Have you had an iPhone long enough to remember the days where Apple Maps used to direct people
into the sea?
If yes, you’ll be pleased to know in the 10 years since Maps launched, Apple Maps has
come a long way, in fact it’s good enough nowadays that for me, it’s my preferred
map service.
But, like many of the iPhone stock apps these days, it’s gotten more complex as time has
gone by, so in this video, I’m going to cover 8 tips for getting the most out of it,
to ensure you can get to exactly where you need to every time, with the minimum amount
of fuss.
Do stick around to the end of the video, I’ll be throwing in a bonus tip that I think is
also really useful.
OK, let’s get into it.
Set your preferences
It might seem a bit odd to include something as vanilla as preferences as the first tip,
but it will genuinely make your entire app experience better if you do this, and many
people have no idea where to go to do this.
On the map, right next to ‘Search Maps’, you should be able to see your iCloud Icon.
Tap on that, and you’ve got a few different options to choose from.
The one we’re interested in is Preferences, so tap on that.
You can then set various preferences, to make the app more suited to your preferred way
of getting about.
For example, if you live in a more rural area, you’re probably going to have driving set
as your preferred method of directions.
If you live in a city, you might have public transport or cycling.
You can obviously override this when you’re choosing a route, it just allows the app to
know a little bit more about you when creating routes for you.
When driving, you can have Maps prefer routes without tolls or motorways by default if you
wish, and when cycling, you can have it avoid hills and busy roads, with the latter obviously
being helpful from a safety perspective.
You can toggle on or off additional transport methods, like bus, underground rail and ferry,
and you can choose to have your distance shown in miles or km.
Like I said at the beginning of this video, it might seem odd including setting your preferences
as a tip, but it takes 5 minutes to do and it’s honestly worth it, it will save you
a lot of time and fuss each time you look to navigate somewhere.
Add Table Booking and Ride Sharing extensions
If you use services like Uber and Yelp, you can now add these into Maps as extensions,
in a similar way to browser extensions in something like Safari.
Quite simply, they allow for a more natural integration with Maps.
For example, if you add in Uber, when you plot a map, so long as Uber is operating in
that area, a ride share option will show alongside the usual walking, cycling, car and public
transport options, and if you tap on it, you’ll be bounced right into the Uber app with the
route that you’ve chosen already input, saving you having to do it all again.
For table booking apps, Maps adds a Reserve button right next to the directions button.
To do this, first up, install the required app.
Uber works for ride share at present, and Yelp works for table reservations, although
there’s a good chance that more will either be available when you’re watching this video,
or will be made available in the near future.
Then, head into Maps, tap on your Apple ID, tap on Preferences, then scroll down to Maps
Settings, which will take you into the Maps section of the Settings menu.
Scroll down to where it says Extensions, and if you’ve got applicable Ride Share and
Table Booking apps installed, you’ll have the option to enable them at this point.
Add stops onto your journey
Planning a journey in Maps is easy, but in case you’re unsure of how to do it, you
choose a location, you tap on the big blue directions button, and you can either stick
with the default ‘My location’ as your starting point, or you can input a different
location if you’re planning a journey.
Tap Go, and the journey will begin, complete with your turn by turn navigation.
If you tap on this arrow, you can then choose ‘Add a Stop’.
Tapping here lets you choose from a number of options, things like petrol, coffee, parking,
a corner shop, a bank, or even food, which is contextual which I think is quite cool,
so it will say ‘Dinner’ in the evening, or ‘lunch’ late morning.
It will then look for matching options all the way along your route, so you can scroll
along and try and figure out where you might want to stop.
I’m not sure what the requirements are, but I’ve noticed that it will only choose
places which are really close to your route, which is obviously super helpful.
Maps will show you how much time each detour is going to add to your journey, and then
once you’re done and back in the car, the app will get you up and running and back on
your original route.
Create Guides, share with others
You can Favourite something on Apple Maps, and doing so makes it easy to get back to
that location in the future, you do this by simply selecting something on the map, and
then choosing Add To Favourites.
Great if you’ve got a particular restaurant or something that you know you might often
need to get directions to for example.
But the Favourites section of your Maps app is likely to get pretty cluttered pretty quickly,
not to mention you’re storing everything for every location in one place.
A much better way to manage this would be to create a Guide.
To do that, from the main Maps menu, tap on your User ID and then tap on Guides.
Down at the bottom right, tap the plus button to create a new one.
You can give it a name and assign it a photo if you wish.
Then, you can begin adding items to it.
That’s it, that’s essentially how Guides work, they’re like Bookmarks for Maps.
But what I like about them, is that once created you can share them with other people.
So if you’re planning a family trip away somewhere, you could create a guide for that
trip, or for a location that makes up part of that trip, and then share the guide with
the other members of your group.
One feature that’s sadly missing from this right now is the ability to collaborate on
a Guide, once you share it, it’s read only for the people you share it with, but I’m
really hopeful that we might see that feature coming in the next big iOS update, it’s
available on so many other areas of iOS that Apple must have thought of it, and Guides
is an area where it would make sense to allow people to collaborate.
And just to finish up the tip related to Guides, not only can you create your own, you can
also view curated guides chosen by Apple.
Now like most Maps related features, this is currently available in the major cities,
and then I’d assume it will begin to roll out to smaller cities and towns in the future,
but if you’re travelling, this can be super helpful.
If I check out London for example, and then scroll down, you can see the guides section
here.
I’ll click into one, and then not only can I save the Guide to my Guides for easy future
access, but I can share it with someone else, and as I scroll down the list, if there’s
somewhere I like the look of I can tap on the name of it to view it’s Place Card,
or I can tap the Plus Button to add it to one of my own guides.
The depth and breadth of these guides varies by city, but we’ve got a West Coast of America
trip coming up, and when I looked at San Francisco for example, it wasn’t just food and drink,
there were guides about walking tours, public artwork, volunteering, running trails, the
scope here is of course unlimited, so it’s worth making Guides a regular part of your
Maps experience.
Rich Information Cards
Information or place Cards are really, really good in Apple Maps these days.
Again like everything Maps related, expect that the richest information is going to begin
with the cities, but will filter out to other places in time.
Let’s check out a place, Flight Club in London, it’s a Social Darts venue, this
isn’t a sponsored mention or anything like that, I just went here recently and thought
it was excellent.
So, aside from the Directions button, at a glance I can see the current opening situation
for them, in the Good to Know section I can see that they’re Wheelchair Accessible and
have outside seating, and the distance from where I am right now.
If I scroll further down, I can see photos, and I can call them, visit the website, add
to a guide or share the place, all from the information card.
I can add my own Photos, and rate them.
Some places will allow you to rate various aspects of the place, like the food, the drink,
the atmosphere, but at the very least you can give them an overall thumbs up and thumbs
down.
Apple claim that this is to help other users make a decision about whether to try somewhere,
I’d guess that this might also begin to shape your own recommendations from Maps in
the future, but we’ll see.
You can then see the full opening hours, you can see lots of Trip Advisor information,
and then a full Good to Know section, showing me that you can pay with Apple Pay, that they
take reservations, they’ve got a full bar, lots of useful stuff.
You’ve then got full details down at the bottom, including a direct phone number and
website link, as well as their address.
Also, one thing I’m mentioning here, I wanted to include this in it’s own mention, but
it’s really not well established enough just yet, is Look Around.
If I tap out to view this on the map, notice this view here with the binoculars, that means
that Look Around is available for this area.
Tapping on that will give me Apple’s version of Street View, and yes I’m probably a little
biased as an Apple fan, but I think that where Look Around is available, it’s superior
to Street View significantly.
The issue is that it’s still super limited, here in the UK for example, it’s available
in London and Edinburgh only, but we have to assume that like Street View, it will be
rolled out everywhere, hopefully very soon.
Report accidents, hazards and speed checks
The Maps app has seen some huge improvements to the driving experience recently, with it
taking on many of the benefits of more community based mapping apps like Waze.
For example, you can now get alerted to speed checks, accidents and other hazards, and the
app can of course then divert you off onto a different route if one is available.
Just so that you’re aware, when you’re using Maps as a driving aid, either on your
phone or via CarPlay, look for this option, where you can choose to either have turn by
turn audio, the top option, no audio whatsoever, the bottom one, or important alerts audio
only, the middle one.
This is what I tend to choose, and it basically means that for turn by turn navigation, you’ll
have to look at your screen, but if anything urgent happens, like a speed camera or a crash,
your device will audibly alert you to it.
The speed camera function in particular is great, your device will estimate your current
speed, and advise you to slow down if you need to.
Much like Waze, you can add to this experience for other users if you wish by reporting incidents
as you’re driving, and you should only be doing so safely of course.
Whilst on a route, you can tap the up arrow, and choose report an incident, either a crash,
a hazard or a speed check.
You can also share your ETA with other people here, and those people will get alerted of
your current ETA, plus any significant changes to it en route, if you suddenly get stuck
in major traffic for example.
Drop a pin for quick return
You might already know this tip, but I think it’s a vital one, so I’m including it
anyway.
Let’s say you’ve been dropped off on public transport, and you know that you need to return
to that same point later to get back on the public transport.
Rather than mess around trying to find it on your map later, simply drop a pin.
You do this by long-holding on the map at the location that you’re currently at until
a pin drops.
You can then add this to your favourites if you wish, which I’d be tempted to do, and
then remove it later on.
This way, when you’re ready to return to the public transport location, just locate
the pin in your favourites, and tap the directions button, and Maps will guide you right there.
You can also share a pin, so you could use this to share your address with visitors for
example, rather than just sending your address, you could share an Apple Maps pin with friends
and if they use Maps, they’ll be able to easily navigate to you.
Also, if you use CarPlay, I’ve noticed that Maps will often do this for you automatically
when it knows that you’ve parked your car.
It will usually drop a pin called ‘Parked car’, so if you’ve been out for the day
and you’re struggling to find your way back to the carpark, if you drove in with CarPlay
on, try checking Maps to see if it’s pinned the car for you.
Advanced Search
An area where Maps is getting better and better is with the information it knows about local
businesses, and with that comes some advanced search features.
Let me show you.
Let’s say for example, that we’re staying at this hotel, and we want to know where to
go for dinner in the local area.
Find the hotel first by visiting it’s Information Card, then tap the Cross to come out of the
information card.
Notice that you can search Maps.
Tapping into that will give you a regular search option, but you can also scroll down
to this Find Nearby option, to view loads of preset options.
Let’s choose Restaurants.
You can filter by cuisine if you know what you fancy, and you can sort by either best
match or the closest to where you are.
You can then tap on an individual location to view their information card, and you can
of course then do all of the cool stuff that we mentioned in the previous tip about info
cards.
Bonus Tip
So, my bonus tip is cheating a little, as this is something that you integrate with
Apple Maps, rather than something that’s baked into Apple Maps, although I wouldn’t
be surprised if that changed in the near future, and that’s to use a service called What3Words.
This isn’t a sponsored mention by the way, I just really believe in the service and use
it often.
Essentially, the team at What3Words have divided the planet up into 3 metre squares, and each
square has an address assigned to it, made up of 3 words.
To find out yours, either download the app and so long as your location services are
working effectively, you can stand in the location and find it that way, or use the
map with overlaying satellite imagery to find the square.
Then, all you need to do is share the 3 words with someone searching for your address.
What’s nice is that you can pinpoint pretty much right to your driveway or front door
with this, so if you’re looking for a city location for example, knowing their What3words
can be super helpful.
Loads of delivery companies are beginning to integrate this now.
To use this with Maps, open the What3Words app first, and search for the location in
there.
Then tap on Navigate, and choose Apple Maps from the available options.
The app will pass all the information over to Maps, and you can then navigate as usual.
End
So there you go, 8 ways to get more out of Maps on your iPhone.
We should be seeing even more improvements to Maps with the upcoming iOS 16, which Apple
should unveil at WWDC in early June.
What about you, what improvements or changes would you like to see?
Or, are you not sold on Maps?
If not, how come?
Drop me a comment, and let’s talk about it.
And as ever, if you found this video useful, do please consider leaving me a like, and
subscribing to my channel for more content like this in the future.
See you on the next video.