iPhone 5 maps and Siri: What us Brits aren’t getting

Apple’s new iPhone comes loaded with the latest version of its mobile OS, iOS 6, which includes a raft of new functions — including Apple’s new mapping software and an expanded role for Siri, its sassy voice assistant.

While most of the new features announced in iOS are going to be available in the UK, there are a couple of omissions.

On the mapping front, while the UK is getting the lion’s share of features — including turn-by-turn navigation, directions and satellite maps, traffic, local search and business reviews and photos — iOS 6’s fancy 3D buildings feature apparently remains US-only for now, according to Apple.

Presumably this means you can’t yet do a fly over of a 3D model of Stratford’s Olympic park. However Apple was demoing a 3D model of parts of London including Big Ben at the iPhone 5 launch yesterday so hopefully it’s already hard at work modelling British cities to add full UK support in future.

When it comes to Siri, again us Brits are happily getting most of the new features this time around, including — to plug the most glaring functionality gap of all — local search info. Which should make Siri considerably more useful than it’s been up to now.

Siri in iOS 6 will also play nice with Facebook and Twitter — so you can ask it to update your fb status or send a tweet on your behalf. UK Siri will also be more knowledgeable about cinema — with support for film times, reviews and info — so you should finally be able to ask Siri what film to watch tonight.

Here in the UK we’re also getting the new sport-savvy Siri — so you can ask how badly your football team got hammered last night. The British version of Siri will also serve up restaurant reviews and info, when asked. However, if you’re hoping you’ll finally be able to ask Siri to book you a table at the Ivy you should expect an insolent response: Siri’s restaurants reservations features is only available in Canada, Mexico and the US at present, according to Apple.

For Apple’s full list of iOS 6 feature availability by country click here.

What do you want the new Siri to do? And are you impressed that Apple has made its own version of Google Maps? Let me know what you think in the comments below or over on Facebook.


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