maps - page 3

Pro Tip: Quick way to find stores that take Apple Pay

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Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugApple Pay is showing up in more places these days, but if you live in a town like mine, it can be hard to know exactly where those places are.

Want to know whether that hip restaurant down the street or your local pharmacy supports Apple Pay before you get there? Here’s a super easy trick using either your iPhone or your Mac.

Apple’s semi-creepy patent lets you keep a closer eye on your friends

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Screen Shot 2015-10-27 at 09.53.46
"Mr. Bond, I've been expecting you."
Photo: USPTO/Apple

With its pro-privacy stance, Apple’s pretty good at treading the line between usefulness and creepiness, which other tech companies can struggle with.

A newly-published patent, however, may challenge that assertion — describing a method for monitoring another person’s location, via their iPhone, with constant user notifications sent to alert you of any changes in their progress along a route.

Presumably so you can hop in a chair, grab a white cat for your lap, and sit facing the door to greet their arrival with the line, “Mr. Bond, I’ve been expecting you.”

Apple Watch features showcased in 6 cool new ads

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Are Apple Watch expectations just too high?
This is why now is the perfect time to get an Apple Watch.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Thanks to its arrival at major retailers like Target and Best Buy, the Apple Watch is going (more) mainstream — and Apple wants potential customers to know exactly what they’ll be able to do with their new wearable devices.

In six cool new ads, Apple shows off nifty Watch features like Apple Pay, Siri, Maps, voice messaging, fitness tracking, and more.

Check them out below.

How Apple could use 3D Touch to bring Maps to life

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Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 10.56.10
3D Touch might be just what Apple Maps needs.
Photo: Apple

3D Touch was the most widely-praised feature of the new iPhone 6s, and something that has the potential to be a real game-changer going forward.

In a newly-published patent, Apple explains how 3D Touch-style technology could revolutionize maps, by letting users animate the screen with different levels of touch.

Apple snaps up company to improve its Maps

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iOS 9 transit maps
Now live in France, Germany, Spain, and more.
Photo: Apple

A new acquisition from Apple suggests that the iPhone maker might be getting into the map-making business.

The company paid as much as $30 million for a 12-person San Francisco startup that specializes in parsing location data into visualizations, according to reports.

HopStop shuts down after Apple sucks the life out of it

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iphone-transit
With Transit coming in iOS 9, HopStop doesn't need to exist anymore.
Photo: Apple

It looks like HopStop is doing the walk of shame back from Apple’s apartment. The city transit mapping service is shutting down as of this October. Apple acquired HopStop in 2013 and seems to have used up just about all of the data it wants for its own Maps app, so the folks in Cupertino have apparently moved on.

Radar Cast lets you Watch for bad weather

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radar-cast
Radar Cast can make you feel like a meteorologist on the five o'clock news.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac

If you’re like me, you spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to pick out the perfect weather app for your iPhone. Apple’s Weather app just doesn’t cut it and it’s very hard to find something that has a little bit of every detail without being cluttered or downright ugly. That happy medium for me is Carrot Weather but unfortunately it’s been crashing on the iOS 9 developer beta. In its place I’ve been testing Radar Cast, a slightly unusual weather app that attempts to deliver all the most crucial information to your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Find your way out of the subway faster with Apple Maps

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Now you can figure out which of the 4 different doors out of the subway is best.
Now you can figure out which of the subway exits is best.
Photo: Apple

If you’ve ever taken a ride on an unfamiliar city’s subway or transit system, you know how confusing it can be to know which specific exit to use to find the right above ground location you need to get to where you’re going.

In the upcoming iOS 9, Apple Maps aims to help you out with a subtle yet extremely useful feature: it will tell you which exit to take when you’re using the Transit option, also new to iOS 9.

Get your vacation on with the best of Apple Maps Flyover

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View some of the most beautiful cities and landmarks in the world with Flyover.
View some of the most beautiful cities and landmarks in the world with Flyover.
Photo: Apple

The worst part about vacationing is coming back home and getting hit in the face with cold, hard reality. Excessive food consumption, relaxing atmospheres and sugary alcoholic beverages are out of your life and work is back in. But what if you take the travel part (not to mention the cost) completely out of equation? You get Flyover in Apple Maps.

Why vacation in this costly, unforgiving world when you can live vicariously through your iPhone, iPad or Mac?

Flyover, the immersive 3-D view in Apple Maps, now supports hundreds of cities around the world and Apple adds more all the time. In fact, seven more were added to the list just today so we thought it would be fun to take a look at the hottest vacationing spots of 2015, without even leaving the couch.

Get your summer vacay on at these hot Flyover spots:

iOS 9’s Split View for iPad is everything you hoped it would be

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Split-View-iPad-Air-2

Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

 

When iOS 9 rolls out to the public this fall, it’ll be iPad users that appreciate it most, thanks to the many improvements Apple has made to multitasking. One of the biggest is Split View, a feature that’s exclusive to the iPad Air 2, which lets you run two apps side-by-side — just like you would on your Mac.

Split View lets you read articles in Safari while composing an email in Mail, enjoy a novel in iBooks while taking notes in the Notes app, and talk to friends via iMessage while organizing your schedule in Calendar.

But is Split View as game-changing as it looks at first glance? You bet it is.

Hit list: All the apps and services Apple tried to kill at WWDC 2015

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Tim Cook WWDC 2015
Apple's had some bold words for its competitors today.
Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

Once again, Apple has shown its desire to be your go-to for everything you do in your life.

During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote this morning, the iPhone maker talked up software updates, services and new functionalities aimed at making several of its competitors’ offerings redundant.

Here are the things Apple’s trying to take out with new stuff at WWDC 2015.

Meet Ingress, your new augmented reality obsession

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Hack alien portals in your own neighborhood.
Hack alien portals in your own neighborhood.
Screengrab: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

I went outside for the first time today. Working at home is an easy way to get a bad case of couchlock, so I like to try and get out for little 15 minute breaks when I can.

Today was a bit different. I downloaded and installed a game some buddies of mine are raving about on Facebook: Ingress.

I launched the app, followed the instructions, and was hooked. What started as a 15 minute walk to try out a new mobile game became a 45-minute obsession as I roamed my neighborhood, looking for portals to hack, collecting XMP particles to power my technological takeover, and finding a little feature of my ‘hood I’d never known about before.

Want to get obsessed about a new game? Want to maybe get in a little better shape? Be sure to download Ingress and see what everyone’s talking about.

Apple snatches up augmented reality company Metaio

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Apple is diving into AR.
Apple is diving into AR.
Photo: Metaio

Apple has finalized an acquisition for the augmented reality company Metaio in a move that could soon bring the German firm’s AR tech to iOS and other Apple devices.

Metaio, which specializes in creating augmented reality tools for other businesses as well as other computer vision solutions, mysteriously announced last night that it would stop selling its services, but filings with the German government reveal that the company has transferred all of its shares over to Apple.

Take a look at their incredible tech in action:

Apple snaps up company with expertise in GPS and self-driving cars

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TomTom will continue to power Apple Maps.
New acquisition could be a major part of Apple's future roadmap. No pun intended.
Photo: Apple

Apple has confirmed its acquisition of Coherent Navigation, a GPS company with expertise in mapping and self-driving vehicles.

Founded in 2008, Coherent Navigation is one of the leading companies behind what is known as High Integrity GPS or — appropriately enough for Apple — iGPS. Unlike regular GPS, which is accurate only within meters, iGPS’ high level of accuracy means it can provide geographic positioning data within centimeters.

What Westeros would look like in Apple Maps

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The Lands of Always Winter look like my backyard. Photo: MongoLife/Etsy
The Lands of Always Winter look like my backyard. Photo: MongoLife/Etsy

Let’s just leave aside the obvious Apple Maps jokes and focus on how cool this Etsy user’s Westeros map is.

It’s the continent where the war, sex and epic political conniving takes place in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, made to look like a modern map you might find on your iPhone or Mac.

How cool is that?

Apple wants Siri to give you navigation instructions like a human

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Apple Maps instructions might get a lot more 'human' soon.
Apple Maps instructions might get a lot more 'human' soon. Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Getting direction from a computer sucks, but that could soon change based on a new patent filed by Apple for “Humanized Navigation Instructions for Mapping Applications.

Rather than receiving instructions from an emotion-less robot, Apple’s new patent would make Siri’s turn-by-turn directions sound more like they’re coming from your buddy in the passenger seat by mixing in references to restaurants and landmarks.

Here’s some examples you might here, instead of just being told “in 500 feet, turn right”:

Hey, Apple! What happened to ‘It just works’?

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The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s plus are coming on September 18th, according to German carriers.
A buggy iOS 8 update that killed cellular connections for iPhone 6 users is far more troubling than Apple's other recent missteps. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

“It just works.”

Those three words are synonymous with Apple. It’s the slogan Apple fanboys use when trying to convince their Android-loving friends that iOS is a better option. And it was used over and over by Steve Jobs as he unveiled new products at Apple keynotes.

That makes it even more embarrassing for the Cupertino company when things don’t “just work.” Especially when it royally screws things up — as it did with the hideously half-baked iOS 8.0.1 update that rolled out to millions of users Wednesday morning.

Future iPhones will warn you when you’re going to be late

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Photo: CC Wikipedia
Photo: CC Wikipedia

Apple has been steadily working to improve its Apple Maps service since its disastrous debut a couple of years ago, and a new patent application published Thursday further cements that.

According to the application, filed in March last year, future iOS devices may scour through your data to warn you of traffic congestion on routes you are predicted to be likely to travel.

These journeys could be learned by your iPhone or Apple Watch by way of a smart artificial intelligence “machine-learning engine,” based on the frequency of previous destinations (say, regular appointments), location of events in a user’s calendar, location of events which users hold electronic tickets for, and addresses gathered by analyzing messages in the form of texts or emails.

Uber speeds off with senior Apple Maps engineer

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Former (?) iOS Maps engineer Chris Blumenberg. Photo: Chris Blumenberg
Former (?) iOS Maps engineer Chris Blumenberg. Photo: Chris Blumenberg

Uber has just poached one of Apple’s senior engineering manager, who worked on both the company’s Maps app and its iPhone software, says subscription website The Information.

The senior iOS engineer in question, Chris Blumenberg, was among the first engineers to work on the iPhone’s software — joining Apple in 2000 initially to help Microsoft port Internet Explorer and Office over to Mac OS X.

The Information editor Jessica Lessin claims that three sources familiar with Blumenberg’s jump to Uber confirmed the situation with her.

‘Internal politics’ responsible for lack of iOS 8 Map updates

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hero

While iOS 8 has seen tons of improvements — from FaceTime call waiting to the ability to purchase iTunes content using Siri — there’s one area that hasn’t seen a major overhaul: Apple Maps.

Although the new version of Maps does now offer vector maps and other improvements in China, as well as a feature designed to give owners the ability to add more indoor positioning data, this was reportedly nowhere near what Apple originally had planned for the next version of its mobile OS.

Over the past year we’ve reported on various map-related patents which seemed like they would land on iOS before long, related to innovations such as user customizable maps. There’s also been plenty of talk regarding major under-the-hood changes to improve map accuracy; adding more points of interest; overhauling labels to make locations like airports, highways and parks easier to find; changing the overall map interface to make it cleaner; and adding public transit directions.

So why didn’t anything like this happen? According to sources the problems may have been the result of internal politics and generally chaotic project management.