On January 30th, Apple announced that their redesigned Maps, with new features and faster, more accurate navigation and comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls and more, had rolled out to the entire United States. Next, Apple Maps will begin rolling it out across Europe in the coming months. Building on the new mapping data, iOS 13 introduced many new features that help users navigate and explore the world with a simple tap.
The new features include sharing your ETA with a contact to keep them updated on your location and time of arrival. There’s also a new Apple-made feature called Look Around that’s akin to Google’s Street View.
As of iOS 13.1, you can share your estimated time of arrival with a friend through Apple Maps, iMessage or text when you’re using Apple Maps navigation. Here’s how:
1. Start Apple Maps navigation and get turn-by-turn directions to a location.
2. When viewing current directions, swipe up on the bottom of the area that displays your arrival time and shows the end button.
3. Tap the Share ETA button.
4. Select the contact or contacts with whom you want to share it.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve been using Share ETA since Apple enabled it. It’s one of our most-used Apple Maps features already. If your arrival time slips by five minutes after Share ETA has send the first message to your contact(s), Maps will even update them with a revised estimate.
Still deficient. Worthless for trip planning. Cannot establish waypoints and go via them. Compare several routes. See ancient TomTom and MotionXGPS. Should be able to memorize and store routes. See the iOS app Scenic. No connection to true north. Can’t make north be the top of the map like most mapping programs. Usually an option for the worst of navigation apps — the one in your car. Or at least provide for a little compass rose on the screen so you know which direction you’re headed. Can’t cache maps for when there is no cell coverage. Again, see TomTom and MotionXGPS.
I had apps on a Palm Treo that would allow one to scan a map, say a county engineer’s map showing land owners, calibrate it using GPS coordinates and navigate on that. Very helpful. Hard to believe we’ve gone backwards since Palm days.
Apple should buy Waze and the mentioned apps.
Waze is owned by Google
I agree with your sentiments, Apple’s Maps is so lacking. The lack of waypoints is disappointing. Back in the 90’s I had Route66 on my Mac and MacBook, excellent app for its time. Badly need to be able to add different route options and stops en route.
What’s the verdict? Apple Maps accuracy has been about 50/50 for me, so I rely on Google Maps instead. Curious to know if people are seeing improved accuracy (accuracy first, features second!). Curious to know if you’ll still get directed to the garbage bin for an address destination (I think they were getting their address info from waste management or something like that – which would direct you to the back of the building, the alley of a house, etc.). I would love to switch back…
I miss a good Road Atlas
Apple Maps works fine for me. I use it across the country when traveling on business. It’s pretty cool to use on the ground at O’Hare when the plane is taxiing. The last revision of turn by turn instructions is helpful. Instead of just saying turn in 500 ft or something like that, Siri now says something like “go past the stop sign and turn right at the signal light.”
I gave up on google maps years ago when it kept sending me to businesses that didn’t exist. Once it sent me into a dead end. Hopefully they’ve improved since then.
The new look around feature in Apple Maps is awesome.