US: A day after the launch of its iOS 9.3 operating system, Apple launched its ‘Nearby’ maps feature in Japan. The company, however, rolled out the feature first for Japan in December last year, but quickly pulled it for unknown reasons. Nearby launched with iOS 9 as a proximity-based point-of-interest search feature first introduced by standalone iOS apps.
According to a website, though, Nearby is active across Japan, Apple has not yet updated its official Maps feature availability webpage to reflect the expansion. The Nearby maps users enjoy the freedom of selecting from a variety of categories, including food, drinks, shopping, travel, services, entertainment, health and transportation, each of which contains subcategories for narrowing down results.
Adding more, Nearby also displays store hours, ratings from Yelp and pictures, if available. Accessible in the Maps app (and as a Quick Action on iPhone 6s) or the system Search pane, Apple's programmed search feature aggregates and presents to users location data from a collection of third-party sources. Apple last expanded the Nearby feature in October with support for Australia, Canada, France and Germany.
Source: Apple Insider
