Tag: Maps

In his latest "Power On" column, Bloomberg News reporter Mark Gurman points out that Apple's plans to expand its iOS advertising business are "making progress," and the next target is likely to be the built-in Apple Maps app, with related advertising integration possibly appearing as early as next year. Gurman notes that this plan will allow restaurants or other businesses to pay for more prominent placement of their information in map search results. This model is said to be similar to "Search Ads" in the App Store, where developers can pay to have their apps appear at the top of relevant search results. Google already offers a similar service in its Google Maps, allowing businesses to pay to promote their restaurants and increase search visibility, becoming part of Google's advertising revenue. The report also mentions that Apple's strategy will reportedly utilize AI technology to ensure relevant and useful advertising results, and hopes to offer a better interface presentation than similar advertising programs from competitors like Google Maps. However, Mark Gurman also warned that this move undoubtedly carries the risk of triggering a backlash from some consumers. After all, the core of map services is to provide objective and accurate geographical information, and excessive commercialization or advertising could negatively impact the user experience. With App Store ads already causing some controversy, if Apple does extend advertising to Apple Maps, it will inevitably face another test of how it balances revenue growth and user experience.

In a public statement, Apple said it will use imagery data from its Look Around street view service to train additional generative AI models. Apple stated that it will leverage this imagery to develop and improve its products and services, including training AI models for Apple services. The imagery used to create Look Around street view content undergoes further de-identification processing, such as blurring door numbers, license plates, or faces, to protect personal privacy. Therefore, even if used for training other AI models, there should be little to no privacy concerns. To inform more people about when Apple plans to collect and update image data for its Maps service, Apple has provided a list of dates for road image collection in its statement. For example, from November 25, 2024 to February 28, 2025, Apple has already collected road images from sub-administrative regions including Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan City, Taichung City, Changhua County, Kaohsiung City, and Tainan City using pedestrian-carried cameras. Before July 31, 2025, Apple plans to collect road images from sub-administrative regions including Taipei City, New Taipei City, Keelung City, Taoyuan City, Hsinchu City, and even Hualien County and Taitung County using vehicles. However, Apple currently only seems to mention using the collected road images for training artificial intelligence models in its statements within the United States. Statements regarding Taiwan primarily state that the collected images will be used to improve Maps services, and emphasize that it will protect the privacy and security of faces, house numbers, and license plates appearing in the images. Similarly, Google collects image data for its Maps service to train artificial intelligence models, and emphasizes removing identifiable personal data from Street View content to avoid privacy and security issues.

Apple recently added an app called "Map Surveyor" to the App Store, allowing users to help collect street signs and surrounding scenery to improve the accuracy of Apple Maps. However, this app is not available to the general public; it's designed for Apple's partner companies and uses the Premise service to assign shooting tasks. Users receive payment for completing the assigned tasks. After opening the app and being assigned a task through Premise, users are required to place their iPhone on a stand and shoot in landscape mode. The "Map Surveyor" app automatically captures road signs, traffic lights, and surrounding scenery. The results are then sent back to Apple for further processing, including map data annotation, to ensure higher accuracy in future Apple Maps updates.

In addition to bringing its Maps service to the web platform, Apple recently announced the launch of a web version of its Podcasts service, available in over 170 countries and regions worldwide through major web browsers. Apple's web-based Podcasts service is accessible through Safari, as well as web browsers including Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox. Functionally, it's identical to the app version, primarily allowing more users to easily access and listen to various podcasts across different devices. While Apple's Podcasts service previously offered web links, the overall experience was relatively cumbersome. This web version aims to reduce user hassle and increase the chances of listening to more podcasts. Besides Podcasts, Apple has also previously brought Maps, Apple Music, and iCloud to the web platform, allowing users to access these services through major browsers and use them across devices, rather than being limited to Apple devices.

Update: Users can now access Apple's web-based Maps service using the Firefox browser. Apple has been promoting its Maps feature on its devices for some time, and is now testing a web-based version. Currently, it only offers an English interface and can be accessed through Safari and Chrome browsers. Using browsers other than Safari or Chromium-based browsers like Firefox will display a browser incompatibility message. Since Chrome is supported, browsers based on the Chromium architecture, including the new version of Microsoft Edge, can also access the web-based Apple Maps service. The web-based Apple Maps still offers location search, attraction guides, and navigation. A "Look Around" feature is planned for the future, allowing users to directly view street views in various locations through their browser. By launching a web version, Apple clearly aims to further expand the reach of its Maps service, allowing more people to access the web-based Apple Maps service directly through their device's browser. It also aims to integrate with more applications and services, creating more business models and user experiences, while competing with Google Maps in the app market. In addition to the web-based Maps service, Apple has previously launched a web-based Apple Music service and allows users to access iCloud content via a web browser.

Google announced the release of three APIs for its Google Maps service, allowing businesses and developers to easily access data on solar energy, air quality, and pollen distribution in various locations. This will enable more applications and services to generate higher commercial revenue through this real-time information. The solar energy data API originates from Google's Project Sunroof, launched in 2015, which allowed users to assess the actual benefits of installing solar panels using Google Maps data. Currently, this data is provided to businesses and developers via the Solar API. Tokyo Electric Power Company and Mona Lee Solar are among the companies partnering with Google on this API, and Google expects to attract more collaboration opportunities with companies involved in solar energy applications through this API. According to related documents, Google estimates that Solar API access licenses will generate between $9000 million and $1 million in revenue in the first year. The Solar API will also be integrated with more Google Cloud sustainability-related services in the future. Another API provides real-time air quality data, and another API presents pollen dispersal data. These APIs use heatmaps to show air quality in different locations and pollen spread paths, making it easier for more related applications to access this data. This data can also help uncover new market opportunities, such as using air quality changes to determine crowd density or pollen spread patterns to assess environmental changes. Google has previously licensed its Google Maps API to businesses, including Uber, allowing them to build various applications using its map data, making it a significant revenue source for Google Cloud. The announcement of these three new APIs, combined with previously released data and revenue from advertising and other services on Google Maps, is expected to generate even greater revenue for Google.

Microsoft, AWS, Meta, and Dutch mapping company Tomtom announced the formation of the Overture Maps Foundation to further promote the sharing, interoperability, and reuse of electronic map data, thereby enhancing the diversity and accuracy of map application services. The absence of Google and Apple from the foundation is clearly a move to counter the development of Google Maps and Apple Maps by these two tech giants, aiming to create shared map data and thus promote richer map application services. Among the Overture Maps Foundation members, Microsoft's map data originates from HERE, formerly owned by Nokia, which it acquired for $72 billion in 2013. Amazon launched its map and location service, Amazon Location, in 2020. Tomtom, which provides its own map navigation services, has been continuously accumulating its own map data and offering it to others. The Overture Maps Foundation will be managed by the Linux Foundation and will be open to more companies to join, thereby making the collaborative map data more complete and accurate, and incorporating more location-based data to allow for greater diversity in map application services. Because most map providers lack sufficient resources to build their own map data, they mostly rely on collaborations with external providers or can only improve map data for specific areas. This leads many to favor partnerships with Google, resulting in a large number of map-based applications depending on Google Maps. Apple, on the other hand, has established a massive iOS marketplace, giving it sufficient reason and resources to develop its own Apple Maps map data and allow more third-party apps to use it through API integration, thus holding a significant market share. Therefore, the Overture Maps Foundation was formed partly to prevent Google and Apple from monopolizing the map data market. It aims to create a large-scale map application to compete with them, while also ensuring the integrity, consistency, and accuracy of map data used by various services, and further promoting the development of larger-scale map service applications.

Apple announced that, starting today, it will add real-time public transportation information to its Maps feature in Taiwan, allowing users to check departure times for buses, trains, and other modes of transportation when planning their trips. According to Apple, the addition to departure times for public transportation services in Taiwan will also display information such as service cancellations and additional services during the search process, providing users with more detailed information when planning their journeys. While some features are updated slightly later than those of the longer-established Google Maps, Apple has continuously improved its Maps functionality in recent years, expanding the service to over 200 countries and regions worldwide. It supports iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and CarPlay in vehicles, and continues to add new features with an intuitive user experience. It also integrates with Apple's Photos, Messages, Calendar, Weather, and other apps. Currently, some map features are only available in specific countries and regions. For example, the real-time public transportation information feature launched in Taiwan is currently only available in 24 countries and regions worldwide, while the turn-around navigation feature is currently only available in 80 countries and regions worldwide. The bicycle navigation feature added to the map feature this year is temporarily only available in China, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Apple is also adding various fun features to the map feature, such as curated or user-created city attraction guides, and the ability to explore various cities in the United States and Japan in 3D visualization. It is also planned to add a surround view feature that supports more cities and locations, as well as features such as sharing estimated arrival time at a specified location, aerial views, and indoor maps, allowing users to use the map feature in an intuitive way.

Following a series of recent updates to Google Maps, Google has once again improved the service's interface, making it easier for users to distinguish terrain details such as lakes, beaches, and forests on maps. Previously, users had to switch to satellite mode to clearly see these details on Google Maps, which might not be clearly displayed in normal map mode. Therefore, in this update, Google uses color coding to differentiate some map details, allowing users to clearly distinguish forests from deserts even in normal map mode. Lakes, rivers, and canyons are also distinguished by different colors, and even forests are shown with color gradations to indicate density. According to Google, this update is primarily based on existing satellite map data and uses image analysis to convert different terrain features into different colors for marking. Even with the addition of many colored blocks in Google Maps, Google emphasizes that it will not affect the existing smoothness of use. This update also provides more detailed street information, allowing users to see the locations of sidewalks, intersections, and even traffic islands, and clearly marking the locations of facilities such as accessible entrances and exits. This update is expected to be rolled out first to the London, New York, and San Francisco areas in the coming months, and is expected to be rolled out to more than 220 countries and regions worldwide in the future.

Due to the impact of the US government's export ban, Huawei is currently unable to obtain authorization for Google's GMS services. Therefore, it can only continue to promote its own HMS services. Regarding map services in overseas regions, it recently confirmed a partnership with Dutch navigation and digital mapping provider TomTom to provide map data for Huawei phones sold globally. According to TomTom, an agreement has been reached with Huawei to provide its map data and related application services to Huawei phones, which is expected to help improve the map functionality experience of Huawei phones in overseas markets. Affected by the US government's export ban, Huawei phones sold in global markets outside of China cannot obtain authorization for Google's GMS services. This means they cannot use services including Google Play, and Google Maps is also unavailable. Therefore, Huawei has had to seek alternative partnerships to ensure that most application services can still be used normally on phones sold overseas. With this partnership with TomTom, Huawei expects to be able to use TomTom's map services, including map data, traffic information, and navigation applications, on phones sold overseas. Within China, however, it will primarily use Gaode Maps.