Not much to talk about here these days.
So here’s an observation. Every couple of months to a year, Apple Maps’ directions change whether or not they want to specifically call out when the road you’re on forcibly becomes another road.
One example is when I’m driving on the westbound Grand Central Parkway in Queens. In the first photo below, the parkway “ends” and becomes I-278 East. Then I take Exit 46 towards Manhattan.
For the past year, once I get onto the parkway, my next “instruction” is to take Exit 46 towards Manhattan. As of this week, when I get onto the parkway, my next instruction is just that I’ll be merging onto I-278 East in a couple of miles. Once I’m on I-278, then it tells me my next move is to take Exit 46.
Similarly, after taking Exit 46, normally Maps will tell me my next move is to take Exit 2 onto the Brooklyn Bridge. But now it tells me I will first be joining the FDR Drive southbound.
This isn’t a new thing, either. It seems like once a year Maps changes the style of directions between something very specific about each move to something a bit more generic.
My head canon is that there are two heads of Apple Maps development that are fighting each other over how detailed driving directions should be, and every so often the other person sneaks a change of code in to “flip the script”, so to speak. This has changed back and forth many times since the iOS 12 days.
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Personally, I like the more detailed directions. Yes, if you’re not taking an exit and you’re just staying on the highway, it may seem unnecessary to tell you the name or designation of the highway is changing. But as is the case in big cities like New York, where most highways have sequential exit numbering schemes, Maps may tell you to take a particular exit 25 miles down the road, but that might seem odd if the current numbering scheme doesn’t match up.
