If you have ever seen an Apple Maps car touring your city, you surely thought it was only collecting images to improve navigation and the Around Look function, Apple's equivalent to Google Street View, but that's not all, or at least it won't be from this moment.
Now, the Cupertino company has discreetly updated its image collection page to reveal a new purpose: to train its artificial intelligence models through its popular cars.
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As of March 2025, the images captured by these vehicles will not only serve to improve the accuracy of Apple Maps, but also for feed Apple's generative AI. This technology is behind functions such as Clean UP, which allows you to eliminate unwanted objects from photos, as well as image playground, which generates text -based images.
However, the Californian giant ensures that it will continue protecting privacy of users, blurring faces and registrations before using the data for training their models.
Apple already performed these capture tasks through two methods: cars equipped with advanced cameras and sensors, and people at street levels and special backpacks. These teams travel different areas and return periodically to update the information. The novelty is that now these images will also help improve the ability to recognition, creation and improvement of images In Apple's products and services.
Apple's artificial intelligence has become a fundamental pillar of its ecosystem. In Apple Intelligence compatible devices, the APP photos has significantly improved its search capacity by keywords and allows you to create Memory Movies based on user descriptions. Other tools such as Image Wand generate illustrations from sketches made with Apple Pencil, which facilitates the creation of visual content without having great drawing skills.
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This movement reinforces Apple's strategy to bet on artificial intelligence discreetly, integrating it into functions that improve the user experience without depending on external servers. Unlike other companies that have been criticized for the unusual use of images in the training of their AI, Apple maintains its commitment to privacy and ensures that It will only use anonymous images.
It is not the first time that Apple introduces changes without making large ads. The company usually implements improvements in its software and hardware without shouting at the four winds, letting users gradually discover the new functions. This is another test of this strategy, and suggests that Apple's artificial intelligence will continue to evolve without making too much noise, but with a significant impact on its ecosystem.
With this change, Apple could be laying the foundations for a future where its artificial intelligence is able to generate visual content with a level of realism never seen on its platform. Although the current functions of AI are still in an initial phase, the use of real images captured by their maps cars could give a remarkable impulse to their image generation and editing capabilities in the coming years.
