Apple's 3D Maps App For iOS 6 Rumors and Speculation

The rumours that Apple is going to create their own 3D Maps App For iOS 6 have been flying hot and heavy lately, and the mock-ups that people have been posting (ignore the titles that make it look like these are anything other than mock-ups based on speculation based on the fact that Apple acquired a mapping company in 2011) have looked pretty good.

I pose some questions only assuming that these rumours and mock-ups are vaguely close to reality:

• Will areas that aren’t NYC, LA, San Francisco and London get the awesome 3D treatment, or will places that matter to me (ie: beautiful Vancouver, BC) be left out in the cold as happens so many times.
• Is the 3D view going to be that useful? Yes, it looks awesome, but in reality if you’re looking to navigate from A to B, or are searching for the pizza joint that’s supposed to be near the sushi place on main near the bank, will a view like this be helpful?
• Will Apple be able to match google’s local/map search? Assuming that they’re not going to be pulling in google results and putting them on top of their own map, or somehow merging their Jesus-Map system with google results, they have a tough uphill slog to get to the level of quality of results (and variances of search terms) that google allows.

Guess we’ll see in June….

Posted by Arcterex at May 29, 2012 10:39 AM