“Google has nearly completed work on a new version of Google Maps for the iPhone. Citing sources familiar with Google’s plans, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google is now field testing the app outside of Google. It should soon be ready for Google to submit to Apple for approval,” Eric Zeman writes for Informationweek. “Apple replaced Google Maps with its own mapping product. Embarrassingly for Apple, Apple Maps has been a complete failure.”
MacDailyNews Take: Bald-faced lie.
“Traditionally, Apple has disliked apps and services that compete with the iPhone’s (or iPad’s) native software and services. For years, it wouldn’t allow competitive apps in the app store. It has relaxed that policy a bit,” Zeman writes. “For example, iPhone users can use alternate email applications (including Google’s Gmail app), alternate browsers (including Google’s Chrome app), and alternate cloud syncing services (including Google’s Drive app).”
MacDailyNews Take: Nice examples. Google shill much?
Zeman writes, “Denying Google Maps at this point would be opposite of everything Apple is already doing. It would be an obvious move against a competitor. It would make Apple look petty and pathetic in the eyes of many. Apple can’t say no.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: But, wait, isn’t Apple already seen as “petty and pathetic in the eyes of many” (idiots) for going to court to protect against the blatant, outright theft of their patented intellectual property?
Apple can say no and does routinely, yet we agree they’ll likely approve a Google Maps app, if it’s submitted, but not to look magnanimous. It’ll be a popular app for those who download apps (the number of people who don’t download apps is larger than most people think).
In the end, an app is just an app. Apple’s efficient, vector graphics-based Maps is the default, it’s intertwined with iOS, by far the world’s most profitable mobile operating system, and Apple’s Maps APIs are the ones that developers will be using going forward.
Apple’s Maps are the future. Google Maps are the past.
Related article:
Google close to submitting iOS Maps app for Apple’s approval – November 16, 2012
Apple’s new vector-based iOS 6 Maps support automatic offline use for very wide areas – October 5, 2012
Apple Maps up to five times more data efficient than Google Maps – October 2, 2012
Study: iPhone users vastly outspent Android users on apps, respond much better to ads – August 20, 2012
Apple utterly dominates mobile device market with 6% market share – and 77% of the profits – August 6, 2012
Game over, Android: Apple owns 84% of mobile gaming revenue – May 7, 2012
Wealthy smartphone users more likely to have iPhones; less likely to play games, tweet – April 2, 2012
U.S. Apple product users split evenly between Republicans and Democrats; Half of U.S. households own at least one Apple product – March 28, 2012
Study: iPad users more likely to buy – and buy more – online than traditional PC users – September 29, 2011
Apple iPhone users most open to mobile payments – August 22, 2011
iPhone users smarter, richer, less conservative than Android phone users – August 16, 2011
Apple iPhone users spend significantly more on their credit cards than non-iPhone users – November 5, 2010
Study: Apple iPhone users richer, younger, more productive than other so-called ‘smartphone’ users – June 12, 2009
Nielsen: Mac users are better educated and make more money than PC users – July 12, 2002
Agreed, the issues have been resolved. The Eiffel Tower and the Hoover Dam render properly now and people have forgotten about mapgate and are enjoying the superior and faster vector based Apple maps with turn by turn directions. Sorry google, we don’t need you anymore.
Eiffel Tower in satellite still looks the same on my iPhone as it did September 20. Mind you it’s only in 3D where it looks bizarre; top-down view, Google Maps satellite isn’t much better, it’s just skewed differently.
Hoover Dam 3D is still messed up though (ie looks the same as it did in the articles from late September), with the Hoover Dam bypass bridge still falling right into the canyon.
Apple Maps is far from a failure, but it still lacks certain features and misses out on some details, particularly outside the US.
The nice things however are that it is already better in several respects as well, and a lot of improvement can be done on Apple’s server farm side, mostly without overhauling the Maps app at all.
Apple’s Maps app will just leapfrog Google’s offering as it is further perfected.
(As I said yesterday). Who cares? No one needs google maps anymore.
Apple Maps a complete failure? I use Apple Maps several times a week and find it to be quite reliable….much ado about nothing
Once the initial furor died down, people realized that the new Apple Maps is superior to what they had and they forgot about the controversy. Most of the glaring issues it had upon release have been corrected now anyway. I know I most certainly will not be downloading the Google Maps app when it becomes available because I have absolutely zero need for it.
It appears that both Google Maps and Apple Maps suck in their own unique way.
But not as much as you do!
You’re not adding to this conversation are you, dumbo.
I have been using Apple map around silicon valley and it is fine. But we have a cabin in Utah that we visited last week. The ski resorts are open already! Folks I talked to up there have a game. They put their address in and drive to where it says they live. Whoever is fartherest off wins the bet. Turns out most have no trouble getting a plot, just that very few are in the right town. Even putting in 9 digit zip codes can put them in a wrong county. Apple should dump this mess and admit they are lousy cartographers.
Baloney. A friend of mine lives in Utah. He is amazed at how accurate and fast imaps is.
Why not publish the route, address that you claim failed miserably?
Yeah, I live in Utah and have had ZERO problems with Maps. Maybe you shouldn’t have friends that lie to you…
OK here you go. I have a friend lives at 346 West Main St, Mt. pleasant, 84647. You will find that plots in Wales, Utah 12 miles away. Another lives In Salt Lake City. Try this: 3650 Constitution Drive, West Valley City, 84119. You will find it is not on Constitution Drive at all. I could give you 20 more in my contacts if you want.
We are waiting for Federico to respond….Fed? You there? Fed?
Anybody home?
I have owned three iPhones and three iPads and have seven Mac desktops and a laptop, but none of the iOS devices will be replaced until Apple straightens this out.
Are you really that petty? Most of the issues have. Been sorted, and the rest being sorted. To anyone with half a brain, this should be no big deal.
@CupertinoJoe: “I have a friend lives at 346 West Main St, Mt. pleasant, 84647. You will find that plots in Wales, Utah 12 miles away.”
No, it doesn’t.
Because the address you specified is ambiguous, Apple Maps asks you to choose between two alternatives. Choosing the first takes you right to the address in Mt. Pleasant. The second will take you to Wales.
I assume the other addresses are similar.
Wrong. Both the Wales and Mt Pleasant plot incorrect. Look at the map, see mt. Pleasant Main street? North of the pin drop by many blocks. The Map plot is south of town out near the airport. It is closer than the Wales locatio but still miles off. Apple map cannot get one address correct In that town. I know, I have a cabin just 5 miles from town and was there last week.
Yes, the street address and zip code without the town name is ambiguous. Both towns have that street address and both are in the same zip code. Interestingly, searching in Google maps on my laptop for 346 Main St, mt. pleasant, UT 84647 also returns the 346 Main address in Wales, UT.
Does not do that for me. Google shows only the correct house in Mt Pleasant. And BTW Wales zip code is 84667, not the same. How you got Google to find it in 84647 is beyond me.
FYI TomTom is one of the main data providers for Apple’s maps.
Yeah? So, how come when I decided to use Apple Maps to guide me to a place I’d never been before, a single farmhouse on a tiny lane on the south coast of England, it dropped a pin right by the entrance to their car park area, while Google Maps refused to even recognise the address, no matter what permutations I tried. Google would have been useless, as there’s no voice guidance. I’ll stick with CoPilot, anyway, as there’s no 3G or wifi available down there to access the map server for local guidance, but the drive down, 140 miles, was perfectly executed by Apple.
What irritates me most is that to this day my Garmin AND my TomTom will, on rare occasions, SHOW me on the GPS to take a right yet TELL me over the speaker to turn left (or something similar). And these GPS units are not free nor, quite often, are their monthly/quarterly/annual map updates.
Cupertino, baloney.
I have a friend in Utah and he is amazed at how accurate imaps is.
Why not post the route, address you claim fails miserably?
See my examples of Utah errors above. Both of those plot perfectly in Google Maps as do the other 20 addresses in my contacts. I found as I drove around up there last week that the Apple Maps generally showed where I was pretty accurate, but searching for addresses was totally messed up. I checked all 20 of my contacts in Utah. All but one were right on with Google. Not a single one was correct in Apple Maps. How about you give me some accurate addresses, try Sanpete county where my cabin is.
Just move … Who lives in Utah anyway…
Gees. If you had read my posts you would know I live in Cupertino. But I have a ski cabin in Utah. Great snow by the way. And regardless of that I would rather live in Utah than any state you live in. OK?
Apple maps has worked just fine for me. Loving the turn by turn directions.
I do wish the correction process was more efficient. I have submitted dozens of corrections in my neighborhood (some egregious, others trivial) and have yet to see one reflected in Maps.
Apple Maps are fine, the true risk is Google voice search replacing Siri which leads to Maps. That’s a serious one-two punch which almost completes googles ambition to turn iPhones into Google phones
I love Apple Maps but I occasionally have the need to get transit information and Apple’s implementation of this is terrible. What’s taking them so long?
I will give Nokia’s maps a try before ever touching Google again. Screw them.
Does Apple Maps have an equivalent to Google Street View? Would/will it be part of a Google Maps app? I have driven all over the U.S. and Europe with no need for any sort of GPS, but use Street View often. If I can get Street View I will update my iPad and iPhone 4S to iOS 6, replace them with the new models and buy an iPad mini.
I welcome google maps back. Apple maps is terribly hard to see and is a joke locating business’s ie restaraunts, stores etc. also traffic data not real usefull. Turn by turn is okay but not very informative and not used much day to day anyway.
“Terrible to see?” On the contrary, the legibility and clarity of Apple Maps is significantly *better* than Google Maps.
Except that if the Google Maps app has no turn by turn why bother anyway and if it does shows just how disingenuous Google was and trying to create controversy at Apple’s expense. I will not be downloading Google Maps in any case on any of my many Apple mobile devices.
Apple has really worst map service.
Let me start by saying I love Apple products. I have two macs, four iPhones and three iPads in my household. Now I can’t speak for Maps accuracy in the US but I live in Montreal, Canada and honestly the app is completely unusable. It almost ALWAYS gives me wrong directions. I don’t know if this is because Apple didn’t think Canada was worth mapping but the the app is seriously horrendous. There is no way Steve Jobs would have let this app out the way it is, and if somehow his IQ dropped a hundred points and he did, he sure as hell would have put Beta on it. I still love Apple products but the Maps app in regards to its accuracy in Montreal(which is one of the most popular cities in Canada for anyone who doesn’t know) is so far below Apple’s standards it’s insane…
Talking out the backside, get Android and Windows 8 and be done with it.
See it’s because of retards like you that I don’t generally post in forums. I don’t like Windows or Android don’t intend on switching but that doesn’t change the fact that Maps is extremely inaccurate IN MONTREAL. Maps gives me business phone numbers with no area code IN MONTREAL. Can’t speak for anywhere else. I’m sure Apple is working on it but it is what it is. Grow up and get over it, even great companies drop the ball sometimes…
I live in Toronto and honestly, Apple Maps is very usable here. I have rarely encountered a location or guidance error.
That’s great. The next time I visit Toronto I’ll be sure to use Maps to get directions. Unfortunately not the case in Montreal.
keep google maps on your android platform, Apple don’t need maps
from google, there’s no antitrust to fear because there are other map
apps available.
Apple should dump that filth called maps and either start over or get real professional help from professional cartographers. It’s a complete joke on the scale of the Microsoft Ribbon.
It’s butt ugly, not at all informative and just sucks.
So, BLN, you’re a cartography expert as well, now?
Google is a direct competitor, just say no, Walmart or Target don’t carry Kindle’s do they?
Apple maps works perfect in St. Louis area for me. The clarity and navigation is superior to google maps without a doubt.
I had a look at Nokia’s new maps on their website. The satellite view for my town dates from around 2005…
The title should be “Google Android is going to Iphone”
I’m an apple fan but in Australia apple maps is shit! Suburbs are not labelled. Hospitals are located in cow paddocks, town names are 14km out of town, major roads are not coloured like google maps which makes it all very hard to follow a map and the lack of street view sux! Oh and the search feature is pathetic in comparison to google maps. I for one would LOVE google maps app until apple can fix their app.
Apple maps needs another 5 years to catch up I’d say.
I have hit the “report a problem” several times in apple maps and not a single thing has been fixed.
As MDN aptly pointed out, good move to approve Google Maps App and allow CHOICE.
Partisans will continue to argue otherwise, as is their right.
At the end of the day, simply allow the users to decide. It’s all good.
If I were apple I wouldn’t allow google to provide turn by turn directions in their app. It would a distinction between the apps.
Didn’t google decide turn by turn wasn’t going to be on IOS devices previously.