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first published week of: 03/02/2015
For a long time, Apple Maps was a laughing stock. Then it started getting better. Apple ironed out the glitches, began updating Apple Maps every day, and introduced Flyover, which gave you a 3-D view of major cities as they would look from the sky.
Now it’s taken that technology one step further in an effort to win the mapping war versus Google: Apple Maps is going real-time.
Thanks to a new update, London’s Big Ben clock tower will now show the real time, while the iconic London Eye will rotate. Those are the only real-time updates we’ve spotted so far, but Apple is reportedly looking to add more moving elements to cities over the following year.
Of course, in a real sense, Apple Maps isn’t real-time in the true sense of the word. What it has done is to cleverly map on (no pun intended) moving, animated elements onto the static images used by Flyover’s wireframes. This is something Apple hinted at in its original patent for the Flyover 3-D camera, but which we’ve not had the pleasure of seeing up until now. continued…