You may remember the video we showed you a few days back of the hidden “City Tour” flyover mode in Apple’s Maps app in iOS 8. While that was accessed via hidden debug menus, an eagle-eyed 9to5Mac reader has discovered a way for anyone with access to the iOS 8 or OS X Yosemite Maps app to see the tour.
A few days ago, 9to5Mac published some details about the elusive City Tours feature of iOS 8 found hidden in secret debug menus. It was thought that this was the only way to see the feature. However, reader Stefan Kuijt has now discovered that the feature is actually exposed publicly in the iOS 8 UI, albeit extremely hidden. This means anyone with the iOS 8 beta can try City Tours without any modification. The video above shows the current public user-interface in action, touring a selection of France’s famous landmarks.
Just search for a city on the map with a yellow label. This is only visible in the Hybrid view. Tap on the name, and then tap “Tour”. The only cities this works with so far are New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Glasgow (UK), Barcelona, Rome and Paris. All of these cities are labeled in yellow.
We’re sure there will be a better defined way of detecting cities that supports the “City Tour” mode in the future, and Apple will likely be adding to the list of cities supporting the feature, as development of iOS 8 moves forward. But for now, this is an easy way for any user of iOS 8 to view the new City Tours feature.
