Apple Maps' NZ makeover includes natural language, AR walking, speed cam alerts

The new Apple Maps gets a high-rez, smooth-scrolling Look Around feature.

Apple is rolling out a made-over version of its Maps app for New Zealand. It should be available as an auto-update for your Apple device now, or at some point later today.

New features in the ground-up upgrade include on-screen augmented reality (AR) instructions for walking directions for Auckland and Wellington and natural language instructions designed to make it easier to follow driving directions.

It also includes speed limits onscreen and speed-camera warnings, real-time public transport info, and a new 3D, smooth-scrolling Look Around feature to preview tourist spots like the Wellington Waterfront Walk.

Searches for services are good, but not great with the Maps. Yesterday, a search for "petrol stations" near me - a common Car Play lookup - missed the new Costco station at Westgate. Costco appears today.

But a search for "EV chargers" still yielded thin results and did not include charging points that have gone in over the past couple of years at my local supermarket and mall (which do appear on Google Maps).

And Google Maps fans will note that product has had AR walking for some NZ locations since 2019.

Apple's new features are slickly implemented, and a core difference between the two companies remains that Google makes most of its money off ads - with all the tracking inherent to that model - while Apple gets its coin from selling hardware and software.

With Maps, Apple says it takes several steps to offer personalisation while retaining your anonymity.

With Maps, no sign-in is required. Personalised features, such as suggesting departure time to make the next appointment, are created using on-device intelligence, Apple says.

Any data collected by Maps while using the app, including search terms, navigation routing, and traffic information, is associated with random identifiers that regularly reset to prevent connecting search and location data stored on the server to a unique user.

Maps goes even further to obscure a user's location on Apple servers when searching for a location through a process called "fuzzing", Maps converts the precise location where the search originated to a less-exact one within 24 hours.

By contrast, Australia's Federal Court ruled in April last year that Google misled consumers into thinking they had disabled tracking on Android smartphones - by making opt-out a two-step process, with a second step that was not obvious.

Australian regulator the ACCC took action over Google's practices in 2019.

In mid-2020, Google changed its policy to automatically delete location history for new users after 18 months.

The tech giant said while the new policy did not apply to existing users, it would periodically send them a reminder.

The new 3D rendor around Te Papa

Then NZ Privacy Commissioner John Edwards gave Google dibs for extending its Incognito mode from its Chrome browser to Google Maps and other services, and the option to get location data deleted after three or 18 months or, auto-deleted, among other privacy protections (see a Google FAQ on the here). However, Edwards qualified that his favoured "privacy-by-design" approach would have made those features the defaults, not opt-in.

Using the new smooth-scrolling, high resolution Look Around feature in Napier.

On that front, Google Maps - along with all other apps in Apple's AppStore - has been required to ask users to opt-into activity tracking.

Google complained Apple had given its own apps a free pass.

A rep for Apple told the Herald: "Like all App Store guidelines, the new requirement for privacy information on the App Store applies equally to all iOS apps, including all Apple apps. [While] iOS apps that don't have dedicated product pages on the App Store will still have the new same privacy information available to users on our website."

New Apple Maps features

Key features in the upgrade, which works with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and CarPlay.

• What Apple bills as faster and more accurate navigation; comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, and shopping centres; and three-dimensional landmarks of locations like the Beehive and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

• As you drive, you see real-time traffic information, including current speed limits.

• Alerts when approaching speed and red-light cameras along a route, with the added ability to see where they are located on the map. (Note Apple is not pulling a sly one on the rozzers here. The Police have posted camera locations online, albeit in less user-friendly format). The option for crowdsourced reveals of speed checks (see below) is a bit more front-foot.

• Siri Natural Language Guidance offers more natural-sounding directions that are even easier to follow, such as "At the next traffic light, turn left" rather than "third turn on the left".

• Estimated time of arrival can be shared with family, friends, and coworkers with a tap or by asking Siri using Share ETA. The receiver can follow along on the journey, and Maps will update them with a revised estimate for when the traveller is arriving if a significant delay occurs.

• Users can now report an accident, hazard, or (whisper it) speed check along their route while keeping their eyes on the road by letting Siri know "There's an accident up ahead" or "There is something on the road." You can also update via Siri if a crash showing on your route has been cleared.

• The public transport option includes when the next train or bus is leaving for your destination, plus other data if available from local providers (for Auckland, I could see the same data as AT's app, such as how many minutes away a bus was, it's real-time position, and how full it was).

• The new Maps offers interactive street-level imagery with high resolution, 3D photography, and smooth and seamless transitions across New Zealand with Look Around for locations including Aoraki Mount Cook National Park and the Wellington Waterfront

Montage / Apple Insider

• With the latest updates, Maps introduces step-by-step walking guidance in augmented reality, available in Auckland and Wellington. Users can simply raise their iPhone to scan buildings in the area, and Maps generates a highly accurate position to deliver detailed directions that can be viewed in the context of the real world, Apple says

• Like its peers, Apple auto-blurs faces and licence plates. If you see something that's not blurred, or want your property be removed altogether, you can file a request here.