It looks like there is some evidence that Apple is planning an OS X version of their new mapping application. A recently found snippet of code shows some interesting artifacts.
Raju, Technically Personal:
Our developer friend, Cody Cooper has now stumbled upon an interesting code dump in iOS 6 maps application which hints at the possibility of Apple Maps coming to Macs in the near future. During his routine investigation of Maps app, Cody found some interesting bits in the file altitude_manifest.xml[…] In this XML file, there is a reference to a set of Intel based graphics chipsets for which certain features like Shading are disabled. Cody says that older Intel chipsets are known to not support shading very well, and that’s probably why Apple wants to disable that feature on these Macs or will be software rendered. It is interesting to note that there is no reference to ATI Radeon chipsets in the list above.
It’s not particularly surprising or controversial to assume that Apple has plans to bring their new Maps to OS X, but it is pretty fascinating that the Mac isn’t the new feature frontier anymore. This has been true for the last few years, but it is becoming more and more obvious. Not only are software features coming to the Mac after iOS, but now hardware like the Retina display is slowly making its way backwards to Apple’s traditional computers. Apple is walking the walk in their post-PC world, and its only a matter of time before the Mac becomes completely irrelevant.
Source: TechPP
Image Credit: Apple
