Apple Maps is great for navigation, but I especially love using the app to browse new areas, find a great coffee shop, and plan outings and adventures. For those use cases, iOS 18 brought a key change to search in Apple Maps that somehow has been missing for years: you can now search the specific area you’re viewing on the map. And that’s been a huge answered wish for me.
My longstanding Apple Maps problem
Here’s a key thread from Apple’s support community back in 2020:
I know I am going to be in a certain location at some time in the future. I enter that address in Maps and it is located. I now want to search for, say, used bookstores near that location. How do I do it?
Scenarios like this were very common for me too, pre-iOS 18.
I would open Apple Maps and start browsing an area on the map.
This would happen when planning a vacation, trying to find a new place for coffee, or scoping out shops and restaurants in a different neighborhood.
Before iOS 18, I’d be viewing a given area in Apple Maps, then type a search query and hit the ‘Search Nearby’ suggestion that appeared.
Was it my fault for thinking ‘Nearby’ meant ‘near the area I‘m currently looking at’?
Apparently it was. Because Maps would then search for results near where I was presently located. In the process, it zoomed all the way back to my current location and showed suggestions far from where I’d intended.
As that original support thread put it:
This is SUCH a basic feature, I have got to believe it exists in Maps and I am just an idiot for not figuring out how to do it
What’s the real solution? It didn’t exist before, but it’s here now in iOS 18.
New search option added to Maps in iOS 18
Among a variety of other improvements in iOS 18, Apple Maps gained a fix for this problem.
Now, when you’re browsing an area in Apple Maps and type a search, you’ll see a new option: ‘Near area on your map.’
So for example, if I’m browsing a neighborhood and type ‘Starbucks,’ I’ll see a variety of nearby Starbucks locations, but also two suggested searches:
- Starbucks: Search Nearby
- Starbucks: Near area on your map
The former works like it always has, but the latter does what I’ve always hoped for.
You can tap ‘Near area on your map’ to get results based on the map you’re currently viewing.
Similarly, if you have already have a search entered, then pan around to a different area of the map, you can now hit a ‘Search here’ button that appears.
These new options make browsing for places anywhere in the world just as easy as browsing places that are near you.
And though it took a while to add the feature, Apple Maps is so much better for its arrival.
Do you ever use Apple Maps’ new iOS 18 search feature? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.
Best iPhone accessories
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
