On January 19, 2021, Apple reduced the number of city labels shown on its U.S. maps.

A few examples:

These changes reduce clutter around major cities, making the map faster to scan.

However, it was surprising to see Apple remove city labels outside of large metropolitan areas. A good example of this is in the image below...

While it seems reasonable for Apple to have removed some of the labels around Sacramento at this zoom, such as Vacaville and Folsom, I wish Apple would’ve kept the labels for Elko, Pocatello, and Butte (all of which serve as control cities for the Interstate system).

Zooming in to Northern California, I was equally surprised to see Apple remove Paradise and Oroville:

It isn’t clear what Apple gained by removing these cities.

And in many rural areas, Apple shows far fewer city labels than Google—arguably making Apple’s map less useful than Google’s.

A few examples:

(Apple labels only two cities—Burlington and Rutland—for the whole state of Vermont at this zoom.)

UPDATE | January 28, 2021

On January 28, 2021, Apple increased the number of city labels shown on its U.S. maps.

To read more, click here.