June 29, 2023 Marks Five Years Since Apple Announced it was Building Its Own Map
June 2023
It has now been five years since Apple first announced (via TechCrunch) that it was building its own map.
Apple started testing the first new map areas (Northern California) on July 3, 2018. Five years later, Apple’s new map has been expanded nineteen times:
As of the most recent expansion (Expansion #19), Apple’s proprietary, in-house map data now covers 922 million people across thirty-three countries. This amounts to 20.2% of Earth’s land area and 11.6% of the global population:
“APPLE‘S NEW MAP” EXPANSIONS
“Expansion #1: Hawaii” 2018
“Expansion #2: Southern California” 2019
“Expansion #3: Southwest U.S.” 2019
“Expansion #4: Texas & the Gulf Coast” 2019
“Expansion #5: Northeast U.S.” 2019
“Expansion #6: Midwest + Western U.S.” 2019
“Expansion #7: Final Parts of the Continental U.S.” 2020
“Expansion #8: Puerto Rico, Guam, & the U.S. Virgin Islands” 2020
“Expansion #9: Ireland & the United Kingdom” 2020
“Expansion #10: Canada” 2020
“Expansion #11: Spain & Portugal” 2021
“Expansion #12: Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, & Andorra” 2021
“Expansion #13: Australia” 2021
“Expansion #14: Germany & Singapore” 2022
“Expansion #15: France, Monaco, & New Zealand” 2022
“Expansion #16: Benelux, Central Alps, Saudi Arabia, & the Holy Lands” 2022
“Expansion #17: Finland, Norway, & Sweden” 2023
“Expansion #18: Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, & Slovenia” 2023
“Expansion #19: Hong Kong, Slovakia, & Taiwan” 2023
ADDITIONAL SCREENSHOTS
“Apple’s New Map vs. Apple Maps at Launch” 2018–2020
“Apple’s New Map—Additional ‘Before & After’ Screenshots” 2018
“Apple’s New Map Data, Expansion #5—Additional ‘Before & After’ Screenshots” 2019
“Apple’s New Map Data, Expansion #6—Additional ‘Before & After’ Screenshots” 2019
“Apple’s New Map Data, Expansion #7—Additional ‘Before & After’ Screenshots” 2020
OTHER “APPLE‘S NEW MAP” UPDATES
“Apple Updating Areas Already Covered by New Map” 2020
“Apple Maps’s Momentum” 2020
OTHER APPLE MAPS DATA UPDATES
“Apple’s Upgraded Cartography for Japan” 2020