Transit is an entirely different paradigm, and transit systems and their data are more complex and less standardized: these are among the reasons, Reece argues in today’s RMTransit video, why using your phone’s mapping app to navigate while using transit is a less satisfying experience than it is when driving, or even walking or cycling.
Category: Mobile
Apple Maps Updates: France, Monaco, New Zealand
Justin O’Beirne reports that Apple’s new map data has now launched in France, Monaco and New Zealand. Meanwhile, cycling directions have expanded to cover all U.S. states except Hawaii.
Online Map Roundup: Apple Maps in iOS 16, Google Maps Displays Tolls, Yandex Erases Borders
Apple Maps in iOS 16 will gain multi-stop routing, which I thought was a long-established feature on other platforms, as well as transit fare/card/pass integration. Apple’s new maps will also expand to more countries, and its detailed city maps will expand to more cities in the U.S., Australia and Canada. 9to5Mac has a summary.
As announced in April, Google Maps now displays estimated toll prices when routing.
Russian search engine Yandex is sidestepping the Russian invasion of Ukraine, frozen conflicts and other contested national borders by simply removing national borders from its map. It’s being spun as a pivot to local navigation. (Sure.)
Google Street View at 15
Google is marking the 15th anniversary of Street View. In a blog post, they preview their next camera, which weighs less than 15 pounds and doesn’t require complex equipment or a specialized car mount. They’re also making their historical Street View imagery (historical in the sense of not current: it only goes back 15 years at most) available via the Google Maps Android and iOS apps. More: 9to5Google, TechCrunch.
Google I/O: Immersive View and Other Updates to Google Maps
Three updates to Google Maps were announced at Google I/O today. The big one is an immersive view mode that creates a digital model of a city from aerial imagery and Street View: it’s coming later this year to London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo, with more cities coming later. It’s not just about 3D models of buildings—Apple’s got those—but also interiors, as Google CEO Sundar Pichai demonstrated in the keynote.
Also announced: an expansion of eco-friendly routing to Europe and making Live View available to third-party apps. More coverage: Engadget, TechCrunch, The Verge.
Apple Maps Updates: Germany, Singapore and U.S. Cycling Directions
Justin O’Beirne notes that Apple’s new maps—which, remember, were first announced in 2018, so: for certain values of new—have arrived in Germany and Singapore. Also, he observes that Apple is adding cycling directions in roughly the same order the new maps rolled out in the United States: they were added to the Midwest in mid-April, and northeastern states at the beginning of the month.
Google Maps Updates Announced
Updates to Google Maps announced today include estimated prices for toll roads as well as increased navigation detail. “You’ll soon see traffic lights and stop signs along your route, along with enhanced details like building outlines and areas of interest. And, in select cities, you’ll see even more detailed information, like the shape and width of a road, including medians and islands–you can better understand where you are, and help decrease the odds of making last-minute lane changes or missing a turn.” There are also updates specific to the Apple platform: iPhone and iPad users will get new widgets, Siri and Spotlight integration, and Apple Watch support. The updates will be rolling out gradually: some in a few weeks, some later this summer.
Apple’s Detailed City Maps Come to Canada
Apple Maps’s detailed three-dimensional city maps, which launched in a limited number of cities with the release of iOS 15, have now come to three Canadian cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Among other things, the maps add enhanced navigation and transit directions; Montreal also gets cycling directions. [The Verge]
Traffic Data Inadvertently Revealed the Start of the Russian Invasion
AppleInsider looks at how online maps (Apple Maps, Google Maps), especially their traffic layer, inadvertently revealed Russian troop movements at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The sheer volume of mapping data now available at our fingertips means it was possible for civilians half a world away to see when Russian forces began moving. Specifically, that data pinpointed a traffic jam starting on the Russian side of the border, actively moving into Ukraine in the first few minutes of the Russian and Ukraine conflict.
Just as with any cartography, this information required interpreting. Google Maps did not specifically say that it was troop movements, nor was its satellite imagery up to the minute. During the process of researching this story, we’ve confirmed that Apple Maps presented similar inbound troop movement information—but it wasn’t setting out to do that either.
What these services did, though, was register all of the smartphone users whose driving was slowed or halted by unusual traffic conditions. Wherever the majority of the data came from, it was possible to determine what was happening when coupled with known details of Russian troop locations.
Engst’s Experience with Mapping Services
Adam Engst of TidBITS: “I’ve been working with mapping services a lot of late and wanted to share some of my experiences in the hope that they’ll help you boost your mapping game beyond simple navigation.” Mostly focuses on fitness-related mapping, but also on how to correct errors on online maps.
TomTom Says Its Algorithms Avoid Potentially Dangerous Routes
It probably has nothing to do with Google redirecting traffic up poorly maintained mountain roads during a blizzard in California last month (previously), but TomTom has posted a piece explaining how its algorithms avoid sending drivers down potentially dangerous routes in Finland even though, on paper, they’re shorter.
TomTom’s routing and location technology recognizes that the shorter route to Koli National Park is on winding unpaved roads, made up of sand and gravel, and it takes that into consideration when computing a route for a driver. It places significant importance on this information. […] Even though the unpaved route is shorter, it’s still not considered “better” than the longer paved route when all things are considered. If map data didn’t include this contextual data about the specific road, the unpaved road would most likely be the default route suggestion.
Google Rerouted Traffic Up Poorly Maintained Mountain Roads During a Blizzard
Last week, when a snowstorm closed Interstate 80 east of Sacramento, Google Maps started redirecting traffic up poorly maintained mountain roads, which is about as good an idea during a blizzard as it sounds.
.@googlemaps This is an abject failure. You are sending people up a poorly maintained forest road to their death in a severe blizzard. Hire people who can address winter storms in your code (or maybe get some of your engineers who are stuck in Tahoe right now on it). pic.twitter.com/IzagAXzBtA
— Dr. Crystal A. Kolden 🔥 (@pyrogeog) December 28, 2021
Other dispatches from Twitter allege that the service—particularly its mobile app—directed people to closed-off highways, mountain passes and lakeside roads to get around. This is in direct contrast to Caltrans’ messaging to avoid workarounds. Caltrans District 3 spokesperson Steve Nelson told SFGATE on Monday that they were seeing drivers trying to skirt highway closures with side streets. “They’ll take side roads and try and sneak past the closures, and that never ends well,” he said.
Google engineer Sören Meyer-Eppler responded on Twitter to spell out some of the technical and logistical problems involved in rerouting traffic during bad weather: the difficulty in finding timely data (and in such cases data need to be really timely) and the risk of false positives. More at Jalopnik.
Apple Maps Update: Detailed 3D City Maps, AR Directions
Apple Maps’s detailed 3D city maps are now available for six cities: London, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco at iOS 15’s launch, San Diego and Washington D.C. last month, and now Philadelphia [AppleInsider, MacRumors]. Those cities also have augmented reality walking directions: AppleInsider has a tutorial.
Apple Maps Asia-Pacific Update
Apple’s new maps have come to Australia [9to5Mac, MacRumors].
Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post reports that “iPhone and Apple Watch users in China can no longer see their geographic coordinates and elevation on the Compass app, according to Chinese media reports and user comments. However, information including bearings and general location are still available.”
And according to a report in The Information (paywall) that was summarized by John Gruber, back in 2014 or 2015 the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping required Apple Maps to make the disputed Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands appear large even when zoomed out, and made the Apple Watch’s Chinese release contingent on that request—to which Apple acquiesced.
Google Maps Announcements
Google Maps updates this week: wildfires are getting their own dedicated layer in Google Maps; their tree canopy coverage tool is being expanded to 100 cities; and a new Address Maker app will make it possible to bulk-add Plus Codes to locations without addresses.
You must be logged in to post a comment.