Apple Maps

Apple today launched support for turn-by-turn directions in Apple Maps for India, an emerging market that Apple has pinpointed for future growth potential.

Now, Indian iPhone customers or tourists can get precise routing throughout the country. Apple also launched support for ride-hailing apps Uber and Ola, so you can request rides from inside of Maps using the two biggest taxi app in India.

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Waze CEO recently sat down for an interview with Business Insider, and spoke about the company’s $1 billion acquisition by Google, self-driving cars, and why the company attributes Waze’s widespread success to Apple and celebrates an annual “Tim Cook Day.”

The reasoning dates back to 2012, when Apple Maps’ debacle proved a worst case scenario for the company, forcing CEO Tim Cook to write a public apology letter over the numerous Apple Maps shortcomings.

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A data advocacy group is pushing for regulation in the United Kingdom that would require companies like Apple, Google, and Uber to share their respective mapping data. The report explains that “data monopolies” in the U.K. are preventing younger, smaller companies from innovation.

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Apple Maps detail now beats Google Maps in many respects, from things like building shapes to vegetation coverage. That’s the conclusion of Justin O’Beirne, who used to work for Apple’s maps division and has now put together an exhaustive comparison …

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Up until now, Apple has used simple white vans to handle its mapping efforts, using a similar camera setup to what we saw all the way back in 2015. After announcing an effort to rebuild the service from the ground up, new Apple Maps vehicles have been spotted in Los Angeles.

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Apple’s interest in augmented reality has become pretty clear over the last couple of years, and just this past week it acquired a startup focused on building lenses for AR glasses.

As if Apple’s growing AR ambitions weren’t already clear enough, diving into the company’s hiring trends reveals even more.

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A new report out today on navigation app trends sheds some light on how far Google Maps could be ahead of Apple Maps and other services. Included are the top reasons why almost 70% of users are sticking with Google Maps.

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A Counterpoint blog post today questions whether the planned ‘massive overhaul’ of Apple Maps is too little, too late.

This brings me to my key point — that map making, map data collection and keeping maps up-to-date, is an expensive and unending task […]

Apple will have to pour in hundreds of millions of dollars every year to collect, parse and integrate maps, transit and traffic data. Further, having Apple Maps cars equipped with expensive LiDAR, 360 cameras gear and drive hundreds of thousands of miles globally will still take Apple years to perfect the maps at a global scale […]

In summary, it could be a little too late for Apple to build maps content from the ground-up.

For a company which boasts of saying no a thousand times for every time it says yes, Apple Maps always seemed like a strange project to green-light, but I think there were a couple of reasons for it …

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I love Apple Maps. No, it didn’t launch well back in iOS 6, but it’s turned out to be an impressive app. I like the overall design, Siri support, and Apple Watch support. My family also makes a lot of dinner reservations through Yelp and OpenTable, so being able to launch it with a single tap is something I find myself often doing.

Like any app, it’s not perfect, and there are things I’d like to see it borrow from some competitors. After traveling a few times this summer, I’ve discovered five things I’d like Apple to add to Apple Maps in the future.

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Apple Maps has been down for many hours today, causing mayhem for customers seemingly worldwide. Whilst Apple’s system status reports no issues, users across Twitter and Apple Support forums are finding that is currently impossible to search for locations or get directions. The map tiles appear to be loading normally, but points of interest and critical functions of the app are simply not working.

Update: Apple has now confirmed the issue on its support site, noting that ‘all users are affected’ by maps navigation and search issues.

Update 2: As of 1:20 pm ET, service has been restored.

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