Photo: MacRumors
As the native iOS offering, Apple Maps should theoretically be the top navigation app on an iPhone, especially as the Cupertino-based tech giant seems to be investing big in new-generation capabilities.
In practice, Google Maps continues to be a very popular choice in the Apple world as well, especially because Apple Maps seems to be mostly focused on the U.S. market. The availability of the new-generation Apple Maps experience is slowly expanding to other regions, but the whole thing is taking way too long.
And this obviously pushes more users to Google Maps and the other navigation apps out there.
One of the biggest names benefitting from Apple’s painfully slow rollout of new features in Apple Maps is Waze, the Google-owned traffic navigation app that also supports CarPlay and the dashboard mode.
On the other hand, it’s not a secret that Apple has tried to turn Apple Maps into a competitor not only for Google Maps, but for Waze too. This is why Apple Maps now comes with incident reporting capabilities, so users can send reports on accidents, hazards, and speed checks with the press of a single button.
Only available in a few regions, the incident reporting feature isn’t necessarily as refined as you’d expect it to be, and at some level, this makes perfect sense. The whole thing is still in its early days, so it'll probably take some time until Apple gets everything right.
Fortunately, it looks like iOS 16.2 represents a major step in this regard. The new operating system update, which was shipped to supported iPhones earlier this month, changes the behavior of the warnings that show up on the screen when running Apple Maps. And the way it does this makes the reports a lot more helpful overall.
Starting with this update, the warnings stay on the screen permanently (without a timeout setting), so drivers not only have more time to notice them, but they also get a chance to interact with the notifications when they can do it safely. Just like in Waze, Apple Maps allows drivers to mark reports as cleared or still there, and this is a great way to make use of the crowdsourcing engine and improve the accuracy of the application.
At first glance, it looks like Apple has finally managed to get the warning display system right, though the system still requires additional refinements to be able to compete with Waze. The first thing it needs is support for more types of reports, as Apple Maps is currently limited to speed checks, hazards, and crashes. Waze, on the other hand, lets drivers report a wide range of incidents, including roadkill, traffic jams, flood, fog, and vehicles stopped on the side of the road.
And this obviously pushes more users to Google Maps and the other navigation apps out there.
One of the biggest names benefitting from Apple’s painfully slow rollout of new features in Apple Maps is Waze, the Google-owned traffic navigation app that also supports CarPlay and the dashboard mode.
On the other hand, it’s not a secret that Apple has tried to turn Apple Maps into a competitor not only for Google Maps, but for Waze too. This is why Apple Maps now comes with incident reporting capabilities, so users can send reports on accidents, hazards, and speed checks with the press of a single button.
Only available in a few regions, the incident reporting feature isn’t necessarily as refined as you’d expect it to be, and at some level, this makes perfect sense. The whole thing is still in its early days, so it'll probably take some time until Apple gets everything right.
Fortunately, it looks like iOS 16.2 represents a major step in this regard. The new operating system update, which was shipped to supported iPhones earlier this month, changes the behavior of the warnings that show up on the screen when running Apple Maps. And the way it does this makes the reports a lot more helpful overall.
Starting with this update, the warnings stay on the screen permanently (without a timeout setting), so drivers not only have more time to notice them, but they also get a chance to interact with the notifications when they can do it safely. Just like in Waze, Apple Maps allows drivers to mark reports as cleared or still there, and this is a great way to make use of the crowdsourcing engine and improve the accuracy of the application.
At first glance, it looks like Apple has finally managed to get the warning display system right, though the system still requires additional refinements to be able to compete with Waze. The first thing it needs is support for more types of reports, as Apple Maps is currently limited to speed checks, hazards, and crashes. Waze, on the other hand, lets drivers report a wide range of incidents, including roadkill, traffic jams, flood, fog, and vehicles stopped on the side of the road.
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