Photo: autoevolution
Apple has become a lot more committed to improving Apple Maps this year, but while the company has already announced a series of major improvements, it’s no secret that the gradual rollout it has embraced advances at a painfully slow pace.
Look Around, for example, is an alternative to Google Maps Street View, allowing users to view street-level imagery on their iPhones.
And while Look Around provides quite an impressive level of detail thanks to high-resolution photos, its availability continues to be extremely limited. Apple is working on dealing with the whole thing, so earlier this week, the feature went live silently in Phoenix, Arizona.
Of course, this is a cool update, especially for people who want to explore Phoenix, but on the other hand, it shows just how slow Apple Maps is moving with the expansion of its Street View rival.
It’s not a secret that the Google Maps street-level imagery is already covering an impressive part of the world, so Apple updating Look Around at such as a slow place means it’ll take years until the service goes live across the United States, not to even mention other countries.
Apple itself claims that officially, Look Around is only available in a total of 14 locations across the world, including Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Osaka, Tokyo, and Washington. But earlier this year, street-level imagery in Apple Maps has also debuted in several other non-U.S. locations, including London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and a few others.
In the meantime, it’s pretty clear that Apple wants Apple Maps to become a better alternative to Google Maps, but what the company needs is a faster rollout of the features that it announced with so much fanfare earlier this year. If this slow-paced release is maintained, there’s a chance that the hype is soon over and people even forget something big in Apple Maps is coming.
And while Look Around provides quite an impressive level of detail thanks to high-resolution photos, its availability continues to be extremely limited. Apple is working on dealing with the whole thing, so earlier this week, the feature went live silently in Phoenix, Arizona.
Of course, this is a cool update, especially for people who want to explore Phoenix, but on the other hand, it shows just how slow Apple Maps is moving with the expansion of its Street View rival.
It’s not a secret that the Google Maps street-level imagery is already covering an impressive part of the world, so Apple updating Look Around at such as a slow place means it’ll take years until the service goes live across the United States, not to even mention other countries.
Apple itself claims that officially, Look Around is only available in a total of 14 locations across the world, including Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Osaka, Tokyo, and Washington. But earlier this year, street-level imagery in Apple Maps has also debuted in several other non-U.S. locations, including London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and a few others.
In the meantime, it’s pretty clear that Apple wants Apple Maps to become a better alternative to Google Maps, but what the company needs is a faster rollout of the features that it announced with so much fanfare earlier this year. If this slow-paced release is maintained, there’s a chance that the hype is soon over and people even forget something big in Apple Maps is coming.
Google News