Finding a great meal or that perfect airport shop just got even easier for Canadians.
Apple Maps airport feature, which allows users to see amazingly detailed plans of multiple levels of airports all over the world, now includes great mapping features at both Montreal/Trudeau (YUL) and Quebec City/Lesage (YQB). Those are both hugely popular airports for Canadians, especially with the summer travel season pretty much upon us.
The maps previously were available at Toronto Pearson (YYZ), Vancouver (YVR) and Edmonton (YEG).
The Apple Maps app allows users to browse hundreds of shops, restaurants, or restrooms located within the airport or in a specific terminal. They also can ask Siri to find something nearby (“Hey, Siri, are there are any good Thai restaurants at YVR?”), find their location at the airport in real time and toggle easily between floors to see what they might be missing.
We’ve probably all had that experience of going through security in the certainty of finding a great restaurant to eat at prior to our flight, only to find the only options are a greasy, fast-food burger or those overpriced bags of nuts and granola they sell at your typical airport shop.
Using Apple Maps is a breeze, and a great tool at the airport.
That doesn’t have to happen if you use your Apple Maps app, which allows you to plan your airport visit in the comfort of your own home, or perhaps on the way to the airport in an Uber car or once you’ve already arrived, no doubt two hours early just like your Mom always told you.
All you have to do is call up the airport on your Apple Maps app and then tap the button that says “look inside.” Once you do that you can see boarding gates, restaurants, washrooms, check-in desks, shop, baggage claim areas, security check points and more.
I checked it out a few months ago at Toronto Pearson and found it a remarkable tool. They have it down to a science, with a little blue dot that showed my position as I traipsed about Terminal One. It even knew what level I was on.
Apple Maps are now available at more than 40 airports worldwide, including many that we Canadians use a great deal; Chicago O’Hare, LAX, London Heathrow, Miami, Hong Kong and both LaGuardia and JFK in New York. Sydney and Edinburgh recently were added.
Apple Maps are now available at Montreal Trudeau Airport, as well as Quebec City Lesage Airport.
In addition to airports, Apple Maps also offer lane guidance for major highways, while the nearby search feature allows you to find a coffee place or gas station on the way to the airport (so you don’t get arrive at the rental counter with an empty tank and get charged some monstrously insane penalty).
There’s also a feature in Maps that automatically helps you remember where you parked your car, so you can ask Siri “where did I park my car?”
Apple also has transit support in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and most metro areas around the world now, including all major systems in China, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the UK.
As they used to say on that old American Express commercial, “Don’t leave home without it.”
