Real Web Application Added to Apple’s Mapping Service

Apple Maps is a great alternative to Google Maps, but the lack of a desktop web app made it inaccessible outside of Apple’s own devices. That’s finally changing, with the arrival of Apple Maps on the web.

Apple has now released a web app version of Apple Maps, simply called ‘Apple Maps on the web,’ as a public beta. You can try it out by opening beta.maps.apple.com in your web browser. Apple currently supports Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and desktop Safari, and “support for additional languages, browsers, and platforms will be expanded over time.” It does seem to work in Firefox if you change the user agent in the developer tools, but there might be bugs.

This is the first time an official version of Apple Maps has been accessible outside of iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac devices. The best option before now was DuckDuckGo’s maps , which uses Apple’s mapping data.

Apple said in a press release, “Now, users can get driving and walking directions; find great places and useful information including photos, hours, ratings, and reviews; take actions like ordering food directly from the Maps place card; and browse curated Guides to discover places to eat, shop, and explore in cities around the world. Additional features, including Look Around, will be available in the coming months.”

The web app still doesn’t make Apple Maps a drop-in replacement for Google Maps, since there’s no Android app or support for mobile web browsers, but it’s a step in the right direction. Once there’s better integration with iCloud, it could be especially helpful for people using an iPhone for most mapping and navigation, but still need to check their saved data on a PC or Chromebook.

You can switch between Standard, Hybrid, and Satellite map types, and click anywhere to drop a pin and view that location’s address and other information. You can also preview directions for now or a time in the future, but you can’t send the route to an iPhone, like you can with the Google Maps site and mobile apps. The 3D maps you get for some areas in the regular Maps app are also missing.

Source: Apple