Maps
Ask your AI client to find places, turn an address into coordinates, or work out how long a drive will take. Orchard answers using Apple Maps data. Maps is a Pro integration.
What you can do
- “Find coffee shops within walking distance of the Ferry Building in San Francisco.”
- “What restaurants are near my current location?”
- “Convert ‘1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA’ into coordinates.”
- “How far is it, and how long would it take to drive from Boston to New York?”
- “What’s the straight-line distance between these two coordinates?”
- “Where am I right now?”
Available tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
location_search | Search places. type selects the mode: search (general query), nearby (places around a coordinate, filtered by category), or autocomplete (address suggestions). |
location_geocode | Convert between addresses and coordinates. direction selects address_to_coords or coords_to_address. |
location_route | Calculate a route between two locations (distance, travel time, transport-specific notes). Can also compute straight-line distance between two coordinate pairs. |
location_current | Get the device’s current coordinates and, optionally, the reverse-geocoded address. |
location_search with type=nearby requires explicit latitude/longitude; it does not read the device location itself. If you don’t already have coordinates, ask for the current location first (location_current) and feed the result into the nearby search.
Required permissions
Maps needs Location (When In Use) only for location_current, and macOS prompts for this the first time that tool runs. Search, geocoding, and routing by address or explicit coordinates don’t require any permission.
CLI usage
The command is `orchard location`, not `orchard maps`
Maps is the app name shown in the Orchard panel and in this documentation, but the CLI subcommand is orchard location. There is no orchard maps command.
Negative coordinates need `--flag=value`
Longitudes west of the prime meridian (and any other negative number) must be attached to the flag with an equals sign, like --lng1=-122.4194. If you write --lng1 -122.4194 with a space instead, the CLI reads -122.4194 as a new flag and fails with a usage error — quoting the value doesn’t help. This applies to every coordinate flag on this page, including --lon in location search and --lat1/--lng1/--lat2/--lng2 in location route.
orchard location search --query "coffee" --type nearby --lat 37.7955 --lon=-122.3937orchard location geocode --direction address_to_coords --address "1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA"orchard location route --origin "Boston, MA" --destination "New York, NY" --transport drivingorchard location current --json--transport accepts convenient aliases that Orchard normalizes: auto, car, drive, and driving all map to automobile; cycle, bike, and biking map to cycling; walk/walking and transit pass through as-is.
If you already have two coordinate pairs and don’t need a routed path, skip --origin/--destination entirely and ask for the straight-line distance instead:
orchard location route --straight-line --lat1=37.7749 --lng1=-122.4194 --lat2=40.7128 --lng2=-74.0060 --unit miles--unit accepts meters, kilometers, or miles, and defaults to kilometers if omitted.
Tips & limitations
transitrouting only returns an ETA (expected travel time and distance), not turn-by-turn directions. The response includes anapple_maps_urlyou can open for the full route with bus/subway lines and transfers.location_searchresult limits are capped at 50 forsearch, 30 fornearby, and 10 forautocomplete, regardless of thelimityou request.- Geocoding quality depends on Apple’s geocoder: ambiguous or incomplete addresses may return multiple candidates or none.