Apple’s new iOS 6 Maps app, shown off at the WWDC 2012 keynote on Monday, is certainly impressive, but many were disappointed to hear that the new 3D and turn-by-turn directions wouldn’t be available on the iPhone 4. One Russian iOS developer has taken it upon himself to change that.
As iGuides reports (via MacRumors) Anton Titkov put his mental gears to work and found a way to bring the new Maps app to the iPhone 4, and developed an application called 3DEnabler to help users make it happen. His solution is not an easy one, however – it involves jailbreaking the iOS 6 beta and installing some custom software packages, and the process isn’t exactly straightforward. It also doesn’t work for the turn-by-turn directions – only the 3D Flyover.
Apple typically announces new iOS features that are hardware-specific – like Siri and the iPhone 4S – and there’s always a strong effort of some sort from the community to make those solutions available on older hardware.
It’s unclear exactly why all of the features Maps won’t be supported on older devices, although it likely has to do with those features requiring more resources, additional RAM, or more powerful hardware.
Check out the below video to see 3DEnabler in action!