Early signs of Apple’s new Indoor Maps feature in the iOS 11 Maps app have begun appearing for specific airports and shopping malls as of the second beta of iOS 11 released earlier this week. According to MacRumors, indoor maps are now available for Philadelphia International Airport, Mineta San Jose International Airport, Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose, California and Westfield San Francisco Centre in San Francisco, California. The new feature, similar in design to the indoor maps feature introduced in Google Maps in 2013, provides detailed floor plans airports and shopping malls to allow users to help locate way to key points of interest ranging from stores to facilities such as washrooms, boarding gates, security checkpoints, baggage claims, information kiosks, and more.
Users can browse by floor or search specific stores by name or category. Although many locations provide place cards with additional information such as photos and operating hours, as of the current beta, Apple Maps doesn’t appear to provide any way to navigate to specific points of interest within an indoor venue. Apple plans to initially roll out indoor maps for malls in eleven cities in the U.S., U.K., China, and Japan, with airport terminal maps for 30 major airports worldwide, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, and the Washington D.C. area. Additional locations will be added over time.
