Three years after Apple’s launch of its own iOS Maps app, sensor-equipped vans have been appearing in cities such as Dallas, New York and Los Angeles. “While Apple was known to be gearing up for the launch of a mass transit directions service this fall in a handful of cities, sources have revealed that it is also developing its first entirely in-house mapping database to reduce its reliance on TomTom, using a fleet of mysterious vans to take still photos of business storefronts to replace Yelp photos, and building a 3D Street View feature,” notes 9to5Mac. The vans are collecting information that will be added to the core data Apple has put together for its base map. A shift to the new database is expected by 2017 or 2018.