“A major focus for Apple in building iOS 9 is making it even easier to access the information you need, in part by predicting what you want before you unlock your phone,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider. “One way the upcoming operating system update will do that is by knowing when you get into your car, and predicting where you’re probably planning to drive.”
“iOS already offers estimated travel times in the Notification Center’s Today view,” Hughes reports. “But starting with the release of iOS 9 this fall, travel directions will become even more convenient, with popular destinations automatically showing up on the iPhone’s lock screen.”
“While beta testing iOS 9, Reddit user ‘MrMacNeil’ noticed that after getting into their car after work, directions home appeared on their iPhone’s lock screen,” Hughes report. “Other users also commented to confirm that the functionality works on their Apple Watch as well.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Very handy and, of course, the user can turn off these notifications as well, if they choose.
Logical Disconnect: If I make the trip repeatedly, why would I want to look at a Mac?
It’s not like I’m suddenly driving drunk.
if you were carjacked and the carjacker asked you to drive home, in your panicked state, you might appreciate confirmation of the directions.
The route you are accustomed to take might be congested, so being guided down an alternative route might be a better idea.
I often do a 75 mile journey home and there are two alternative major routes, each with a number of potential variations. Setting off on the best route for the current traffic conditions can save a great deal of time and frustration.
Lane guidance?
Display my speed while moving?
Bicycling directions?
@Bo, I like to use driving directions for trips that I make repeatedly because I often get different routes depending on traffic congestion.
It would be more powerful for the user to be able to define his route, including enroute stops, rather than the computer trying to outsmart my real desires. There are limits Apple.
How do you figure? You have real-time traffic data streaming directly to your brain?
Apple Maps allows you to define a single destination and gives 2 or 3 options for getting from your current location to that destination. It’s pretty useless as a trip planning planning or route optimization tool. Sometimes you need to go to several places in one trip. Selecting the optimal route, or even going from where you are at via a particular intermediate destination is not possible with Apple Maps. MS Street and Trips had that capability 10 years ago. Until Apple moves past that limitation they won’t have much more than an alarm clock for the next turn in a simple point-to-point routing program, massive eye-candy notwithstanding.
Try Waze. Unfortunately, Google bought em, but you can do a two-stop trip. Might help ya.
I’m just bitching because I’d like to see Apple get it really right. The current offering just misses being great because the Apple development team spends too little time out doing stuff that requires more than finding the nearest coffee shop.
Simple example of the usefulness of multi-waypoint routing: a volunteer for “Meals on Wheels” has picked up meals for 10 clients from the kitchen that prepares them. He needs to take those meals to 10 different addresses and follow the route that drives the least distance so that the meals are in the hands of the clients as quickly as possible while minimizing the load on the battery of his electric car. A noble use of modern mapping technology.
Maybe Microsoft will see the opportunity and write an iOS version of Streets and Trips.
Can’t believe I just typed that. Going to wash my keyboard now.
Still practically impossible to plan a multi-stop route or get timely lane change advice. And there are just so many errors in major metropolitan areas are just not getting fixed.
Maps on a Mac lacks so many tools compared to freebie web maps that it’s an embarrassment. We have one machine where Maps just stopped working for no reason — won’t even launch a viewer window. Nobody at Apple has a fucking clue. They want us to reload the OS in order to fix Maps. Danm it, Apple, you’re getting to be as bad as Microsoft ever was.
Apple Maps needs a great deal of work on the database suggestions. I live in the UK and use Apple Maps all the time, but searching for place names is hopelessly unreliable. Recently I needed directions to Oxford station, which was about 25 miles away. Apple Maps tried to offer me driving directions to Oxford Station near Ottawa in Canada. The railway station in Oxford, England did not appear in the list of possibilities.
I’m finding issues like this every week.
Exactly, this is a prime example of what is happening – and not happening- at One Infinite Loop.
Someone at Apple is letting people piss away time fucking up the UI of the OS and applications while ignoring the functionality that makes people want to use the software in the first place.
Apple needs to spend less time futzing around with Hipster Graphic Trends for the UI and make sure that their software functions to a standard worthy of Apple’s reputation.