SearchIf you have been following along — and I hope you have, if ONLY for the ridiculous contests I include at the bottom of each of these — I last covered some cool info on Inline Reactions coming in the new iOS 10 release this Fall. Now I want to turn your attention to some great (and much needed) improvements on the Apple Map scene.
Parking ain’t easy. OK, maybe it isn’t really that bad, but trying to find where you had parked after rushing to a venue to meet up with people when you are already 15 minutes late can make your hasty choice of parking spot hard to remember when you come back out and mentally back to normal speed and clarity. Just me? I didn’t think so. Well, the good news is that Apple has baked in a feature that will detect when you have stopped driving and begin to walk, remembering the location where you stopped driving. Great, right?
Your parked car shows up, literally, as a “Parked Car” pinpoint on the Apple Maps map and allows you to get walking directions back to it. Pretty great if you ask me. I clearly have issues remembering where I park (and not being rushed). Sure, there have been other apps you could use that would place a GPS “beacon” on where you park (or anything for that matter) and let you fumble your way back to it, but this is a great integrated feature that does something the others don’t: work without being asked. If I could remember to fire up an app to drop a beacon, I probably could just note my location in Notes to begin with. All these memories of zombie-walking while looking for my car is making me hungry. Speaking of which…
Let’s stop to eat. Or get gas. Or something else. Normally this means either pausing or stopping the turn-by-turn directions so as not to be informed of how bad your life decisions are and that you should proceed to the route. OK, perhaps the “life decisions” part is in my head, but you get the idea. With the Apple Maps update, you can inject a stop for many different essentials along your route so you don’t have to do complex triangulation and route planning in your head to ensure you aren’t backtracking just to get that crucial cup of coffee you’re craving.
This may not sound like a killer feature, but just wait until you are on your next road trip in an area you are unfamiliar with and then let me know what you think.
This weeks challenge is definitely self-serving, but should lead to a fun conclusion. Follow me on Twitter (@TheMattRay) and tweet out this blog post to be entered to win a random gift that I will ship to you. I promise it will be interesting and something to show your friends.
