New App Highlights Over 300 Custom-Designed 3D Landmarks in Apple Maps

Wednesday March 15, 2023 12:40 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol

Since the release of iOS 15 in 2021, Apple Maps has been rolling out a more detailed map with custom-designed landmarks in major cities around the world. The new "Detailed City Experience" is now available in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, and several other cities, with more to come.

Montréal-based developers André Baev and Simon Gardinier recently released a new Landmarks app with a collection of over 300 of these 3D landmarks, ranging from the Royal Opera House in London to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The app is available on the App Store for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV, and requires a device with an A12 chip or M1 chip and newer to properly display the 3D landmarks in full color and detail.

Each landmark has an immersive animated landscape that you can interact with, and there is a toggle for viewing them in Light or Dark mode. The landmarks are organized by city and the app will be regularly updated with new models as they become available. The app is free to use and has no ads, but there is an optional gyroscope feature that can be unlocked for as little as $0.29 for users who wish to support the developers.

Apple periodically updates a list of locations where the Detailed City Experience is available on its iOS feature availability page.

Baev also released a similar Preflights app that provides 3D map views of major airports, complete with essential information.

Tag: Apple Maps

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Top Rated Comments

jbc25

48 months ago

Why would you want to download a separate app to look at these, what's the point? Also, the way this post is written makes you think it's an Apple Maps feature.

Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

GeoStructural

48 months ago

I like the direction Apple Maps is taking; the graphics are gorgeous, the Look-around feature is vastly superior to Google's offering, and the 3D views are rich and realistic.

Apple Maps has sure come a long way, but it still has a lot to improve. One thing I would like them to improve is precision, Google still beats it on the best route, Apple Maps still sends me around my destination instead of straight there. Two other aspects are pinpoint managements and up-to-date maps and street names.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Macaholic868

48 months ago

Just had a fun “conversation” in the new Bing app about 80’s synth pop and where I can find playlists for modern songs made in that style. Then I used Siri to play the music through my HomePod. Meanwhile Apple’s hard at work adding custom details about cities I won’t be visiting anytime soon into their maps app and coming out with new emoji and watch bands.

WTF Apple? They should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time considering they basically have a license to print money at this point but I’m increasingly concerned they can’t. Siri is a joke and other companies have already done most of the heavy lifting required to vastly improve it if Apple would just pony up, pay the licensing fees and integrate it into their own SDK and API’s.

Apple should be both doing that and working on their own in-house AI style engine but shouldn’t leave their customers reliant on Microsoft or Google for a decent audio based smart assistant. It’s a bad look from Apple.

I fear their bum rush to get overly expensive VR equipment nobody will use out the door is outweighing smart practical moves like developing their own in-house next generation AI style engine or licensing what’s already out there to almost instantly improve Siri.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

MasterControlProgram

48 months ago

I’d have preferred if Apple had carried on doing the 3D cities they’ve done so far. While these new models are nice, they look more basic than the more detailed and textured models they’ve already done:

These old 3D models were animated too (e.g. the London Eye rotates). So I’m not sure why they’ve half finished one 3D map and started on another one. 🫤