Apple finally delivered Apple Maps 2.0 for all users in the United States, one month past their original ‘end of 2019’ deadline. The press release showcases the new details and includes a Eddie Cue quote about what’s next for Apple Maps 2.0: “We look forward to bringing this new map to the rest of the world starting with Europe later this year.” Europe later this year doesn’t jive with Apple’s earlier WWDC19 promise to deliver a Tokyo Olympics ready Apple Maps. When it comes to all things Apple Maps, a promise is the plastic twisty for tying up the garbage bag of broken dreams.
Since Apple only made that promise to a few Japanese journalists instead of English language media, perhaps it doesn’t matter. If they are serious however, Apple can still deliver a limited sub-set of Apple Maps 2.0 features that would be very useful for iOS users in time for the July 24~August 9 event.
Real-time transit
Forget the the real time label nonsense, Google Maps is far better delivering real important Tokyo transit details from the same suppliers that Apple does not: station platform numbers, optimum car exit positions, crowd status, and last but not least refreshable transit search results. No more dead data. Better Tokyo area public transit information is the single most important and useful map item that Apple needs to improve.
Apple can also improve the service with better transit integration between iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple Watch would be far more useful with turn by turn like notifications for transit. The current version of Apple Watch transit goes off the rails whenever iPhone Apple Maps is in the background.
Indoor Maps
Apple Indoor Maps are limited to airports and malls, nice but not very useful. Major stations like Tokyo, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Shinagawa, etc. must be added as they will major travel points during the Olympics. These areas are the Godzilla of indoor mapping: they are massive, insanely dense structures. Google Maps and Yahoo Japan maps don’t do it particularly well, but at least it is there and Google Maps has multi-lingual support which Yahoo Japan Maps does not.
The most reliable inbound smartphone transit combo for getting around Tokyo during the Olympics remains Apple Pay Suica and Google Maps.
August 2020 UPDATE
Apple Maps updated Japan maps with Look Around for the greater Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya areas, and a full set of IPC data which has been available all these years, but Apple didn’t, or couldn’t, integrate it for some reason until now. Whether Apple call this ‘new maps’ or not isn’t clear. And at any rate it is not Apple collected map data.
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