Key Takeaways
- The web version of Apple Maps is in public beta and is missing key features, making it less versatile than the app.
- The lack of features like “Favorites” or “See Around” indicates that it’s still in development.
- Apple is increasingly focusing on services, so a web version of Apple Maps is a natural fit.
If you’d told iPhone users in 2012 that Apple would eventually release a web version of Apple Maps, they probably wouldn’t have believed you. Not because it would have made sense (Google Maps’ broad accessibility is something any competitor could emulate), but because Apple’s 2012 launch of a navigation service was a huge flop and the company was in a tailspin with no hope of catching up. Over a decade later, Apple Maps has come a long way; not only is it nearly as reliable as Google’s service, but it’s finally released its own web version (in beta).
No one knows why Apple chose to release the web version of Apple Maps in the summer of 2024, but after years of pushing updates only to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, everyone can now access the service through a browser (with a few caveats). Even in beta, the web version of Apple Maps is pretty similar to the app installed on your phone, but it doesn’t currently support some key features of the mobile and desktop versions. Here’s what’s missing from the web version of Apple Maps:
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1 Apple’s Web Maps doesn’t have a favorites feature
The web version doesn’t allow you to save or access your favorite locations
With the release of iOS 13, Maps now lets you save frequently visited locations as Favorites. While Apple offers the ability to save specific locations as your home or work addresses, Favorites now lets you save any place you visit regularly, like a friend’s house, the park your dog loves to visit, or the best place in your neighborhood to watch the sunset.
The ability to save favorites or access previously saved locations in other versions of Apple Maps is completely absent from the web version of Apple Maps. In fact, unlike Google Maps, there is no way to log into the web version of Apple Maps, so any features that you’d expect to be associated with an Apple account are inaccessible.
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2 Custom guides are not supported on the web version
Apple Maps doesn’t let you create guides on the web
Another feature that’s tied to your Apple account but not fully available online is Guides. Essentially custom collections of recommended places, Guides are also being introduced in iOS 13 to make Apple Maps a more social experience. Trusted brands like Lonely Planet can create guides for specific cities that include restaurants and landmarks to visit, and individual users can also create guides if they want to create a must-see list for a family member visiting a new city. Purely anecdotal, I don’t see Guides being widely used, but it’s certainly a fun idea.
Branded guides are available in the web version of Apple Maps, but any custom guides you’ve created previously are not. Again, this is likely due primarily to the decision not to tie the web version of Apple Maps to the company’s account system yet. It wouldn’t be surprising if that changes in the future.
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3 Flyover isn’t available on the web version of Apple Maps
Not necessarily a useful feature, but it’s unique.
One of the main ways Apple differentiates Apple Maps from Google and other competitors is by putting special attention to all visual elements of navigation and maps. For the most part, Apple Maps has flashier animations and a much easier-to-read screen than Google Maps. From the beginning, animation has been a special focus.
Flyover, a virtual aerial view of a location or landmark, is not particularly useful, but it looks pretty cool. However, the web version of Apple Maps does not have the feature. If I were Apple, I would probably make the same choice and offer a bare-bones maps product without unnecessary animations. But it is interesting to see that one of Apple Maps’ early defining features is not available on the web.
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Four Apple’s web maps don’t have a Look Around feature
Apple Street View is not available
Street View is an iconic part of Google Maps, and there’s a whole community dedicated to using it to pinpoint locations as quickly and accurately as possible (if you’ve never played GeoGuessr, it’s surprisingly fun.) Apple’s answer to Street View was Look Around, which offered an interactive, 3D, street-level view of most of the places the company had mapped.
In my experience, Look Around isn’t yet as widely used as Street View, but it’s one of the easiest ways to get your bearings before going somewhere you’ve never been before. It’s also not accessible at all in the web version of Apple Maps. It’s a must-have feature, and one that Apple will likely have to add soon.
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Five The web version doesn’t show transit and cycling directions
Apple Maps on the web doesn’t offer all navigation options
Driving and walking directions are a very important feature for any maps app, but public transit and cycling directions are just as important if you live in a big city or want to save money on gas. In my experience, public transit directions in Apple Maps have improved significantly since they were added in iOS 9.
The web version of Apple Maps is completely missing all navigation options except driving and walking directions, including planning EV charging routes and using ride-hailing services like Uber. To some extent, including these options over transit directions makes sense — transit directions are most useful when you can change them on the fly and get notified to get off at the next stop, for example — but it still feels like an oversight.
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6 Though polished, Apple Maps on the web is still a work in progress
In the blog post announcing the availability of Apple Maps on the web, Apple made it pretty clear that this is a beta. It’s a public beta with the polish you’d expect, but it’s still a work in progress; the number of missing features certainly reflects that fact. Still, Apple has become increasingly accustomed to shipping bare-bones versions of its services and apps and updating them over time, even splitting out components of its annual software updates and shipping them when they’re ready.
Presumably Apple Maps will get the missing features and eventually be updated on the same regular schedule as other Apple services, but until then it’s an interesting sign of Apple’s interest in competing on the services as well as hardware and software level, although don’t expect it to replace the iPhone app just yet.
