The latest iOS 14 beta 6 includes a new way for users to review places of interest and upload photos to Apple Maps that doesn't rely on third party integrations.
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First spotted by Twitter user BeauGiles and reported by 9to5Mac, the new user interface for places of interest in Maps no longer pulls reviews and photos from the likes of Foursquare, TripAdvisor, and Yelp. Instead, Apple is replacing these third-party services with its own native rating system.
Going forward, users who tap a marker for a place on the map that they have physically visited will be offered the ability to recommend a place using a thumbs up/thumbs down rating that can also distinguish between relevant categories, such as ratings for the quality of products and services in a shop, for example.
Meanwhile, a new "Add Photos to Maps" option in place cards also lets users upload pictures directly to Apple's Maps servers. As outlined in Apple's legal terms for the new feature, the option only appears to users older than 13 years of age and photos are reviewed by humans before appearing in Apple Maps.
Currently, the rating system is only visible on some places of interest in the latest iOS 14 beta, as Apple is clearly still in the initial stages of implementing the feature. In future, however, users shouldn't be redirected to third-party apps in the App Store whenever they want to submit a review or photo of a place of interest in Apple Maps.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)In aggregate, up or down is just as good as 5 star voting system, if you think about it.
This is the reason why I use Google Maps on my Mac 99.9% of the time. I’ll be looking up something and if I need to view its location for whatever reason, it’s so much simpler to open up a new tab with Google Maps.Apple Maps needs a free, public browser interface.
I keep forgetting Apple Maps exists on the Mac and I find the app to be kind of weird to use on a desktop.
I personally always found Yelp ratings to be far and away the most reliable, but someone made that mediocre documentary about them starring a bunch of bitter owners of underwhelming restaurants and everyone lost their minds. Kind of a big loss for me, but the internet seems to disagree. At least you won't have to open the yelp app to see photos now.
Maybe Apple will come up with an actually good rating system, but Google definitely hasn't so I'm not holding my breath. And a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with no opportunity to type anything is already a really bad sign.