- A new AI search feature has been viewed on Apple Maps
- It is available in the latest iOS 26 developer Beta
- A full rollout of the software is expected in September
As updated iOS 26 Beta versions continue to roll out, we discover new features in the software that Apple has not officially announced: Yesterday it was AirPod charging lights, and today it is AI search in Apple Maps.
The 9to5Google team has seen that the Apple Maps search feature is now encouraging users to “search the way you speak”-so you can write or speak a search like “Find Cafes with Free Wi-Fi” for example.
This is now live in the fifth developer Beta version of iOS 26, so you will not see it yet if you are driving the public beta. It can also be fine -tuned or even drawn before the final version of iOS 26 is launched in September, although it seems like this is to stay.
It is definitely an easier and more intuitive way to search for places if you need to go beyond the basics and specify some additional criteria for your results, such as Wi-Fi access, food options, electric vehicle charging, access to wheelchair chair or whatever it is.
Apple Maps vs Google Maps
It is possible that the new functionality has only gone alive in the US for the time being, because after updating my iPhone to iOS 26 developer Beta 5, I was unable to get the natural language search feature to emerge in Apple Maps here in the UK.
What I could do was run a similarly formulated search on Google Maps, and the results were somewhat uneven: the identified cafes without any problems, but it listed several who certainly did not offer free Wi-Fi (and I have been to them and asked).
It shows a limitation in AI features like these, which is that although AI may be good at understanding what you are asking for and converting your spoken words into text, it still depends on cold, hard card data to get you accurate results.
As for raw data, Google Maps may still have the edge over Apple Maps – but upgrades like this one in iOS 26 will mean that Apple Maps will be more appealing and useful, and may be enough to get some users back from Google Maps.
