Apple Maps no longer hides from copying Google Maps, and that’s really good. In a recent update, the Apple brand’s GPS application incorporates several features that have been present for some time with its rival, but which were still sorely lacking. A brief overview.
If it sometimes happens – rarely – to Apple Maps to get ahead of Google Maps on certain features, it must be admitted that it most of the time lags behind the boss of GPS. Also, when big updates arrive on the application, they are really big updates, which tend to reduce the gap with its rival. That’s good, users have recently been entitled to a new one.
The first novelty will appeal to city dwellers who have abandoned public transport in favor of a bicycle. Indeed, the two-wheeler finally makes its arrival within the application, after years reserved for motorists and pedestrians. From now on, the application displays various information, from the type of road taken by the route to the elevation that the cyclist will have to climb. It is even possible to avoid areas with a high density of cars.
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Apple Maps is finally getting all these features
The novelty does not stop there, since it also concerns the Apple Watch which now displays all this information on its screen, in addition to adding voice guidance which will prevent you from taking your iPhone out of your pocket during your journey. Rather practical to maintain its concentration on the road.
Another major novelty, the immersive view of Google Maps finally arrives in Apple Maps. After integrating the 3D view into its city maps, the application provides much more detail by displaying, for example, routes on roads, green spaces or even very detailed versions of buildings and monuments.
These additions are for the moment only available in Paris, which allows you to contemplate the Arc de Tromphe, the Eiffel Tower or even the Notre-Dame cathedral in 3 D. It is expected that other cities in France will will soon be entitled, in particular Lyon which, in addition to the capital, has also received the latest novelty of the day.
The latter will be of particular interest to business managers. While Google has (almost) always allowed them to create a dedicated card on which they can fill in any panoply of information essential to customers, from opening hours to contact information and other consumer opinions, Apple Maps has long omitted to add this functionality, preferring to generate these sheets automatically.
However, the application has understood the importance of businesses, but rather on the consumer side, in particular by allowing users to report when they are overloaded. With Business Contact, the Cupertino company intends to repair this error by finally giving more control to merchants. With this novelty, the latter will be able to manage their own files by taking advantage of a significant advantage: their integration into the Apple ecosystem.
Thus, users will be able to ask Siri or do a search using Spotlight to find out the menu of a restaurant, the prices of the latest collection in a clothing store, etc. For their part, merchants will be able to modify this information at any time, information which will then be synchronized between all platforms.
Last gift: the arrival of Showcase, a feature that allows you to communicate in real time about current promotions or the latest news from your store, while delivering a lot of analytical data to the manager. However, this is only available in the United States at this time.