Apple has once again sent its camera cars on a survey trip in Germany.
The vehicles are equipped with many sensors, including lidar, to capture the surroundings in three dimensions. From April to September of this year, the camera cars will be on the road in all sixteen federal states of Germany and will organize new image material. In addition, people with camera backpacks are also deployed in larger cities to capture areas that are inaccessible to cars. These include cities such as Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin, Potsdam, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Leipzig.
The new recordings should Apple help update its database of speed limits and could also help update its Street View counterpart Ummachen, which has been covering much of Germany since summer 2022. Most of the recordings are from the first tracking shots in 2019 and 2020. But Apple apparently also plans to update the material regularly.
Apple blurs faces and license plates in the footage to privacy to protect. However, pixelation can be requested via email, including by homeowners for their properties. In contrast to Google’s Street View rides So far, however, very few property owners have made use of this option.