Celebrating gold standard maps

Map making is a Sisyphean task. There is never an end point to cartography, because the world keeps changing and maps themselves evolve. Despite the challenge, or maybe because of it, we still aim to be at the forefront of that evolution. Simply put we want to make the world’s best maps and location services.

Today’s update to our street maps for Windows Phone 8 andhere.com is a significant milestone on that never-ending journey. With the previous update we got even more precise in how we represent the world. And with our latest map updates we are getting far more detailed with more map features and broader coverage.

If you have downloaded maps on your Windows Phone 8 smartphone, you should have been prompted to update them and enjoy the latest improvements. If you haven’t done so yet, go to settings > applications > maps > check for updates.

 

Better maps for Tunisia, Senegal and Cyprus

Throughout Tunisia, Senegal and Cyprus we’ve added roads and broadened coverage. You will be able to see more thorough coverage of these countries so you can find your way around.

  

Buildings in Croatia

We already have road networks mapped in Croatia, but now we’ve gone one step farther adding 1.86 million building outlines in the entire country.

Public transit in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan

We have also expanded our public transportation data throughout Asia so that people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan will be able to better navigate their public transit networks. In Hong Kong we’ve added ferry data and in Taiwan we’ve gave our public transit icons a facelift.

 

More Truck Attributes

Because roads can also mean different things to different people, we are giving our corporate customers more information on how their trucks and fleets can navigate the world. They will be able to see, for example, which stretches of road have weight or height restrictions that they will have to route around.

We’re barely taking a moment to celebrate our achievements. We’ve got work to do and over the coming weeks and months you will see even more improvements to our maps and updates on other platforms such as Symbian.