On February 19, 2020, Apple released “Look Around” imagery for three new areas (Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington), bringing the total number of Look Around areas to nine:

Together, these nine areas cover 0.2% of the U.S.’s land area—which is roughly the same size, in terms of land area, as the State of New Jersey:

But it’s quite a different story in terms of population. While Look Around covers just 0.2% of the U.S.’s land area, it covers more than 12% of the U.S.’s population:

Put another way, Look Around already covers a population larger than the U.S.’s most populous state (California):

So why is there such a difference between land area and population covered?

It’s largely because Apple seems to be targeting the most populated parts of the U.S.

Notice that seven of the nine areas that Apple has released are among the ten largest U.S. urban regions:¹

The only exceptions are Las Vegas and Honolulu. While these two areas also have high populations, they’re not nearly as populous as Apple’s other Look Around areas—ranking just #31 and #62, respectively, in terms of U.S. urban region populations:

But while Las Vegas and Honolulu have relatively fewer residents than Apple’s other Look Around areas, it’s quite a different story in terms of tourists and visitors. Here, Las Vegas and Honolulu rank #6th and #7th:

So even though Las Vegas and Honolulu have smaller resident populations than Apple’s other Look Around areas, there’s still a high number of people (and a high number of iPhone users) in these areas at a given time. (And Apple likely sees this via its probe data.)

Notice that the Bay Area also ranks highly in terms of visitors:

Undoubtedly, one of the reasons why Las Vegas, Honolulu, and the Bay Area are such popular destinations is on account of their year-round, good weather.

And to that end, FiveThirtyEight found that each of these areas has some of the U.S.’s most consistent weather—with Honolulu, in particular, ranking #1:

Consistent weather patterns would seem ideal for developing and testing an outdoor image collection process...

...so it’s probably not coincidental that Las Vegas, Honolulu, and the Bay Area were the first Look Around areas released by Apple, back in September 2019:²

But even more ideal than consistent weather is consistent, sunny weather. And according to NOAA, Las Vegas and Honolulu are among America’s sunniest cities (with Las Vegas ranking #1):

And though the Bay Area isn’t quite in the Top 10 (thanks, Karl), it’s also among the sunniest parts of the U.S.:

Now what makes this all so interesting is that if we look at how Apple’s imagery collection vehicles first expanded across the U.S., we see that Apple targeted high population areas, like the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and California...

...but we also see that Apple seems to have targeted the sunniest parts of the U.S.:

And this gives us clues as to which areas Apple might release next...

In October 2018, Dante Cesa photographed a man who appeared to be collecting imagery for Apple Maps in Downtown San Francisco:

The photo was widely shared on social media and led to speculation that Apple had begun collecting imagery on foot.

A month later, Apple confirmed on its website that it was collecting pedestrian imagery in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. And then two months later, Apple stated that it was also collecting pedestrian imagery in Honolulu, Las Vegas, and San Diego:

So when Apple first announced Look Around five months later at WWDC—with Honolulu, Las Vegas, and the Bay Area as the first locations—it seemed as if Apple’s list of collection areas was hinting at Los Angeles and San Diego as the next Look Around areas:

But this was only half right: instead of releasing Los Angeles and San Diego next, Apple released Los Angeles and New York:

And though Los Angeles and New York were released in September—Apple didn’t start collecting pedestrian imagery in New York until the next month (October):

The same thing happened when Apple released its next Look Around area, Houston:

Even though Houston was released in November, Apple wouldn’t start collecting pedestrian imagery there until February:

So it seems that Apple’s list of pedestrian collection areas isn’t entirely reliable at signalling future Look Around areas because Apple has released Look Around for areas that it hasn’t yet collected pedestrian imagery in.³

Then again, this has only happened for two of the nine areas that Apple has released so far:

So even though it isn’t 100% reliable, Apple’s list of pedestrian imagery collection areas is likely the best signal we have for forecasting Apple’s next Look Around areas.

Given this, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Austin, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Miami, New Orleans, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Seattle, and/or Tampa Bay seem likeliest to be next:

But as we saw with New York and Houston, there’s also a chance that Apple’s next Look Around areas aren’t yet listed on its pedestrian collection page.

We saw earlier that Apple seems to be prioritizing areas with high populations, high numbers of visitors, and consistent, sunny weather.

Given these factors, El Paso, Fresno, Orlando, Sacramento, San Antonio, and/or Tucson also have a higher likelihood of being next.⁴

One of the things that makes Apple’s Look Around imagery so interesting is the kind of features that can be built out of it. Google, for instance, uses Street View imagery to help power its AR navigation feature (“Live View”):

And Street View imagery is so important to Google’s AR implementation that Live View isn’t available in areas without it:

If Apple eventually adds AR navigation to Apple Maps, it’s likely that Apple’s implementation will also be dependent on street-level imagery. In other words, Apple’s Look Around areas will likely be the first areas that Apple’s AR navigation feature will be available in:

Given that AR navigation’s primary use case is walking directions, it makes sense that Apple seems to be prioritizing imagery collection in some of the densest, most visited, and sunniest/warmest parts of the U.S. (i.e., areas where walking is more common year-round).

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1  Given that the current U.S. government “metropolitan” and “urban area” definitions break the San Francisco Bay Area into multiple areas, I’ve instead opted to use the U.S. government’s “primary statisical area” definitions, which I refer to as “U.S. Urban Regions”. ↩︎

2  This also helps explain why Hawaii was the first U.S. state completed by Apple’s data collection vehicles. ↩︎

3  Something else that might be going on here is that Apple actually did collect pedestrian imagery in New York and Houston before releasing them—but that Apple’s pedestrian image collection page wasn’t updated to reflect this.

The reason I mention this is because Apple seems to be missing other entries on its “Image Collection” page. For example, Apple Maps’s iOS apps indicate that Apple’s Look Around imagery of New York City was captured in “September 2019”:

And this seems accurate because September 2019 is when Apple first added a rainbow-like coating to the glass cube of its Fifth Avenue Store:

But if you look at Apple’s “Image Collection” page, there’s no record of Apple visiting New York in September 2019. So this suggests that Apple’s “Image Collection” page is missing data from around this time. ↩︎

4  Thus far, Apple has only shipped Look Around for areas where its new map was already live. So given this, we’ll assume that Apple’s next Look Around areas will be in the U.S. ↩︎