Apologies as this is fairly tangential:
There's a parallax effect in Street View on Apple Maps that separates out the layers of every image. Things like lampposts or telephone poles all rotate slightly differently to whatever is behind them.
And it's such a subtle effect that I still break my brain trying to determine whether or not I've made it up.
Imagine expending that much development time and effort for something you're not even sure is there. And somehow I still find it enviably cool.
Oh wow I hadn’t noticed that. It’s especially noticeable when “walking” down the street between points.
I’m so glad to finally have that feature in my area. It was the one thing I missed from Google Maps which I otherwise avoid.
I just wish Apple would add more streets. London is the closest place with Apple “street view” to me and there are literally a couple of cities (!!!) between me and London. So I don’t hold any hope that Apple will ever get round to coming to my small village if there are entire cities they’ve left out.
I think it's the same tech they use to make the "3d" background photos on the iPhone wallpaper, which is probably also the same tech used for inferring depth when converting a normal photo to a spatial photo for viewing on an AVP.
Look around uses a real 3D capture with lidar. If you move around in Mapillary it does do something similar to that using SfM.
I love this and share the experience! It is a very cool effect, specially when moving through the street.
Sounds awesome, is there a video of it I could watch somewhere?
Edit: for those who didn't know, like me, apple's maps are available at https://maps.apple.com. You can see this yourself. The effect is unvelievably smooth compared to what Google maps have
It's very cool but I don't understand why they've decided to basically not do it in the US and UK.
Meanwhile they have nearly full coverage of the rest of western Europe, plus a huge amount of Canada and Mexico.
https://i.imgur.com/ZPTozti.png
This was launched in 2019. A few years ago I remember speculating that they were holding it back with the cool 3D effects to do a big push alongside Vision Pro, but that's come and gone with no significant change to Look Around.
California isn't doing bad, but outside of that they're averaging about 0.5 locations per state.
They haven't been to Nashville but they sent someone to drive to Rainbow Lake, Alberta? What gives?
Oh cool, I didn't know they added their Street View equivalent to the web version. The animated transitions are much better than Google's.
It does look smooth but for me the killer feature on google maps is still the ability to go back in time.
They seem to be significantly slower though
Does it appear only if you visit the website on mobile? I don't see any street view option when I visit that site on a PC.
You have to zoom in the map and click on the binoculars in the bottom left corner!
I believe so, I can't test now but I don't see it on desktop either.
Forgive me for copy-pasting.
You have to zoom in the map and click on the binoculars in the bottom left corner!
Oh that’s right, I always forget they have it on the web.
Drag two fingers on the map and you'll bring the camera down to see the 3D effect more clearly.
For my life, I don't understand the gestures for the 3D map. It would seem that I can ONLY manipulate that view by accident.