Nearly 12 years after releasing Apple Maps on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Apple has launched a web version that works in most desktop browsers.
Currently in beta at beta.maps.apple.com, the Apple Maps website offers basic driving and walking directions, local business listings with tie-ins to sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, and a “Guides” feature with curated area recommendations. It’s a slick-looking site and a solid foundation for Apple to build upon.
Right now, though, it’s not much of a Google Maps competitor despite what many observers have been saying. Instead, it’s a skeleton of what Google offers on the web, and what Apple itself offers in the native Maps app. If Apple wants its Maps site to be a credible Google Maps alternative, it’ll need to add a bunch more features:
Bike and public transit directions
While both Google Maps and the Apple Maps app offer biking and public transit directions, the Apple Maps web app is limited to driving and walking. (Google Maps also offers a “Best travel modes” option that automatically chooses the most expedient way to travel.)
Multi-stop directions
The Apple Maps website only offers directions from one place to another. You can’t add multiple steps, like you can on Google Maps and on the Apple Maps app.
Street view
The Apple Maps equivalent to Google’s Street View is called “Look Around.” When you click the binoculars icon in select cities, it provides a 360-degree street level view of the surrounding area, and you can tap on any point to move to that location.
Look Around isn’t yet available on the Apple Maps website, but Apple says it’ll arrive “in the coming months.”
Home, work, and history sync
The Apple Maps website doesn’t have a sign in option, so you can’t connect an Apple account to sync your home, work, and other favorite locations. If you want to look up directions to or from those places, you’ll need to type in the address every time.
The Apple Maps website also has no way to remember the locations you’ve searched for over time. While the site does have “Recents” list for past searches, they disappear after you close the browser tab.
Save to phone
The Google Maps website has a handy “Send to phone” function that brings up a notification on your phone. Tapping the notification brings up the location in Google Maps so you can pull up turn-by-turn directions. The Apple Maps Mac app has a similar feature inside the Share button, but since you can’t sign in on the website, there’s no way to share maps directly with your other devices.
On-map gas prices
Tap on a gas station in Apple Maps, and you’ll see a “Pricing” button that links to an info page on the iExit website. The feature is available on both the Apple Maps app and website.
Google Maps does even better, though, listing gas prices directly on the map itself. That way you can compare the prices of every nearby station without any extra clicking.
Popular times
Another neat Google Maps feature is the ability to see how busy a restaurant or bar tends to be at certain times and days. Apple Maps offers nothing similar in its mobile or web versions.
Lists
On the Apple Maps app, the “Guides” feature lets you create your own lists of saved locations, which are helpful for planning a trip or making recommendations to others. Google Maps offers a similar “Lists” feature under its “Saved” tab.
While the Apple Maps website also offers a “Guides” section, it’s limited to public recommendations from others. You can’t create your own lists or look up the ones you’ve put together on other devices.
Search engine tie-ins
For a lot of folks, Google Maps is hard to ignore because of its integration with Google Search. When you look up a location on Google, you’ll info from Google Maps in the results, along with links to the Maps listing and directions.
Some alternative search engines already use Apple Maps’ data when you search for a location, including DuckDuckGo and Kagi, but they still use their own mapping interfaces, which are just as bare-bones as Apple’s. If Apple Maps’ web version does become a more credible alternative to Google Maps, it’d be neat if these search engines just integrated to Apple’s interface directly, so you could do things like get directions from home or switch to Look Around’s street-level views.
Long way to go
Apple’s announcement of the Maps web beta doesn’t say much about its motivations for expanding beyond the native app. Maybe the company has realized that many of its customers don’t use Apple products and still want an alternative to Google Maps on other devices, or perhaps the company sees an opportunity to grow its ad business. (Apple reportedly considered bringing ads to Maps in the past.)
Either way, Apple Maps’ web version will need to be a lot more robust to take on Google Maps—and its own native app—in earnest.
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