The next stage of Apple Maps’ Transit roll-out is live today. The latest update includes public transportation in Boston and, more interestingly, select Amtrak train routes in the northeastern U.S.
OK, well it’s all pretty interesting. But, you know. Trains.
You can check out the new routes in Maps right now. Looking for directions within the city of Boston now lets you choose options including buses and the city’s five subway lines.
The addition of regional trains, however, is more impressive. Maps now includes schedules for most of Amtrak’s lines in the Northeast. Supported routes include the Northeast Regional, Acela Express, Keystone, Lake Shore Limited, Pennsylvanian, and Maple Leaf routes.
It looks like the full lines aren’t quite available, however. At least one of the cities has to have Transit available there, apparently, so you may not always be able to get what you need from the app. For example, we couldn’t get any rail results for travel between Albany and Pittsburgh (two Transit-less cities), but we could pull a train route between Pittsburgh and Boston.
This expansion is part of Apple’s plan to take on third-party navigation apps like Google Maps, which has its own extensive transit data and recently announced plans to map, and provide alerts for, every railroad crossing in the U.S.
Apple’s playing catch-up, but it will continue to expand Maps’ reach; according to its feature-availability list, Sydney is next up to get the Transit treatment. Boston marks the twelfth compatible region, joining Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, London, Mexico City, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington (DC), and, somehow, China.
Via: MacRumors
