Apple Is Giving Your iPhone a Key New Feature for Commuters

Yahoo

a day ago

The goal is to proactively help you avoid traffic and other delays, thus helping you save time.
When Apple rolls out iOS 26, the next-gen operating system for your iPhone, it's going to bring several updates and features to some of your most-used apps.
That includes Apple Maps.
As revealed at June's WWDC, Apple's default navigation app is getting a feature called Visited Places, where your iPhone will keep track of where you've been and mark those locations, be it a restaurant or store, on your Map. That way, you can keep track of where you've been.
Of course, Visited Places will be a feature that's end-to-end encrypted, so nobody but yourself will be able to keep track of your wearables. Plus, you'll need to enable it for your iPhone to track you.
Additionally, your iPhone will be able to learn your daily routes and send you notifications if there's a delay, and even suggest an alternate route. Let's call these Commute Notifications.
According to Apple, Maps 'learns the routes you travel regularly and can alert you about significant delays, even before you head out. If your routine changes, iPhone adapts to it so you can conquer your commute.'
The neat thing with these Commute Notifications is that they work passively in the background. So, when you're doing things that wouldn't require using Apple Maps, such as driving to the gym or dropping the kids off at school, it can still send you delay/traffic alerts along with an alternative route suggestion.
As with Visited Places, these Commute Notifications will be a feature that runs exclusively on your iPhone and is end-to-end encrypted. And you'll have to enable it.
iOS 26 will roll out to all compatible iPhones this September.
Tucker Bowe has been on Gear Patrol's editorial team since 2014. As a Tech Staff Writer, he tracks everything in the consumer tech space, from headphones to smartphones, wearables to home theater systems. If it lights up or makes noise, he probably covers it.