Apples New Maps May Come To Macs Hints iOS 6 Coding

If you haven’t already heard, Apple has given Google Maps the boot from iOS. Starting with iOS 6 the maps application will be dubbed “Maps,” created entirely by Apple with the help of a few acquired companies. This new system features turn by turn navigation, Yelp integration, traffic, 3D Flyover, and much more.

Apple he released a total of two beta’s, and I am not entirely impressed. The turn-by-turn navigation is great, but it doesn’t voice aloud the directions. Yelp has had to be my favorite feature of Maps. Its very useful, from telling me a stores hours, various reviews, and more. I have found the traffic and 3D Flyover functions to be very limited in whats shown.

In great news, the Maps application may actually be coming to the Mac operating system, says Cody Cooper. He has found a code dump in the iOS 6 maps application hinting that Mac OS may also receive the Maps app in the near future.

Cody was just looking through the codes of the new iOS 6 Maps application and found some interesting information inside the altitude_manifest.xml file:

After digging deeper into the XML file, Cody found some references to an Intel based graphics chipset. Specific features such as shading were disabled. He goes on to explain that older chipsets fail to support shading well. Its that reason Apple would disable this feature on Macs.

He notes that this confirms Apples Maps will be coming to a future version of Mac OS. Both Macbooks and iMacs will support the maps well. No notes included the Macbook Air.

[via techpp]