Pre-2012 In anticipation of the creation of a 3D mapping service that would eventually become Maps, Apple acquired Poly9, a Canadian 3D mapping company, in mid-2010, two years before launching Flyover. Poly9, like Apple, was an early competitor to Google Earth, containing similar features to the company, particularly a 3D globe dubbed the "Poly Globe". In August of the same year, Apple was also revealed to be the buyer of
C3 Technologies, a Sweden-based company which also specialized in 3D imagery, which the company collected aerially. C3 was originally built off military technology developed by Swedish defense company
Saab AB, which allowed the company to collect higher-quality imagery than traditional civilian companies. In addition to Flyover, C3 also assisted with other Maps features, including traffic data and
Wikipedia entries for cities and places of interest. The acquisition of both companies led to speculation that Apple would create a mapping service separate from
Google Maps, as well as a mapping service which could compete with Google Earth.
2012–2015 Flyover was announced along with Apple Maps at the
2012 World Wide Developers Conference, and both were released in September 2012. Upon release, Flyover was only available in the
iPhone 4s,
iPad 2 and the
3rd generation iPad. The 10 initial cities that first received Flyover were
Chicago,
Copenhagen,
Las Vegas,
Los Angeles,
Miami,
Montreal,
Sacramento,
San Francisco,
Seattle and
Sydney. More cities would receive Flyover in later years, with
Apple often adding multiple cities to Flyover at a time. In addition to this initial release, more cities were added later in 2012, including
Toronto in Canada. In December, Lyon received full coverage. In 2013, Flyover was added to
Paris in May, as well as to smaller cities such as
Indianapolis and
Baltimore, totaling 16 cities in the United States, Germany, Canada, France and the UK, alongside coverage being expanded in several existing areas. In addition, Flyover was also added to London,
Barcelona,
Cologne, Rome,
Madrid and Vancouver. In September, Flyover was released to
Bordeaux, followed by
Saint-Étienne in November. Flyover was added to several cities and national parks in New Zealand, France, the United States, South Africa, Sweden and Japan, including
Cape Town and two
Arizona National Parks in 2014, with
Marseille, the second-largest city in France receiving Flyover coverage later in the year as well and
Aix-en-Provence. The capital of Japan,
Tokyo, also received Flyover that year, along with
Wellington, New Zealand and
Yosemite National Park. In addition to adding new areas, the coverage of existing cities with the feature was expanded. In San Francisco, Flyover was added across the
San Francisco Bay to
Berkeley. In March, Apple added Flyover to
Saint-Tropez,
Perth and
Cordoba. In mid-2014, the City Tours feature, which allows users to tour locations supported by the Flyover feature, was publicly released. In November, several cities received Flyover, those being
Nice,
Menton, Montpellier and
Monaco. In December, Flyover was added to the cities of
Strasbourg,
Dijon,
Millau,
Turin,
Rotterdam,
Malmö,
Avignon,
Biarritz and
Perpignan. Flyover was added to over 20 cities and locations in 2015 in various cities mostly across the US and Western Europe, including
Canberra and
Venice. Flyover was also added to
Budapest, in
Hungary and
Prague in the
Czech Republic later in the year.
Guadalajara, the largest city in
Mexico to have the feature, also received Flyover. Japan also saw more cities with Flyover, with
Nagoya,
Osaka and
Hiroshima being added, and
Mannheim,
Stuttgart and
Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany also received Flyover that year. In April, Flyover was added to 20 locations around the world, those being
Arches National Park,
Badajoz,
Bari,
Belfast,
Canberra,
Chambord,
Châteauneuf-du-Pape,
Chichen Itza,
Coimbra,
Culiacán,
Durban,
Huelva,
Le Mans,
Mont Saint-Michel,
Montpellier,
Nelson,
Nîmes,
Paestum,
Reims and
Teotihuacán. Flyover was added An additional 7 cities received Flyover in June 2015, those being the cities of
Karlsruhe and
Kiel in Germany,
Braga in Portugal,
San Juan in Puerto Rico,
Cádiz and
Jerez de la Frontera in Spain, and
Kingston upon Hull in the United Kingdom.
2016–present In February 2016, Apple was added Flyover to 20 additional locations in
Australia,
France,
Switzerland,
Germany, the
US, the
Netherlands,
Japan,
South Africa,
Italy,
Austria,
Australia and the
Virgin Islands, those being
Adelaide,
Amiens,
La Rochelle,
Nantes,
Toulouse,
Berne,
Bremen,
Columbus,
Louisville,
South Bend,
Springfield,
Tucson,
Dresden,
Eindhoven,
Johannesburg,
Middlesbrough,
Salzburg,
Taormina,
Toyoma and
Virgin Islands. In March,
Augsburg,
Braunschweig,
Hanover,
Newcastle upon Tyne and
Niigata received Flyover. January 2019 saw one of Apple's largest Flyover expansions, with the feature being added to 51 cities in France, Japan, the United States, and others, including
Albuquerque,
Cincinnati and
Key West as well as the entirety of the nation of
Monaco. In September 2020, Flyover was added to the city of
Amsterdam, in the
Netherlands. In June 2022, Flyover was added to
Vienna in
Austria. Another major rollout of Flyover occurred in 2024, with dozens of cities across North America, Australia, and Europe receiving the feature, including
Washington D.C.,
Kansas City, and
Brisbane, as well as smaller cities, including
Chattanooga,
Birmingham, Alabama and
St. George. These updates continued into 2025, with
Lisbon,
Frankfurt and several other cities receiving Flyover. In July 2025, Flyover was added to the cities of
Brasília and
Ouro Preto in Brazil, marking the first Brazilian and the first South American cities to receive Flyover. In September,
Le Havre and
Dunkirk received Flyover. Flyover was again expanded to several cities in Europe and Australia, including
Bilbao, in October. In November, Flyover was added to the cities of
Plzeň in the Czech Republic,
Stavanger in Norway,
Logroño and
Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain,
Lucerne in Switzerland, and
Newbury in the United Kingdom. In December, Flyover was added to
Zurich in Switzerland. In January 2026, Flyover was added to the cities of
Caen in France and
Wolfsburg in Germany, as well as the cities of
Belo Horizonte in Brazil and
Nijmegen in the Netherlands later that month. In February and March, Flyover was added to the cities of
Mulhouse and
Thionville in France. == Use ==