Apple Maps and CarPlay Will Show Traffic Cameras in iOS 14 (and Even Announce Them via Siri)

During this week’s unveiling of iOS 14, Apple touted a number of big features coming to Apple Maps, including Guides, advanced cycling directions and electric vehicle routing. However, buried among the smaller features that Apple didn’t talk about nearly as much was the news that speed cameras will also be supported in the iOS 14 Maps update.

So far, Apple hasn’t really said much about how this will work — it’s listed only in a brief note on Apple’s iOS 14 Features Page that says: “Maps lets you know when you’re approaching speed cameras and red-light cameras along your route. You can also see where individual cameras are located on the map.”

While MacRumors was quick to take a look through the iOS 14 Maps app earlier this week and couldn’t find any icons for traffic cameras, it looks like this may actually be more of a CarPlay feature, as one Reddit user discovered.

Traffic Cameras and Siri Announcements

From an image shared by Reddit user _shoybot, it looks like traffic cameras will now be shown on the CarPlay dashboard for routes where they’re available, but there’s a nice extra surprise too, as it seems that Siri will actually let you know when you’re approaching a traffic camera, likely as part of the normal turn-by-turn driving directions that Siri offers.

Notably, iOS 13 added support for traffic lights in areas where Apple’s maps have been updated — basically in the United States at this point — but the yellow icon for traffic cameras is a new iOS 14 feature, as is the Siri announcement.

It’s unclear how Apple will be sourcing this traffic camera data, but knowing Apple it seems likely it will rely on its own surveys rather than adopting the crowdsourced methods that apps like Waze are known for. This means that it could be a while before traffic camera indicators are widely rolled out. As it stands, other new Maps features like cycling directions and EV routing are only coming to a few select cities at launch, with a wider rollout expected next year.

Other Changes

It also looks like the CarPlay dashboard screen is getting another small enhancement on the “Now Playing” side, which shows a progress bar below the song info.

Unfortunately, despite the new specialized routing options coming to help electric vehicle owners find charging stations, it looks like Apple Maps won’t be gaining the ability to add multiple stops in iOS 14. However, although Google Maps has offered this capability for a while, it’s conspicuously missing in the Google Maps CarPlay interface.

Apple also announced this week that it has finished rolling out its new maps in the U.S., and has promised that the detailed new maps will be coming to Canada, Ireland, and the U.K. by the end of this year, providing more detailed roads, buildings, parks, mariners, beaches, airports, and more, although it’s unclear if it will also be rolling out “Look Around” in those countries. Apple’s fleeting of mapping vehicles have been spotted rolling around Canada since last year, suggesting that it’s collecting street-level data for Look Around in at least a few major cities.