Apple spotted in Los Angeles using new modified Apple Maps car
Apple has been seen driving a new, white modified Subaru Impreza around the streets of Los Angeles, taking 360-degree images and collecting geographical location data for “future Apple Maps updates”.
As reported by Business Insider, Apple appears to have added to its fleet of Apple Maps vehicles which were once made up of Ford Transit vans.
Earlier in the year Apple announced its rebuilding its Maps app “from the ground up” with the help of specialist street-level data collected from its fleet of Apple Maps vehicles which have been spotted capturing imagery around the world.
Within an interview, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue said that the familiar Apple Maps branded vans are equipped with a Mac Pro, an array of solid state drives, and an iPad as well as GPS, LiDAR array, and hi-res cameras. It’s not known if the same equipment is in the smaller Subaru Impreza, but it is presumed so.
One difference spotted on the new vehicles is the addition of a tower-style design with lidar and a new 360-degree camera, similar to the one used by Google on its Google Maps vehicles.