built-in keyboard.
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This is great news for those cities, and promising news for cities that will follow in the next round of cities. It would be great if they could implement car sharing services, such as Car2Go, or even Uber. That way we could decide to walk, drive, and/or get the bus based upon the quickest route etc.
No Chicago??
CTA’s online train & bus schedules are very accurate. As for Metra, well there’s always a chance of delays. :)
And the Transit Stop app is pretty much perfect, I just wish they would allow info in Notification Center. Apple has actually taken long enough where I’m not sure it matters to me anymore, I used to take the train a ton when I lived downtown but not anymore.
I really like Apple products, but how the hell a company with 200billion in cash reserves never get its Maps service right?
This is pretty sad, actually.
Google is light-years ahead on this matter and moves at light speed. Apple is losing this race to a turtle.
Originally, Steve’s vision was for Google to supply services, and Apple doing hardware. Hence, Apple never truly invested in developing services especially Maps that take years to build. Google screwed Apple over withe introduction of Android and messing with terms of their maps for Apple to use. Apple maps improved significantly over the years. For most they are a good enough.
Assuming this report is accurate, let’s not make apologies. I love Apple, but there’s no excuse for this. “Mean old Android betrayed us SEVEN years ago” isn’t an excuse for not having their Maps app ready. Maps has been out for nearly three year now. They fired an SVP over it, have supposedly re-orged, and have made progress in other service areas (e.g. iCloud).
It’s not that simple. Hiring more developers and throwing them at projects tends to slow projects down. Yes, Apple’s maps project has been plagued from the start by bad management, etc. But money alone is not going to solve the problem.
Just. Buy. Citymapper. Then the problem will be instantly solved.
No need to even buy: it’s free.
Wait I see what you mean.
This problem isn’t solved until A. Apple ads good public transit in their maps app or B. Apple opens up siri apis to 3rd party devs and allows users to set default apps.
I honestly don’t know which will come first. Just because they are rumored to start A. Now doesn’t mean it will get good before option B happens.
Oh yes…. Citymapper is DAMN powerful. Add that to Apple Maps and u have a killer app!
Gurman is on fire
Ok Apple. I’ll give Maps a shot as my primary maps app once these transit directions roll out in NYC.
Of course we don’t know how this all works. But all of your data exist at least locally in your phone and is a part of iCloud. They either have to run this stuff locally or perhaps a combination of running parts of it on internal servers and plugging in your specific data locally on device.
I have no idea as this is way above my programming pay grade, but Apple has told law enforcement repeatedly they can’t give them personal data because they don’t have it.
If they can pull this off AND still keep users info relatively private. Bravo. See http://goo.gl/ims8TP
As I understand it, the General Transit Feed Specification data is publicly available for any developer to use. It’s all right here for Apple to fetch- https://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFeeds
Seems like a lot of work to duplicate something that is already being done by transit agencies across the country.
Why bother? Apple Maps seems a lost cause. The maps and POI’s are years old; half of what’s listed in my area is incorrect or missing. Nothing I submit to change ever updates.
Either make it awesome and worthy of Apple customers or quit wasting money on it and encourage people to use accurate Google Maps.
everywhere i went all my life i saw people wandering here and there seemingly lost because they didn’t have apple maps. how could people have possibly found their way without apple maps? thank dog we finally escaped the dark ages before apple maps.
One wonders why they don’t just all the cities that freely supply their transit data via GTFS.