Craig Federighi “finally” announced indoor mapping in Apple Maps for iOS 11 during the WWDC keynote. I say finally because this has been in the works for a very long time. I knew that Apple had been working hard mapping Tokyo indoor locations and was perplexed by the faux indoor mapping used in Apple Maps Japan Transit rollout. In my review at the time I wrote:
The big question is where does Apple’s indoor mapping effort go from here. Will they go the Google way of mapping everything above and below ground, or take the Yahoo Japan way of just showing above and below structures directly related to the station? If Apple only wants to show exits and entrances they could vastly improve the current experience by increasing on route exit signage size and providing information cards with real information.
So we finally get:
The launch list includes Tokyo and I hope to check out a real indoor Apple Map of Shinjuku station underground malls in the iOS 11 public beta. If Shinjuku station is not supported I’ll be seriously disappointed because if Shinjuku station underground doesn’t qualify as a Japanese mall in the Apple universe, nothing will.
Japan is not on the airport indoor map launch list but the major Tokyo stations are a much better place to start.
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