Using the Google Maps app on either your iPhone or Android device, type in your home address. And doing so is actually surprisingly quick and easy. Thankfully, you can blur your house via either app, making them less visible to other users. Yes, people can just drive by your house in real life and see it, but there’s something creepier about having the place where you spend most of your time on display for the entire world. (Image: Howley)īut the features also put your home on the internet for all the world to see. 5, according to the Maps site.Apple CEO Tim Cook's home is blocked on Apple Maps and Google Street view. And Apple could be headed toward augmented reality and virtual reality implementation, meaning users could someday take VR walks on realistic streets. The site said that, in its opinion, Apple is at work on 3D street view, which could take it beyond the now-superior aspect of Google Maps Street View. For a building, you get geo- and image-synced data on the distance to the curb, the front of the building, and the storefront sign jutting out above it. Bouncing infrared light off objects can tell you the exact distance of the car in front of you, but also the distance to the bumper, windshield and roof. LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is sophisticated 3D depth-sensing technology known mostly as one of the sensor techs in self-driving cars. You see all those silver cylinders? Those are Velodyne LIDAR sensors. That’s a clear sign that Apple is collecting street-level imagery, which could be used to build street view into Apple Maps.īut the cameras aren’t the most interesting hardware. There’s also a camera in the front and one on the back. Assume this triad is duplicated on the opposite side of the truck.

In addition to the small, white GPS antenna on top there are three wide-angle cameras in the center, two pointed at 45 degree angles toward the street level and one pointed up at the rooftops. The default mapping service in iOS was released in September 2012 and was widely criticized for a number of glitches and bugs.īack in June, Mashable spotted a similar van on the streets of New York and analyzed the visible equipment to make some assumptions about what Apple might be planning for Maps.

Apple maps street view