Hidden iOS 8 Icons Hint At Apple's Parked Car Location Feature In Maps App
June 10, 2014
The otherwise chock-full keynote address delivered by Apple last week at WWDC 2014 was notably lacking in announcements regarding its proprietary Maps app. A recent report claimed that bad planning within the company resulted in many of the app's features' being left out of the next major release of its mobile operating system, iOS 8. Apparently, one of those features has to do with locating parked cars.
According to 9to5Mac, this feature might have been or may still be in development, as evidenced by the presence of new parking-related icons found among the assets of the Maps app in the beta version of iOS 8. As you can see in the screenshot above (shared with the site by iOS leaker extraordinaire Hamza Sood), there are six icons, or "pins," pertaining to Apple's parked car location feature.
The site explains the feature, which it first reported on in September last year after the introduction of Apple's M7 motion coprocessor on iPhone 5s, thus:
Sources say that Apple is testing a tool for its Maps app that, with the M7 chip, could analyze when your car is parked. When you park your car, the iPhone will register the car’s location. Now when you return to the parking lot, your iPhone will be able to help you assist with finding your car since it knows the vehicle’s location.Here's hoping this feature will make its way, if at all, into iOS 8.1 or a later update. Earlier today, it was reported that a leaked screenshot from a WWDC session video suggested another omission from Maps in iOS 8: public transit information.
