I’m fairly sure the most know that when Apple unveiled iOS 6 they decided to give Google Maps the order of the boot, and deliver their own take of a default maps app in the form of Apple Maps that includes turn-by-turn navigation, real time traffic updates and such, and improved a bit on Apple Maps with iOS 6 beta 2, but Apple’s solution is still a way from being perfect.
However, according to an article over on Techpp, it could be that Apple is looking to bring Apple Maps to Macs at some point in the future, as apparently a code dump in iOS 6 maps app found by developer Cody Cooper that might hint that Maps is coming to Macs.
Apparently the developer came across some interesting titbits in the alitude_manefest.xml file, that has a reference to a set of Intel based graphics chipsets that certain features such as shading are disabled. The developer says that older Intel chipsets do not support shading all that well, and this could be why Apple wishes to disable the feature on Macs.
Apparently there is also no mention of ATI Radeon chipsets in the list, (image below) and although the reason isn’t clear, it is probably due to them being proper graphics cards that can support shading.
As such the guys suggest that this virtually confirms that Apple is bringing Apple Maps to Macbooks and iMacs, as they can’t think of any other reason why there would be references to Intel chipsets in the Maps app. However apparently some commenter’s have said that the code could be related to iPhone simulator to ensure proper rendering of the Maps app in the simulator.
So, what do our readers think about all this, do you think that Apple just might be preparing to bring Apple Maps to Macs?
