Maps activates its detailed city experience in Boston and Munich ????

The detailed urban experience is one of the new features for Maps linked to iOS 15, with a representation in particular of the streets much more precise. Each lane is then faithfully represented, including the direction for cars and the types for pedestrian and cycle lanes. This is the most important information for more precise route tracking, even if the most spectacular is the representation in a realistic 3D of the most realistic buildings as well as the vegetation.

This work is still largely manual, which explains the very slow deployment of the novelty. Originally launched in seven cities, including six in the United States (Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area, Washington DC) and London, this detailed experience remains limited to a handful only big cities. So that any addition is still an event, like Boston which has just received this novelty.

Two buildings represented in realistic 3D, in the middle of all the others that remain on the basic cubic shapes. Also note the representation of trees which are normally correctly placed and of the right size, and especially more precise traffic lanes.

The most important are the traffic lanes which are perfectly represented in this 3D view, here near Fenway Park, Boston’s legendary stadium.

The city represented in 3D remains mainly made up of gray or beige squares, but Apple has taken care of the appearance of around fifteen significant places. It’s fairly small on the scale of a city the size of Boston, but more important is the improved lane representation throughout. Routes in Maps should improve for anyone who lives in or passes through the capital of Massachusetts.

In Europe, this in-depth experience has been offered in London from the start, as well as in Berlin. The additions have so far focused on the North American continent, with several Canadian cities (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver), although there is also this level of detail in Australia (Melbourne and Sydney). The new, more detailed maps of Plans are a prerequisite for this detailed urban experience, but they are not enough.

The manual process helps fine-tune the details and deliver spectacular views, especially at night when the camera’s dark mode is active.

Also, Apple can realistically draw 3D buildings in a city without providing a detailed urban experience. This is the case for example in Munich, where you can admire several monuments including the cathedral in realistic 3D, but where the streets are not yet detailed. If you want to find all the buildings represented in a realistic way around the world, an app lists them all:

Landmarks makes it easy to admire all the 3D buildings of Plans

Updated on 03/17/2023 09:29 : Munich does have a detailed city experience, too! As a reader pointed out to me, the streets are well detailed with information for each lane, bike lanes, etc. It wasn’t on my iPhone this morning, but it is now. On the other hand, only the cathedral seems represented in realistic 3D for the moment.

The detail of the streets in Munich (thanks Sébastien).