Apple rolls out maps for France and Monaco

July 8, 2022

NEWS

Apple rolls out all-new cards for France and Monaco

Maps offers more detailed road network coverage, better navigation, three-dimensional landmarks, and spectacular features like 360° View, natural language guidance, and more.

From today, users residing in France and Monaco have access to the new version of Apple Maps, which offers faster and more precise navigation, a more complete view of roads, buildings, parks and shopping centers , as well as three-dimensional landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Longchamp Palace in Marseille, the Monte-Carlo Casino in Monaco, and many more, to make planning your stays and vacations easier and more pleasant journeys.

“Apple Maps is the perfect app for exploring and traveling the world while protecting your personal data. We are excited to bring this experience to more users with this rollout in France and Monaco. Maps has had a complete overhaul and features improved navigation, a more detailed view, more accurate location information, and great Apple-specific features like 360 View, natural language guidance, and more. Users will find their points of interest more easily, and will be able to get there more easily,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services.

Maps helps millions of people in over 200 countries and regions travel and explore the world. Plans puts user privacy at the core, with personalized features using the device’s on-board intelligence, and goes wherever users need it: at home, at work, on the go iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, but also in the car with CarPlay. Maps works seamlessly with the most popular apps our customers use every day, like Photos, Messages, Calendar, Weather, and more. Plus, with MapKit and MapKit JS, Maps serves as the foundation for thousands of third-party apps and services.

A new browsing experience

In addition to the new map, Maps is getting a lot of features that will help users navigate and explore the world more easily. Siri’s natural language guidance gives more natural, and therefore easier to follow, directions, such as “turn left at the next traffic light.” Lane guidance reduces the risk of going in the wrong direction by telling the user which lane to be in before changing direction, taking an exit or entering a direct lane. Maps also provides real-time traffic information, including speed limits.

It is also possible for users to share their estimated time of arrival with family, friends and colleagues with a simple gesture or by asking Siri to use Arrival Time Sharing. Relatives can then follow the user’s journey, and receive an updated estimate in the event of a significant delay. In addition, it is now possible to report accidents and dangers on the road in a simple and safe way by telling Siri “there is an accident” or “there is something on the road”. Users will even be able to specify that an incident reported on the map has disappeared without ever taking their eyes off the road.

With iOS 15, people using public transport in France and Monaco can find their stop more easily and save the lines they take regularly. Maps automatically tracks the selected transport route and tells users where to get off. This information is also directly accessible on the Apple Watch.

Explore the world with 360° View

Maps offers an interactive high-resolution street view embellished with 3D photos allowing you to travel through France in a fluid and uninterrupted way thanks to the 360 View feature¹which allows users anywhere in the world to visit the cities of France from home.

Immersive pedestrian directions

Thanks to its latest updates, Maps offers augmented reality pedestrian routes on the streets of Lyon, Marseille, Nice and Paris, with step-by-step directions. Users simply raise their iPhone to scan the buildings in the area and Maps identifies their position very precisely and gives them detailed directions to continue their exploration as part of an on-site visit.

In addition to these updates, Maps offers many useful features:

Three-dimensional cities allows users to explore neighborhoods, shopping areas, marinas, buildings, and other points of interest in unprecedented detail. It is now possible to know the altitude levels of a city, the changes of street names, and to consult personalized points of interest in several cities of the world, among which London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Vancouver and Washington.
Favorites allows you to launch in a single gesture the navigation to the places that users frequent the most. Home, work, gym or school, just select a favorite destination from the home screen to activate navigation.
Flyover allows you to fly over the largest metropolises using a photorealistic and immersive 3D display. Users can move their device around them to experience a city from the sky, or explore streets and landmarks in zoom, pan, tilt, or rotate mode, all in high resolution.
Interior plans offers cards airports and shopping malls allowing users to know their floor, the location of restrooms and even open shops and restaurants.
Flight status leverages Siri’s in-vehicle intelligence to scan information stored in Mail, Calendar or Maps, and notifies passengers as to the departure terminal, boarding gate location and flight departure time, their also noting any changes and cancellations to their next flight.

Plans and Privacy

Apple is committed to protecting the personal information of its users and builds privacy into the very heart of Maps. The use of Maps does not require any registration. Personalized features such as suggested departure time to arrive on time at the next appointment only leverage the device’s on-board intelligence. All data collected by Maps when the app is used, including search terms, navigation and traffic information, is associated with regularly reset random identifiers to prevent anyone from linking the search data and location to a given user. Maps goes even further by hiding the location of users on Apple’s servers when searching for places using a technique called “fuzzing”. Maps replaces the exact location where the search was initiated with a more approximate location after 24 hours.