Try Apple Maps (and Other Stock Apps)

Yes. You can replace your stock apps, but should you? That’s really up to you of course, but I recommend at least getting to know the stock apps first. Some of them might surprise you, and since they’re integrated into the OS, it could result in a better user experience.

Let’s start with one of Apple’s biggest initial flops: Apple Maps. When Maps was first introduced it was a major failure and somewhat unusable in certain locations. It’s always been my opinion that this was blown out proportion, but in all honesty, it wasn’t great.

Although it wasn’t great, there’s no denying it was innovative and changed the mapping landscape, with features like its vector format (at the time Google Maps was using tiles). And over the years, Maps has continued to improve and gain new features; and with the introduction iOS 13, Maps is ready for prime time.

Maps now offers 3D buildings and terrain across the U.S. Features like Flyover and Look Around let you explore major cities with ease. And with Siri as your navigator, you’ll get a more natural guidance experience.

Recent updates to CarPlay bring all of these features to your car’s navigation system (if supported) and now vehicle manufacturers can allow CarPlay to display maps on additional screens such as gauge cluster displays and HUDs. As of writing, my car still doesn’t support Maps on my HUD, but here’s hoping manufacturers provide updates for this.

All in all, if you haven’t given Apple Maps another try, now is a good time to do so. It’s come a long way, and because it’s deeply integrated into iOS, Apple Watch, and CarPlay, it can be an overall better user experience.