How to open links in Apple Maps instead of Google Maps

Apple Park, as proven in Apple Maps.

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In case you personal an iPhone, you’ve got nearly definitely thought-about whether or not you must use Apple Maps or Google Maps in your travels.

There are pros and cons to every. Google Maps advantages from the large quantity of knowledge harvested by Google, whereas Apple is extra targeted on knowledge privateness.

Whereas Google Maps integrates nicely with the remainder of the world, Apple Maps integrates along with your handle e book.

In the long run, although, a few of us simply assume Apple Maps seems prettier.

There are two elements which put Apple Maps aficionados at a drawback. For one, Google search outcomes robotically open in Google Maps. So, in the event you’re one of many 84% of us who use Google’s search engine, instructions to your nearest dental surgical procedure will pop up in Google’s app as an alternative of Apple’s.

Secondly, with Google’s dominant market attain, and Google Map’s availability on practically any gadget, most web sites will use its API. So, in the event you’re on that dental surgical procedure’s web site and faucet a hyperlink to get instructions, it will in all probability open in Google Maps as nicely.

Have you ever ever puzzled whether or not there is a strategy to redirect stated hyperlinks to open in Apple Maps? Nicely, as you might need guessed from this text’s title, there may be. And here is how.

To transform a location’s URL in Google Maps, you will must convert it right into a format which Apple Maps understands. This is how:

1. Open the situation in Google Maps.
2. Faucet the Share icon, then selecting Copy.
3. Paste the URL right into a browser, e.g., Safari.
4. Take away any particulars earlier than the https://, then go to the URL to develop it.
5. You may want the coordinates of latitude and longitude (that is the 2 numbers which every have seven decimal locations, and are separated by a comma).
6. Create the equal Apple Maps URL utilizing the next schema: maps.apple.com/,
7. Open Apple Maps and paste this URL into the search bar. Hey presto, the situation ought to pop up.

Extracting coordinates from Google’s URL is a laborious course of

That is awfully fiddly to do manually each time, although, particularly when scrolling by means of a protracted URL on an iPhone to seek out the coordinates. Automation is a chance.

It was beforehand doable to automate the method of opening Google Maps hyperlinks in Apple Maps utilizing Apple Shortcuts, and there have been many Shortcuts shared on-line purporting to do that.

Nevertheless, it appears that evidently Google has modified the way in which its URLs are dealt with, such that Google Maps hyperlinks now current a consent kind earlier than you may proceed to the situation.

The consent kind when manipulating Google Maps URLs.

Which means that Shortcuts can not extract the coordinates of latitude and longitude from these URLs. Nevertheless, Safari extensions nonetheless can.

There’s a free extension known as “Rerouter – Open links in Maps“, however this solely works in the event you take away the Google Maps app out of your gadget, and even then we discovered it to be unreliable. Nevertheless, a paid extension known as “Mapper” does work constantly.

The Mapper extension’s web page within the App Retailer.

Mapper is accessible on the App Retailer for $1.99, and runs on macOS, iPadOS, and iOS. While you faucet on the thumbnail, handle, or instructions buttons in a Google search consequence, Mapper will robotically take you to that location in Apple Maps.

Mapper does have limitations although. It would not at the moment convert Google Maps areas embedded on web sites, so you will have to seek out your dental surgical procedure by way of Google search outcomes. The addition of this characteristic would make it the best resolution.

Additionally, on the macOS model, the hyperlink will load in Google Maps within the background in addition to in Apple Maps, however that is merely a quibble.

It is typically tough to make use of a special choice in a world with an incumbent normal. Nevertheless, in the event you aren’t bothered about opening location hyperlinks in web sites apart from Google search, then Mapper appears to be probably the most handy strategy to hold your sense of path rooted in Apple Maps.