- Kyle Chua
Apple Rolls Out New Maps Experience for Singapore, Featuring More Detailed Road Coverage
Apple announced it has started rolling out a new Maps experience for users in Singapore, adding a number of new features that make it easier to navigate and explore the island nation.
The new Maps provides more detailed road coverage, better navigation, three-dimensional landmarks, as well as other new features that refine the experience, including Look Around and Natural Language Guidance, among others.
Look Around lets users accurately navigate around Singapore by offering interactive street-level imagery. Whether it’s Jurong, Sengkang, or anywhere in between, the new feature offers high-resolution, three-dimensional renders of every part of the city.
Siri’s integration in the app has additionally been improved. Using Natural Language Guidance, Apple’s voice assistant now has a more lifelike-sounding voice that makes it even easier to follow directions.
The new app offers lane guidance, which saves users from wrong turns and directional misses by lining them up in the correct lane before needing to turn or enter an elevated road. Speed cameras have also been added, letting users see where they are located on the map.
For transit riders, they can quickly find nearby stations by pinning their favourite lines. Maps then automatically follows the selected route and will notify users when it’s time to disembark.
What’s more, the update debuts step-by-step walking guidance in augmented reality. This allows users to use their phones to scan buildings and have Maps generate detailed directions that can be viewed in the context of the real world.
Users can share an estimated time of arrival with their family, friends and coworkers on their device or by asking Siri to Share ETA. Meanwhile, the receivers can follow along on the journey, and Maps will update them with a revised estimate in case travelers run into any delays.
Other new features include the ability to view indoor maps for airports and shopping centres, designate frequently travelled places as Favourites and check flight status, to name a few.
Apple said that it’ll be providing these new intelligent features without collecting user data. The new Maps app doesn't require users to sign into their Apple accounts. Personalised features are said to be created using on-device intelligence, and any data collected by the app is associated with random identifiers that are regularly reset. On top of this, Maps obscures the location of the users from Apple servers in a process called “fuzzing”.
"Apple Maps is the best way to explore and navigate the world, all while protecting your privacy. We are excited to bring this experience to even more users with today’s rollout in Singapore," said Eddy Cue, Apple Senior Vice President of Services.
"Maps has been rebuilt from the ground up, with better navigation, richer detail, more accurate information for places, and remarkable features that only Apple can deliver, like Look Around, Natural Language Guidance, and more," he added.
Apple announced it has rolled out a new Maps experience for users in Singapore, adding a number of new features that make it easier to navigate and explore the island nation.
Starting today, users can now enjoy more detailed road coverage, better navigation, three-dimensional landmarks, as well as other new features that refine the experience, including Look Around and Natural Language Guidance.
Users can also share their estimated time of arrival with their family, friends or coworkers as they travel.