“Apple hasn’t been a mapmaker and knows it. Five years ago, Steve Jobs himself favored partnering with companies like Google, for search and mapping backend services,” Kontra writes for Counternotions. “Jobs wasn’t likely thrilled to have to rely on Google or any other company for these services, but others had a significant head-start in digital maps, and Apple had its hands full reinventing the phone at the time.”

“The intervening five years brought Apple unprecedented success with the iPhone but also a well known systems design problem: it’s very hard to change user habits and expectations once set in. Due to contractual circumstances now being breathlessly analyzed in the media, Apple finds itself having to part with an app powered by a one-time partner, now its chief rival,” Kontra writes. “Regardless, users are rarely comfortable with the loss of what’s familiar, no matter how rationally justifiable the reasons might be. Enter, Mapgate.”

Kontra writes, “Tim Cook telling customers to use other companies’ mapping products must have taken some guts at Cupertino. It’s perhaps a conviction on his part (with his inside knowledge) that Apple can and over time will do better than the competing apps he so forthrightly listed.”

Much more in the full article – recommended – here.