How to Access Flyover City Tour Feature in iOS 8 on iPhone/iPad

It seems that in iOS 8 beta 2, there’s a new “Flyover City Tour” feature that takes you through popular PoIs (or tourist places of interest) of a city. It’s more or less an add-on feature that’s helpful for tourists. And needless to say, it’s beautiful.

This feature seems to be available for certain users of iOS 8 beta 2: the beta that Apple released a few days back. It’s also available on OS X Yosemite beta.

Note that the feature is available only for some select cities. It’s also kind of hidden, so my best guess is that Apple is just trying it out and will be offering it as a public feature in the later beta stages. Currently, these cities have been verified to support Flyover City Tours: San Francisco, New York, Paris, Glasgow, Stockholm, Rome, Cape Town, Perth, Barcelona and Bordeaux.

Here’s how to access Flyover City Tours in iOS 8 beta 2:

• Open the Maps app and swipe over to any of the cities mentioned above
• If the City label is in yellow, it means it has a Flyover City Tour.
• Tap on the city label.
• Now, tap on the Flyover Tour button/link on the label.
• The Flyover City Tour will begin

 

As noted before, you’ll need to be running the beta 2 of iOS 8 for this to work. If you don’t find the feature, may be that wasn’t pushed or something else is not working rightly. Since it’s not a publicized feature yet, you can’t be sure if it will make the final cut or Apple would iron out the bugs and get them finalized.

To begin a City Tour, make sure your Maps app is in ‘Hybrid’ mode and navigate to a major city like New York, San Francisco, Rome or Paris. Cities compatible with the feature will be highlighted in yellow, and show a ‘Flyover City’ option when tapped.