Apple Maps in iOS 27 hides weekly-updated Local Lists for trending spots

A quiet addition to Apple Maps

iOS 27 brought several new features to Apple Maps, and one of the more interesting ones has gone largely unnoticed. According to 9to5 Mac, the update added a feature called Local Lists, which refreshes every week with places that are currently popular in a given area.

The idea builds on Guides, the curated collections of places that Apple Maps has offered for years. Guides are put together by Apple's editorial team, by celebrities or alongside current events. Local Lists extend that concept, but they change constantly rather than staying fixed.

Apple describes the feature as a way to find a spot for meeting friends, dining out and more. It says the lists draw on signals about what is trending, from popular restaurants to good places to take children.

How the trending rankings work

The lists are organised around Trending Restaurants, ranked from 1 to 20. According to the explanation inside the app, a place earns its spot because its popularity has risen over the past week, based on activity such as viewing, sharing and interacting with its listing in Apple Maps.

Because the rankings change each week, Apple advises saving any venue you plan to visit. Each entry has a plus button for that purpose, so a restaurant you like will stay in your saved places even after it drops off the list.

Apple also states that the insights behind the lists are handled with privacy in mind and are never linked to individual users.

Finding the hidden feature

Local Lists are easy to miss. To reach them, tap the search field in Maps and scroll down to a Trending Restaurants section. On an iPhone 18 Pro, 9to5 Mac notes, the keyboard covers this section by default, so you need to dismiss the keyboard before it appears.

The search screen shows only a few entries at first. Tapping through opens the full list of 20, such as Trending Restaurants in New York.

There is also a way to browse every available list. Open a Trending Restaurants list, then tap the area showing the Apple logo and the words Local Lists next to the last-updated date.

Where it works and who can use it

The feature is limited to the United States for now. Apple has not said exactly which areas have their own localised lists, but 9to5 Mac counted 1,021 lists in total, so most parts of the country are likely covered.

Whether Apple plans to bring Local Lists to other countries is not yet known. The company has not commented on wider availability.

For regular Maps users, the feature is a low-effort way to keep up with new and newly popular places nearby. It will not replace a search for a specific destination, but it can surface ideas you might not otherwise have found.