iOS users, dust off that Apple Maps of yours, for it just became a little bit more useful in this part of the world. Traffic data for both Malaysia and Singapore are now available in Apple Maps that was introduced to iOS 6 on September 19th 2012, and later in OS X 10.9 Mavericks on October 22nd 2013.
As expected, traffic data gives you real-time updates about vehicular traffic on major roads. Highly congested areas will show as red dotted lines, while roads with heavy-but-moving traffic will have orange dotted lines, along the the roads. Zoom in further and you’ll also see which side of the road is jammed up.
While Apple could source the data from local traffic bodies, part of the data also come from users. That means it doesn’t have to only rely on data from local agencies, but could also measure traffic congestion wherever there are iOS users. A quick check revealed that traffic data is not only available in Kuala Lumpur, but also in Georgetown, Ipoh, Johor Bahru, and Seremban too. If you’re not willing to share your traffic data to Apple due to privacy concerns, you’ll have to disable it under Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Routing & Traffic.
This discovery was first reported by MacRumors; both Malaysia and Singapore have yet to be officially listed under iOS 9’s ‘Maps: Traffic’ feature availability section at the time of writing, but I’m sure it’ll be updated shortly. This section currently only shows 30 regions to have traffic data on Apple Maps: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK, and the US.
Besides traffic data, Apple Maps also has other feature components, namely, the standard maps view itself, satellite view, directions, turn-by-turn navigation (with voice), flyover, 3D buildings during navigation, business reviews and photos, transit, and “nearby”. Apple Maps in Malaysia only supports the first four of the aforementioned components; five if you count traffic data too.
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