Sharp-eyed night owls may spot something new in the evening. Apple Insider has shots of an Apple Maps van driving around NYC at night. Reports of similar excursions have come in from the Boston area. Last year, the Cupertino company announced that it was sending out a fleet of vans to collect real-world data for its Apple Maps app. Shortly afterwards, it revealed that it was working to make its vans more recognizable — this extends mostly to the lettering emblazoned on the side windows in the familiar font used by Apple.
Apple’s own site clearly states its intentions with these vehicles. “Apple is driving vehicles around the world to collect data which will be used to improve Apple Maps. Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates.” You can also go here to track the vans’ locations; from February 1 through Valentine’s Day, the driving locations include areas in London, Paris, and multiple cities across the United States.
It is likely that Apple Maps will see a major update with the release of iOS 10 this summer, so expect the van deployment to shift into overtime until then. The update is most likely to occur at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Even without the app’s logos, you can easily spot the vans by the equipment mounted to the roof, including cameras, LiDAR, and GPS. These sensors ensure that the road is where it should be on the map, and they also provide a platform to take photos from. If you think this is sounding more like Google’s Street View, you’re right. It is also speculated that Apple will introduce a nighttime version of this feature (unless the vans are working after hours just to catch up).
With Google having a good head start in the mapping department, it remains to be seen how much coverage Apple can acquire even as its competition continues to update its own software.
Reddit is giving your scrolling habits a new twist with two homepage feeds designed for different moods. The new 'For You' feed pulls you into communities you never even knew you wanted. Meanwhile, Following keeps things familiar with posts from communities you have already joined.
The update is rolling out globally over the next few weeks, giving you a choice between discovering something new and catching up with your usual favorites.
At the 2026 Android Dev Summit, Google has announced some interesting features coming to both Android XR and Android CLI. Developers can now build and test apps for smart glasses without owning the hardware, while Android's command-line tools are getting upgrades that help AI coding agents test applications and identify performance problems. Both announcements could eventually mean better apps for both Android and extended reality hardware users.
Building Android XR apps without owning smart glasses
Google updated its adaptive Compose skill to help developers adapt existing Android apps for laptops, foldable phones, tablets, and other form factors, including the upcoming Googlebook platform. The goal of this update is to help AI coding agents customize apps for different screen sizes and input methods without developers having to maintain separate codebases for different devices.
The new skill goes beyond responsive layouts, adding support for desktop-focused features and foldable-specific interface adjustments. Google is also signaling that adaptive app experiences will be more prominent on Google Play, with the company planning to pay more attention to how apps and games perform on foldable devices next year.