Thursday, September 21, 2017

Apple Maps in iOS 11

Jason Snell:

At long last, Apple Maps provides lane guidance, so you can see at a glance which lane you need to be in so that you can make your turn (or not make a turn you don’t want to make). In my testing, this feature was a bit spotty—at one point, a trip up the freeway didn’t show proper lane guidance, but the return trip down the freeway did. Still, when it’s there, it’s great, because it’s awfully nerve-wracking to not know whether you need to get over another lane.

Similarly, Apple Maps now displays the current Speed Limit for the road you’re driving on, a feature I’ve been using in other navigation apps for years. Again, better late than never.

Google Maps for iOS has had good lane guidance for a long time but doesn’t show the speed limit.

Update (2017-09-21): Ed Marczak:

Google Maps does show the speed limit…sometimes. It does in California, but not in NY, so 🤷

Corbin Davenport:

According to a post on the Android Auto support forum, the speed limit indicator is only live in the San Francisco Bay Area and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

2 Comments RSS · Twitter

Waze has consistently shown the speed limit while driving for a couple of years now, easy. It even showed the proper speed limit for tiny, middle-of-nowhere Westcliffe, Colorado when we were there this past summer.

When I was in Silicon Valley a few weeks ago, Google Maps on my iPhone showed the speed limit while driving. But when I returned home (to northern VA) it didn't. I suspect Google needs to finish populating its database for this feature to be useful. Maybe it's just in "beta" right now.

I hope they bring it everywhere because it was really convenient.

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