Apple Maps

Apple Maps team working to improve community crowdsourcing

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

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 adds new data providers to enhance Maps business listings

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 3, 2016

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.

New job listing suggests web version of Apple Maps is on the way

Cody Lee ∙ November 12, 2014

Apple is working to bring its Apple Maps app to the web, according to a new job listing on its website. First spotted by 9to5Mac, the listing calls for a "talented and passionate web developer" to help make the company's mapping software "work seamlessly on the web."

This is fairly significant, as the lack of a web version is one of the most glaring holes in Apple Maps right now, other than perhaps transit and maybe some sort of Street View-esque feature. The mapping service is currently only accessible via iOS and Mac hardware.

Video walkthroughs offer detailed look at CarPlay on Pioneer’s $700 AVH-4000NEX receiver

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Though we've seen our fair share of CarPlay demos in months past, we still can't get enough of learning about the intricacies of Apple's in-car iPhone entertainment system. You may have head that Pioneer recently released a firmware update bringing CarPlay functionality to five of its 2014 NEX in-dash multimedia receivers, so people don't have to buy a brand new car just to enjoy CarPlay.

As noted by TUAW, Josh Carr of technology repair firm Fix Denver put Pioneer's new software through its paces and created several videos showing off different aspects of CarPlay, including Phone functionality, Apple Maps and various other built-in apps including Spotify, which recently updated its iPhone and iPad app with CarPlay support .

Interested? Jump past the break for more.

Nearly half of Flyover locations now have city tour enabled under iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 7, 2014

In the run-up to the forthcoming iOS 8 launch, Apple appears to have recently added dozens of cities and landmarks to the automated three-dimensional Flyover tours available in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, according to evidence MacRumors discovered Sunday. Specifically, as many as 40 locations are Flyover city tour-enabled out of the 90 cities where regular Flyovers are available.

Apple has also been expanding Flyover coverage with the latest additions of the Yosemite National Park in the United States and Wellington in New Zealand.

You can now take a Flyover tour of Yosemite National Park in Apple Maps

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 19, 2014

Conveniently, Apple's added a 3D Flyover view of the Yosemite National Park in California and Wellington in New Zealand to its Maps service, available across Mac and iOS devices. The latest addition allows you to check out Yosemite's landmarks, or the buildings and other structures in the city of Wellington.

3D Flyover views for the Auckland and Christchurch areas in New Zealand have been added to Apple Maps earlier in the year. The Cupertino company has updated the Flyover availability webpage by adding Wellington and Yosemite to the list...

Apple’s Maps team calling businesses to verify user address corrections

Cody Lee ∙ July 12, 2014

Continuing on with its efforts to refine its mapping software, Apple has apparently begun calling businesses looking to verify user-reported address corrections. In a recent Reddit post, a business owner said he had been contacted by someone with Apple Maps.

Reddit user swb1192 said he received an interesting phone call from a 408 number (a Cupertino, California area code) this week. The person said that they were with Apple's Maps team, and that a user had reported his business address as incorrect, which it was...

Apple loses senior Maps engineer Chris Blumenberg for Uber

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Apple's senior engineering manager with the Maps team is leaving the company for Uber, the popular ride-sharing service founded in 2009.

Chris Blumenberg, who long worked on Maps for iOS and OS X and managed Apple's Maps Apps and Frameworks teams, will be taking a position at Uber, according to a report by The Information.

The departure comes as Apple appears to be ramping up hiring to overhaul the Maps backend.

More importantly, this development reaches us amid talk of internal politics, personal issues and managerial incompetencies allegedly causing significant Maps delays, as evidenced by the lack of major iOS 8 Maps announcements at WWDC...

Apple drops Google Maps for own maps in a new beta of the Find My iPhone web app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

It would seem that Google gave way to Apple Maps on the web in a new Find My iPhone beta, which was released yesterday alongside iOS 8 Beta 3 and the third OS X Yosemite Developer Preview.

At the time of this writing, the change appeared to affect Apple's Find My iPhone beta on the web, which has switched from Google Maps tiles to an Apple Maps backend. For those wondering, the native iOS app stopped using Google Maps in 2012...

Apple hiring software engineers to help ‘overhaul’ Maps backend

Cody Lee ∙ July 2, 2014

According to a pair of new job listings, Apple is looking for folks to help with a major rewrite of its Maps app programming interface. The listings, which were posted yesterday, call for software engineers to aid the company in a major overhaul of its Maps API.

The job descriptions call for cross-functional leaders to join the Apple Maps API team, which is responsible for the "doorway" to all systems powering the Maps service. The company says it has "big plans" for the API, and is overhauling things front-to-back...

Video: hidden iOS 8 Maps feature – Flyover City Tours

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 19, 2014

There's a nicely done new Apple Maps feature hidden in iOS 8 Beta 2. Called City Tours, it's basically a set of manually programmed and scripted virtual tours of select major cities, rendered and animated in Maps' three-dimensional Flyover mode.

Apple hasn't talked about City Tours during its WWDC keynote (aside from a brief mention on one slide) and the feature couldn't be found on the official iOS 8 webpage, in WWDC session videos or inside Apple's official developer documentation...

Personnel issues and internal politics blamed for lack of iOS 8 Maps announcements at WWDC

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 9, 2014

Mark Gurman has established himself as the most reliable Apple blogger out there so we were confused seeing his sources fail him so badly in predicting announcements Apple should've made at WWDC.

For instance, he called for new hardware at WWDC, but Apple's developers conference focused - rather predictably, I should add - on software.

Gurman also said Apple would give OS X a larger presence at the five-day event whereas the company didn't discriminate between iOS 8 and Yosemite.

Most importantly, he made several claims concerning Apple taking iOS 8 Maps to the next level by adding public transit directions, a car finding feature, more points of interests, better labels and so forth. In reality, the Cupertino firm only briefly mentioned that it's updated iOS 8 Maps in China with vector graphics. So, what's going on here?