Maps has gotten a big upgrade in iOS 10, and we're not just talking about its looks.
Apple Maps has lagged behind its competitors for a few years — in part because Apple was late to the game. But over the last year, it's become a more stable, usable service. iOS 10 continues that trend, bringing huge (and much-needed) software and server-side improvements to Apple's mapping application.
No, it's still not perfect: In driving mode, it continues to struggle with traffic estimations and offering up the best alternate routes. But for local driving, it's gotten leaps and bounds better.
The new look
Apple Maps has embraced the San Francisco bold look head-on, with clear, readable maps labels, bright colors, and crisp text. The top and bottom navigational bars have disappeared entirely, replaced by contextual cards and a small overlay for further information, GPS location, and the weather. Though you get more visual overhead as you use more complicated Maps options, the general focus seems to have been on keeping it light, clean, and understandable.
On launch, the bottom card will display a search bar along with predictive locations (based on your routine or Calendar appointments) and favorite or recent locations. As will soon become custom, you can scroll up on this card to get an expanded list, as well as full access to your Favorites list.
Tap on an address or pin, and that contextual card changes, offering you an address, estimated mileage and driving time, and — if it's a public business — Yelp-sourced information on the business's hours, photos, website, menu, and the like. (You can tap any of these to go directly to Yelp for more information.) You can even tap on yourself to either mark your current location with a pin, or share it with your friends.
Search improvements
Where Apple Maps has really branched out is in its search: Though it still pulls primarily from Yelp's database, it's become a lot easier to find and narrow down options for food, entertainment, travel, gas, and more. When you tap on the search bar, eight brightly-colored bubbles appear to whisk you off to the business of your choosing: Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, Services, Fun, Health, or Transport.
Tap on one bubble, and you go further down the rabbit hole into a sub-genre of options: Food, for example, offers up a Popular section, along with Restaurants, Groceries, Fast Food, Coffee Shops, Bakeries, and Desserts.
Once you pick a category, you can browse through a listing of suggested eateries or drill down further — a sliding menu along the bottom of the screen lets you select specific brands or options. (For example, tapping Bakeries in the Northeast will give you sub-options that include all nearby Dunkin Donuts, Panera Bread, Au Bon Pain, and the like.)
Adventures in directions
Let's get this out of the way: Maps's server-side directions still need some work. Over the past few months, I've been running it on all my short- and long-haul trips simultaneously with Google Maps, and while it generally keeps up quite well, there are still some holes in its computations. (Notably when traffic is involved, or trying to branch off the well-worn path through slightly more obscure street routes.) It's miles better than Maps's initial server woes, and largely only when driving routes are involved: I actually quite prefer Apple's transit data to Google Maps. But the caveat needs to be stated, and so it has been.
That aside, Maps now has one of the best interfaces for directions out there. The new bold, bright look is great for quick-glance information when in the car, and both Siri and large buttons help keep your attention on the road as much as possible rather than yelling at your directions-providing device. Outside the interface, Maps fixes a niggle I've had since version 1.0: It now lets you zoom to any point on the map with a multitouch pinch gesture, as well as view a full overview of the route.
When turn-by-turn is enabled, you can also search along your route for local food, gas, or coffee options by tapping a few big buttons; you can also just ask Siri "Is there a coffee place nearby?" and Maps will present options and automatically add a stop to your route if you so desire. It works just as well (if not better) than Google's implementation — having Yelp data and rankings to draw on is a welcome addition to the sometimes-stressful job of picking road trip stops.
When you're planning your routes, Maps offers multiple options, like most major mapping services; Apple has also now incorporated switches that let you avoid tolls or highways — a big deal for metropolitan folk — and transit options that let you exclude certain methods of transportation in favor of others (turning off bus routes, for example, if all you want to see are train schedules).
Hello, car
Hands down, my favorite Maps feature in iOS 10 is Apple's new "Parked Car" marker. If your vehicle has either CarPlay or Bluetooth connectivity, your iPhone will recognize where it last chatted with your car, and mark it in the Maps app. Not only that: It'll tell you when you last parked (so that you can accurately monitor meters), and offers a notes field where you can add a photo (of your parking garage number) or different notes. I have used this feature pretty much daily since installing iOS 10, and my forgetful parking lot self can't really imagine life without it.
Beyond the Maps app
Maps is one of Apple's test-case apps that supports third-party embedded extensions: Though not as expansive as, say, Messages, Maps will let you book reservations and rideshares directly through the app — even from the directions screen. It's clearly a very limited concept at launch (there aren't that many rideshare services, period), but as with Apple's other embedded app experiments, this could snowball very quickly if it proves successful. I'd love to be able to embed Carrot Weather in place of the fixed weather widget, for example.
Questions?
We'll have a lot more information and how-tos about Maps in the days to come, but let me know if you have any questions about these features; I'm happy to answer.
Reader comments
What's new in the Maps app for iOS 10
Is there still no way to keep the map oriented North-up during driving directions?
There's a compass option.
Serenity, I think Maps is just NH adverse. Or maybe they just don't know what to do with the mess that is Rte 3/FE Everett Turnpike in southern NH. Manchester is a miss, and I try to avoid that stretch at all costs (and living in the town just south of it, not the easiest thing to do).
Route 2 through MA is a much nicer visual ride. Apple went for the polish. HAHA!
:)
Is there a way to send location to another navigation app like i was able to in ios9? Sometimes i like to use apple maps to find a location but i send the directions to here maps for e.g
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Seriously! This was my way of getting a location from an email but using Waze for traffic navigation (cause waze has horrible trouble finding address searches)
So far I'm not really enjoying ios10 all that much.
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Also no home address shortcut and favourites are all the way on the bottom & unable to be rearranged. The only feature i like is the fact you can see all your favourite addresses on the map at the same time. I hope this gets fixed soon. Not happy because i cant really use new apple maps until its fixed.
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No Home??? Amazing!!! I'm in my car and I spent the last 15 min looking for a Home shortcut, to no avail.... there must be something we don't get (and not having to go thru our own contact card) because this would shown in the betas!!!
Much better location of the Search bar at the top bottom! This should be in Safari also..
But why is the "current location" arrow in the top right and NOT along the Search bar (bottom right)? **** messy to still reach for that button at the top right. Even with the stupid Reachability button..
I like the UI and to see all my Favorites on the map at the same time. Finally!
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And WHY no Dark mode in the regular Maps view??
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Deleted Maps...
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My experience: Apple Maps directions are generally not quite as good, sometimes leading me to the wrong place for more obscure locations. But Google Maps, while more accurate, has an interface that is borderline incomprehensible. Better directions don't help if you can't figure out how to generate them.
Is there a way to get directions from one place to another without it being where you're actually at at the moment? For example, if I'm at work, can I find directions from my home to another location to see the routes and distance?
I'm wondering the same thing. This is an important feature for me. I have not found a way to do this since I updated yesterday and I use this function constantly.
I have found out how to do this, once you put in your location to wherever you're going, you should see and a blue link saying "my location". Click that link and then you can answer any other address.
Perfect! I did see that after you hit "directions", you can edit location. Thank you so much!!
Is there no longer a 3D map view like the one on iOS 9?
The iOS Maps page on Apple mentions Interactive 3D views, but I cannot find a way to access the 3D views. Any help is appreciated
I've been looking for this information and I didn't find anything probably Apple remove this option and it's really sad!
Not sure If it's been mentioned already , BUT one cool thing I found ( I have yelp installed, not sure if it matters). Go into maps, click on a business, then click create new contact and add it. Then go to your contacts and check out that new look format. My contact card pulls the yelp info to show if they are open or not. I think that's pretty cool. Not sure if it comes up in that format if it's done any other way?
Just a question. or maybe a request that you might pass on the the good folks at Apple...
Apple needs to develop an add-on app fro map that would allow a person to develop both routes between clients and pinning locations of clients by groups such as dealers, project sites, engineering firms, architects and etc. If one could bring up a group listing from apples contact app and pin these address, notes and reminders to a location on a map titled architects in Texas, or dow or Houston etc. Iy sure would be a welcome addition. Here's hoping Ric
iPhone 6 with ios 10 - I have found no way to clear history and favorites in the map - please help!
Swipe left on the item you want to delete and then press Remove. It seems you have to do them one-by-one.
Is there a way to enable HFP so I can listen to voice commands over the radio? Also I have been playing around with Windows maps running Windows 10 mobile on my old Nokia and I am shocked that this map app has more,functionality in such a short time compared to Apple maps eg I can get speed alerts,. I can also check,traffic camera on the route.. Google maps is still miles ahead of both Windows &,Apple,maps
After my update to iOS10, I decided to give Apple Maps another try as Google Maps seems to be dropping a lot lately. Still Google does a better job of incorporating Traffic and also giving realistic arrival times. Apple does finally let you move the map around and zoom out but Google has had that. Still it's a nice feature and I'm glad Apple finally got around to adding it. That said, Apple Maps still has drawbacks.
Apple Maps still seems stuck on using major roadways even when the lesser traveled roads are faster (side streets, 2-lane roads, etc.). Google also seems to "learn" what roads I like to use for my commute, Also, Apple Maps seems to be 30 seconds behind. I'll be approaching my destination and Apple often won't tell me I'm there until I've passed it.
But the thing that makes me scratch my head the most is how I can be in front of my house and Apple will say I've still got 2 minutes left before I arrive at home. Only when I'm backing into my driveway will it (finally) tell me I've arrived. So basically it won't update the arrival time in real time like Google does. Google has a way of telling me when a faster route has been found and will update my route if I want. I don't know yet if Apple has that feature as like I said, Apple seems to get stuck on using certain types of roadways.
After two months of using Apple Maps and iOS 10, here are my three observations, which I share with some frustration, but not trying to be a grumpy pants: (1) The user interface is very good, even using CarPlay, which is where I use it most often. (2) Sadly maps accuracy remains fairly poor. In the Midwest and Midsouth where I drive, from Tulsa to Memphis to St. Louis to Chicago, Apple Maps has had accurate directions only 5 out of 11 times. That number includes a real soft toss that I gave Apple Maps -- find my work which is only 1.5 miles away. Maps gave a hospital name that hasn't been used in five or six years. (3) While the UI in CarPlay (2016 Corvette) is quite good, the functioning of Apple Maps in CarPlay is quite poor. The biggest problem is that directions can come late, too late to make a proper turn or highway exit, even with good 4G LTE from Verizon. It is unclear whether the problem lies in communication between CarPlay, app, and phone, or is a geolocation problem. I say that because sometimes Apple Maps asks me to turn around even though I'm going the right direction on the highway, or it locates the car 100-200 yards away and on the service road while it actually is on an interstate. This is also a problem when walking and using Apple Maps, because maps can't always get you on the right street, and you have to reset the walking directions several times to be correctly directed.