At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference WWDC 2012 during Apple CEO, Tim Cook’s keynote, a demo of the new Maps was presented on an iPad. Cook shared some details about how the new Apple Maps application would work. Blogger, Tim Stevens, with Engaget.com was live blogging from the event. Here are some details he shared with his audience:
- In iOS6, Apple has built an entire new mapping solution from the ground up.
- Apple has already ingested more than 100 million business listings. Info cards are very well populated and there’s Yelp integration.
- Apple is building a traffic service. It’s a simple presentation with red bars showing traffic slowdowns and icons showing construction, accidents, etc. Apple is also building turn-by-turn navigation. Traffic is monitored in realtime with the ETA updated dynamically. If you need to be re-routed that will be offered as a pop-up notification. It’s integrated with Siri so you can ask things like “Where can I get gas?” and it will find some on the way.
- There’s a 3D flyover view of cities – very similar to what Google announced at it’s own event last week.
- Maps are vector-based like Google Maps. There’s quick rotating and zooming with gestures. Zoom in far enough and 3D pops up. There’s very quick tapping through info cards. You can lower the view and see the whole city in the background.
- In Stevens’ opinion, the graphics looked good. He said it is nothing different than Google Maps but appears to be cleaner and smoother.
In the next coming weeks, we expect to hear more information about Apple’s dive into local search. Until then, what do you think of Apple’s announcement of the new Maps application? What will it mean for your business?
