Elain Brown Tech 03.25.2022 06:Mar AM EDT

Apple Maps Coming to Canada: Curated Guides, Cycling Directions, and More

Apple Maps is finally coming to Canada!

Apple Maps in Canada

Apple is widening its coverage for Apple Maps and is now expanding to Canada's Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Apple users can now experience a three-dimensional map with improved accuracy of the cities.

Apple Maps features include detailed mapping, enhance navigation for driving, real-time public transit feature, walking directions, and more.

Apple also stated that the app would provide augmented reality of road markings, land cover, trees, elevation, and new windshield view for drivers

According to Apple's senior vice president of Services Eddy Cue, "We're excited for Apple Maps users to explore the beauty and culture of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver in an incredibly detailed new way."

In addition, he also stated, "Built with privacy at its core, this update is the continuation of our commitment to building the best, most accurate map of the world — with a beautifully designed experience and attention to detail that only Apple can deliver."

Apple Maps Features

In the detailed map, users will be able to explore different cities in Canada. Neighborhoods, commercial districts, marinas, buildings, and other features can be seen in comprehensive detail on this 3D map.

Elevation details across a city, new road details, and custom-designed landmarks such as the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, and Robson Square in Vancouver are also all available to users through the Apple Maps application.

Driving directions were also updated, as was the case with the rest of the app. It is now possible to see clearly where turn lanes, medians, bus, and taxi lanes, crosswalks, and cycling directions are located.

Additionally, when approaching complex interchanges, Maps will display a road-level view, allowing users to see the upcoming exits with greater clarity.

Apple Maps in iOS 15

Apple's iOS 15 was launched in beta in June 2021 and was released for download by September last year. The release of iOS 15 brought with it the announcement that Apple Maps would be receiving a few new features, the most notable of which are unique 3D landmarks, a new 3D view, and several updates geared toward pedestrians.

Apple has begun rolling out the new features to select Canadian cities, as promised, and the rollout began on Thursday, March 24.

In addition to the improved augmented reality, a new feature called Guides has been added. As reported by Apple Insider, these are the curated guides that users can experience in a certain city allowing users to browse through more than two thousand expertly curated guides.

For example, Canada's well-known brands like Toronto Life and Narcity, as well as international sources like Lonely Planet, provide the content for the guides.

These newly improved Apple Maps features will also be experienced by Apple users in world-class cities around the world, including London, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Apple assured its users that privacy is the core of the company, hence, Apple Maps does not collect data from its users. There is no need to sign in to use Maps.

Furthermore, Apple stated that search terms, navigation routing, and traffic information are all associated with random identifiers that are reset on a regular basis in order to prevent the data collected by Maps from being associated with a specific user.

This prevents search and location data stored on the server from being associated with a specific user.