Apple has rolled out a new update for its Maps app, which brings the ability to show Covid-19 vaccine locations. The company’s navigation app is picking up this data from VaccineFinder, which is an online service developed by the Boston Children’s Hospital to provide the latest vaccine availability data to eligible groups of people. The data includes vaccine availability status at providers and pharmacies.
The feature currently provides users with vaccine information to people located inside of the US. However, the company will soon bring this feature to other countries too. Currently, the app includes data of more than 20,000 locations across the US and will be adding information about more details in the coming week.
With the help of this update, Apple users can locate all the nearby Covid-19 vaccine locations from inside of its location services app. To find out the locations, users simply need to open the Search bar inside of the Apple Maps app and select the ‘Covid-19 Vaccines’ option inside of the ‘Find Nearby’ menu. Alternatively, users can also ask the company’s digital voice assistant, Siri to provide them with the location data, simply by saying “Siri, where can I get a COVID vaccination?”
Inside of the Apple Maps app, all of the Covid-19 vaccination sites will have a dedicated place car, which will include detailed information about the centre including operating hours, address, phone numbers and a link to the provider’s website. From their people can access the provider’s website to learn more about available vaccines and book appointments.
To recall, Google started rolling out a similar feature inside of its Google Maps app back in January. At the time, Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai also announced that the company is providing a grant of $150 million to promote vaccine-related education and equitable distribution.
