Apple Maps gets a boost from a pre-Internet era company 

Yellow Pages, the company whose business-finding phone book was once a staple in nearly every Canadian home, has been busy modernizing and the company has recently announced that data from its YP.ca platform is now being provided to Apple to populate local business contact information on Apple Maps.

The information that is being provided to Apple includes: addresses, geo-coordinates, phone numbers, categories, website URLs, hours of operation, photos, ratings and reviews as well other info available to Yellow Pages. With this type of information being made available on Apple Maps, consumers will be better informed on their choices and can more easily find what they are looking for.

“We are pleased to bring our YP.ca local business listings data to Apple Maps” said Matthieu Houle, Vice-President of digital media at Yellow Pages in a release through CNW. “This is another proof point in our company’s digital transformation and provides added value for Yellow Pages clients and listings through visibility, traffic and leads. Our business listings content is now available to iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch and Mac users, allowing them to search, find, contact and navigate to over a million business locations in Canada using Apple Maps.”   

Yellow Pages has a huge database of approximately 1.8 million businesses in Canada and is particularly strong in the small business market. As Houle pointed out, the sharing of this information with Apple will provide a greater value to local businesses but not just businesses, it will also benefit Canadians as we become more knowledgeable about businesses in our neighbourhoods and to make clever purchase decisions.