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Hidden 'City Tours' Flyover Feature for iOS 8 Maps Discovered in Beta 2

Thursday June 19, 2014 7:37 am PDT by Eric Slivka
One of the many new features coming in iOS 8 that Apple did not directly address during its Worldwide Developers Conference is "Flyover city tours". The feature is not currently available by default to those running iOS 8 betas, but developer Pierre Blazquez has discovered how to unlock Flyover city tours and partnered with Mac4Ever [Google Translate] to publish a video showing the feature in action for Paris.

At the moment, only the cities of Rome, Stockholm, Barcelona, ​​New York, Paris, Glasgow, Cape Town, Perth, Bordeaux and the San Francisco Bay are available. One imagines that the visit was carefully prepared manually, and the list is therefore extend gradually over time.
Apple's Maps app received significant criticism following the shift from a Google-powered app to an in-house version for iOS 6. But over the past two years Apple has continued to improve existing features and build out new ones to better compete with Google Maps. The Flyover feature showing 3D perspectives of buildings and physical features has been a particular emphasis for Apple, and the company has been working steadily to extend it to new areas of the world and improve the quality of its renderings.

Still, Apple's Maps team is said to be struggling with internal politics that have resulted in the departure of several key employees. While improvements such as transit information for Maps have been expected for iOS 8, the company mostly glossed over mapping issues with the exception of some new indoor mapping initiatives at WWDC. As a result, it is unclear just how many of the Maps improvements will make their appearance in time for the public launch and how many might be folded into later updates.

[ 57 comments ]

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FlyersPh9
70 months ago
It's nice and all, but I can't see myself using this more than once. And that one time use would be just to test it for the sake of testing it. Seems pretty worthless.
Rating: 13 Votes
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iLoveiTunes
70 months ago

is this iOS 8 or Google feature ?


It helps to read the article once in a while ;)
Rating: 10 Votes
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Jsameds
70 months ago
Spotted this during the keynote in the background when Craig Federighi mentioned the many features that they didn't have time to cover.

It's worth a glance over if you've not seen it already.

Rating: 6 Votes
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Corrode
70 months ago
Glad to see work is still being done on Maps despite rumors of staff issues. Would prefer to see the basics addressed though, rather than feature additions. (Accuracy in Canada, search functionality, landmark updates, transit, etc.)
Rating: 6 Votes
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MonkeySee....
70 months ago

very 'magical' feature alright.

what is the use of this feature again?


Education? Discovery?

or maybe giving people something to moan about? :rolleyes:
Rating: 5 Votes
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na1577
70 months ago
Seems like a silly thing for Apple to be using its resources on.
Rating: 5 Votes
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jlwarlow
70 months ago
This should be a low down feature request. There are plenty of things needing fixing in maps first before nice flyover features like this.
Rating: 5 Votes
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AstronomyiPhone
70 months ago
Great use of Flyover imagery: I hope this makes the final release.
Rating: 5 Votes
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JaySoul
70 months ago
This is like that "Friends" episode when Joey wants to climb Everest but its $60,000 so he wants to rent a film about Everest and then they end up renting Die Hard.
Rating: 4 Votes
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Mugambo
70 months ago
very 'magical' feature alright.

what is the use of this feature again?
Rating: 4 Votes

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