Apple to put vehicles in UK and Ireland streets for Maps application
11 Jun 2015
Apple, like Google, is putting out a fleet of vehicles in the UK and Ireland to photograph streets for its Maps application.
The news comes after speculation in February that Apple was working to take on Google's Street View service, after a car leased to Apple and covered in cameras was seen on the streets of San Francisco.
Apple's website has a page that details driving locations for the cars in the UK and Ireland, initially covering the period of 9-30 June.
''Apple is driving vehicles around the world to collect data, which will be used to improve Apple Maps. Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates,'' the site explains.
''We are committed to protecting your privacy while collecting this data. For example, we will blur faces and license plates on collected images prior to publication.''
The reference to faces and licence plates is taken as admission that Apple's vehicles would take photographs and not simply gather road data – which in turn signified work on a rival to Google Street View.
However, for now the vehicles would be moving around in London and Birmingham in the UK, and Dublin and Cork in Ireland. Apple had further confirmed that they would be operating in various US cities including districts in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and Dallas.
Meanwhile, according to commentators, a number of new features revealed at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Monday were quite familiar.
According to CNET's Iyaz Akhtar, Apple had had some catching up to do cbsnews.com reported. He said Android had a lot of cool features, Microsoft's Windows too had a lot of cool features, and to get iOS up to parity, they had to steal some ideas.
Apple Maps was not good from the start and Time Cook had even issued a public apology for its shortcomings back in 2012. Now, Maps was getting some of the stuff Google had had for a long time, like directions that included multiple forms of transportation and public transit information.
However, the addition of detailed schematics depicting entrances and exits to subway stations was cool and could be incredibly helpful in major cities like New York and Tokyo where some stations extend over blocks underground.
