I switched to Apple Maps after a rental car came with CarPlay built in and I didn’t want to fiddle with Google Maps over a rental phone. That sounds like a small thing. It was not. The first week I missed an exit because I didn’t realize the chevron in the bottom-right was a “recenter” button, not a “next turn” prompt. I missed a turn lane because the walking icon at the top of the directions screen looks almost identical to the driving icon if you don’t know to look for the pedestrian silhouette. I drove past my own house because the “current location” dot is small and the cone shadow is subtle.
I am not a beginner with navigation apps. I have used Google Maps for years. Apple’s look is cleaner, and the integration with the rest of the system is genuinely better. But the icons are not obvious. There are some I now use daily that I didn’t know existed for the first three months. So this is the working tour I wish I had on day one. It is opinionated, it is not comprehensive, and it is the screen-breakdown I built for myself the hard way.
The home screen: which buttons you actually tap
The persistent top bar is where you do 90% of your work. Three icons at the top, a search bar in the middle, and a stack of buttons on the right that only show up at certain times.
The search bar is what you tap when you want to go somewhere. Type a place name, address, or category. Below it on a fresh open you’ll see four preset chip buttons: Home, Work, Favorites, and a fourth that reflects your recent searches. Tap those chips for the common case; type the rest of the time.
To the right of the search bar, the profile circle is your account menu. Tap it and you get to Saved Places, your Guides, Reports you’ve submitted, Offline Maps you’ve downloaded, and Preferences. Most people never open this menu. You should, because Offline Maps is the single most useful feature in the app for anyone who drives out of cell range.
The filter chip at the top right (the icon that looks like a funnel or a layered map depending on your iOS version) switches between Driving, Transit, Walking, Ride Services, and Cycling. The icon changes to reflect the selection. Driving mode shows a car, walking mode shows a pedestrian, ride services shows a car with a person. This is the one that caused me to miss an exit on day one: I had Walking mode on, and the car I was in was somehow routed as if I were on foot.
The map controls: the icons that hide themselves
When you rotate the map with two fingers, a compass icon appears in the top-right corner. Tap it to re-orient north. If you don’t see it, the map is already pointed north. There’s no “GPS-style” arrow here; the compass is a one-tap reset.
In the bottom-right, the profile avatar doubles as a “current location” button. Tap it once to recenter the map onto you. Tap it again and the map will start following your position as you move. Tap it a third time and you get a top-down 3D view, which is what Apple calls “Look Around” coverage in some cities. The shadow cone underneath the current-location dot points in the direction you’re facing, which is useful when you’re on a side street and unsure which way is north.
The weather and air quality indicator appears in the top-right when you tap a city or place card. It shows temperature and AQI. It does not update in real time; it caches. If you tap somewhere and the temperature looks wrong, pull down to refresh.
The place details card: more buttons than fit on a screen
Tap any pin on the map and a card pops up from the bottom with the place name, a thumbnail, and a row of action icons. The icon row is the part most people miss because the tap targets are small.
Only the directions button truly matters on the place details card. It sits on the right side, large and obvious, and shows the current travel mode (a car, a pedestrian, a transit icon) plus the estimated time. Tap it to start navigation.
For sharing, the share button is the square-with-arrow icon. It uses the iOS share sheet, which means you can send the place to Messages, Mail, AirDrop, or any other app that integrates with the system. Useful when you’re coordinating a meetup.
Downloading offline maps is the downward arrow into a tray, and it saves the area so you can use Apple Maps without cell service. It will not warn you that you’re leaving coverage; you’ll just lose the traffic overlay and any real-time updates.
A pair of icons, the heart and the heart-in-a-box, handle saving. Add to Library saves a place to your persistent list; Favorite pins it to the top of your Places screen. The difference matters: Favorites show up on the home screen chips; Library items only show up when you open the profile menu.
Behind the three-dot menu you’ll find “Add to Places”, “Add to Guides”, “Add a Note”, “Report an Issue”, and “Share”. The “Report an Issue” option is the most underrated feature in the app. You can submit a wrong address, a closed business, a missing road, or a category error. Apple’s editorial team actually reads these, and the turnaround is sometimes a few days.
The directions screen: planning vs. navigating
This is where the interface changes most. The “plan” view (before you start driving) and the “navigate” view (after you tap Go) are different screens, and the icons are not all in the same place.
In the plan view, a row of mode icons runs along the top: Driving, Walking, Transit, Ride Services, Cycling. Tap the one you want. The estimated time updates. There’s a starting point field (you can change it; the default is your current location) and a destination field. Below it is a list of route options with the time and distance for each. Tap a route to see turn-by-turn.
In the navigate view, the screen is mostly the map. The bottom card shows your next turn instruction, the time to destination, and the total distance. The top-right has a share ETA button (the same square-arrow icon; tap it to pick contacts and send your arrival time). The top-left has a steps/overview button (a list icon) that brings up the full turn list. The bottom-right has a volume button (a speaker) that toggles the voice navigation on and off. The bottom-left has the end route button.
The report an incident button (a triangle with an exclamation point) is hidden until you swipe up on the bottom card. Use it for road closures, accidents, and police. Apple uses your report to update the route for other drivers in real time.
The screens I no longer open
There are two screens I used to open regularly that I now skip. The route options screen (the one with “Avoid Tolls”, “Avoid Highways”, “Avoid Ferries”) is a Preferences item, not a per-trip toggle. Open Preferences (from the profile menu), set your defaults once, and forget the route options screen exists. The map type toggle (Standard, Hybrid, Satellite) is also a Preferences item. Set it once.
The Add Stop feature is the one I underused for too long. When you’re planning a multi-stop route, you can add up to 15 stops. The icon is the “+” next to the destination field. You can reorder stops by dragging. You can use voice input, which is genuinely useful when you don’t want to type while driving.
The icons that look like other icons
Three pairs of icons confuse most people on day one:
- Walking vs. driving in the directions mode selector. Walking has a pedestrian silhouette; driving has a car. If you can’t tell which is which, the route time will tell you. Driving is faster than walking on most routes.
- Favorites (heart) and add to library (heart in a box). Favorites show up on the home screen chips; Library items only show up in the profile menu.
- Download (arrow into tray) and share (square with arrow). Both are on the place details card but they do different things. Download saves the map offline; share sends the place to another app.
- Recent vs. saved in the search dropdown. The list of recent searches is the most useful thing on the search screen if you go to the same places repeatedly; saved places are a separate screen accessed through the profile menu.
What I would tell past me
Open the profile menu on day one. Set your Preferences (driving mode, walking mode, transit mode, default avoid options). Download a map of your city. The map is small and won’t take up much space. Then download a map of any region you drive to regularly. Do this before you need it.
Add Home and Work to your saved places. Add three or four places you go to weekly (gym, partner’s house, parents’) as Favorites. These will show up on the home screen and save you a search every time.
Turn on offline report sync. In Preferences, there’s a setting for “Always allow Apple Maps to use your location”. Leave it on. Apple uses this for traffic and incident reporting, and the maps are better when more people contribute.
Turn on calibration for the compass. The Maps app has a “Calibrate Compass” option in the settings. Walk in a figure-8 pattern with your phone when prompted. This is the only “do this once” tip that materially changes how the app feels.
Trade-offs
Apple Maps is better than Google Maps in some places and worse in others. The integration with iOS is better. The privacy is better (Apple does not sell your location history; Google does). The Look Around feature is genuinely on par with Street View. The public transit coverage is limited to cities Apple has explicitly partnered with; if you live outside those cities, Google Maps will be more useful for transit. The offline maps are smaller than Google’s but more accurate. The search is worse than Google’s for businesses and addresses; type “Trader Joe’s” in both apps and Google will find all five near you; Apple will find the closest one and miss the rest.
The biggest trade-off is that Apple Maps is deliberately simpler than Google Maps. There’s no timeline of your trips, no timeline of where you’ve been, no social feature, no “popular times” for restaurants, no reviews. Some people want those features. If you do, Apple Maps will frustrate you. If you want a map that gets out of your way and integrates with your phone, Apple Maps is the right choice. The icons are not always obvious, but the ones you actually use are easy to learn, and the icon set is consistent across the app.