“Many, including us, thought that the introduction of Google Maps might lead to a rapid uptake in iOS 6 adoption, the idea being that many were holding out in order to keep Google’s offering as the default on their iPhones, iPads and iPod touches,” Darrell Etherington reports for TechCrunch.
MacDailyNews Take: Most definitely not including us. 90% of the Apple Maps imbroglio was/is FUD that wasn’t going to stop the vast majority of consumers from upgrading to latest version of the world’s best mobile operating system/platform/ecosystem.
“But Chitika, a mobile ad network that regularly tracks iOS adoption rates based on devices accessing apps using its platform, has found negligible impact on how many users have upgraded a day and a half after the Google Maps release,” Etherington reports. “Chitika’s data shows that of users accessing its network, the average number using iOS 6 went from a very high 72.77 percent when Google Maps was released at midnight ET on Dec. 13 to a very slightly higher 72.94 percent as of 2:24 PM on Dec. 14.”
“That difference is slim enough that Chitika says there was ‘no immediate impact’ at all on iOS 6 adoption rates vs. the existing trends the network has been seeing. There was virtually no difference, let alone a dramatic spike,” Etherington reports. “The takeaway? While a vocal minority may have claimed that they were holding out for a dedicated Google Maps app before upgrading, it seems that overall, many had decided to already take the iOS 6 plunge long before the app’s arrival.”
Read more in the full article here.iOS 6, mapping,
No one has ever thought it was a big problem. It was just negative publicity from the competitors.
Just that simple, yet it serves as fodder for idea-starved and ethics-agnostic writers saved from the unemployment lines only by an apparent shortage of qualified journalists.
Most excellent
Besides, Google Maps for iOS sucks big time.
Yes, it is pretty fast, but the street view image quality is sub-par and jumpy, its (Googly) GUI is very wasteful of screen real estate.
Controls are either hard to locate (e.g., trying to get out of Street View), or they are in your face when you don’t want it (e.g., the right black slide-out menu, which is trying to sell you on Google Earth).
It proposes that you register or login (mostly without reason, but it IS a form of social engineering to get Trojan-like behavior — trying to link all your activities, not only search, to your identity).
AND, public transportation routing looks rather nice, AS LONG AS YOU DON’T LOOK AT THE RESULTS: it may send you off into neighboring states or suggest you leave a day early to finish a 9 hour trip with multiple connections, for which there is a perfectly valid 1:30 hour train connection.
I at first thought the redesign was wasteful of screen real estate (compared to the original Google Maps in iOS), but it is in fact better. Screen shots of satellite images from both apps, saved to Photos for easy A-B comparison, quickly shows this.
And the speed increase is hugely apparent.
I use Street View constantly and have seen no jumpiness, and no reduction in image quality. The default view in the new version is slightly wider.
However, the new Street View lacks the extremely useful circular view orientation image at the bottom right of the screen. And where Street View previously filled the entire screen, it now carries the stupid (Apple mandated?) carrier, time and battery charge info at the top of the screen.
And you are right: controls are phenomenally hard to figure out. Street View access is utterly unintuitive, full of hidden functions. But for serious users the advantage still goes to Google bigtim
whoops — too much coffee.
For serious users the advantage unfortunately still goes to Google bigtime: it has the incomparable Street View. Now our household’s four IOS devices can be updated to 6. And my iPad mini arrives today!
This study is useless, as it was only done in 1.5 days.
Skater, in 1.5 days you can accomplish a hell of a lot if you’re not stoned.
Just FYI.
Sk8erMikez, if the lack of GM on iOS 6 was such a huge deal and the new GM is half as wonderful as claimed, then one would have expected a significant percentage of the remaining 27% to upgrade to iOS 6 very rapidly. Instead, nothing much happened over the first 1.5 days when the vocal minority would have been expected to act.
Give it another week or two and check the iOS 6 stats again. If nothing much changes after that period of time, then it will be clear that the importance of GM on iOS was vastly overstated.
A huge number of people are seriously affected by IOS Maps. The worst affected by IOS Maps are those who do not have it.
I feel pity for those who are harmed by this serious lack.
I always get a kick out of unqualified (and unsubstantiated) generalities like “a huge number”. What is a huge number, how does it relate to the total number, and most importantly, what are your sources for making such a claim?
My guess is that its a ‘feeling’ pulled out of the poster’s arse.
It’s like Jeff Bezos saying Amazon sold a huge number of Kindles this year which was nearly twice as many as last year or 2 x X = 2X. Most Amazon investors think that’s a nice round figure. Actual figures are irrelevant and possibly damaging. Why bother investors with trifles?
I believe he was making a joke.
On the basis that there are more Android users than there are iOS 6 users, it is logical to make the assumption that the number of people who do not have iOS 6 and therefor Apple maps is indeed larger than those who do ipso facto HUGE. If you then extrapolate that at no given time will you come across an instant in time when 100% IOS 6 users are accessing maps at the same time, you can then deduct that notwithstanding a similar instant for G****e m**s the number of people who do not have iOS 6 maps is indeed huge and they are affected by it because they can only envy those who have it, hence the pity.
I think my ‘tongue in cheek’ comment was lost on you. Please read ‘The worst affected . . . are those who don’t have it.’
Careful reading is such a great skill and is all too often neglected.
77+% adoption rate sounds high, but what is the percentage of devices that COULD update to iOS 6, vs the whole population of iOS devices. There still have to be a lot of iPod touch 1,2 and 3, iPhone 1, 2 and 3 and iPad 1 devices out there.
I would attribute the bulk of blame to a starved headline-grabbing media wearing Google blinders while conviently ignoring massive Google location mistakes, certainly, in my area.
Apple stock price: Roller-coaster.
Google stock price: Consistently ahead of Apple, while doing next to nothing.
Why?
+1
The new silent majority speaks loudly: “Noggle.”
being greedy and unethical Google Screwed themselves.
Google had an agreement with Apple to provide maps but when iPhone came out they decided to fuk apple and iOS users by providing an inferior map version (iOS 1 – 5) vs the one available to Androd (no turn by turn etc for years).
(Jobs had trusted Google and did not initiate a serious Apple map project — if he had when iPhone was in drawing boards, i.e years ago the map problems wouldn’t have occured. But Google under the Mole screwed apple: 1) copied iPhone 2) although agreeing to produce maps gave iOS a vastly inferior version vs android. )
NOW: Apple has it’s own maps and it’s going to get better and better.
Google Makes More Money off iOS than all of android (about 2 times as much). FORCING Apple to make it’s own maps google fuked itself ROYALLY …
Apple Maps with Siri has been very, very good to me.
Not surprised at all, anyone who seriously needed navigation on iOS 5 must already have purchased one of the map apps like TomTom or Navigon.
They were the only way to have turn-by-turn and offline maps back then. Those apps still work today.
I doubt many really held back updating because of maps.
So far, I’ve found Apple’s Map application very good. It finds some locations for me that Google’s Map does not. And iOS Map has a much nicer interface. So what’s all the fuss? Just as MDN says — FUD!
The iOS 6 holdouts either probably can’t spell iOS or are waiting for a untethered JB.
You folks still staring at a grid of stale icons with a crap map app! Just how much polish can you put on a 4 year old turd anyway? Wake up and get the 920, stop living in the past. It blows all others away.
Hey troll we have great stuff fill those grids with. What about you? Not dev wants to touch your piece of junk unless Microsoft pays.
You do know the 920 has a grid of boring stale flat icons?
I held off on iOS 6 for a while then switched but used the Google Maps web version (which was also a Tim Cook suggestion in the apology letter if I remember correctly). So perhaps that has had an impact on the apparently small increase in iOS 6 installations following the release of the Google Maps iOS app. Apple Maps remains shocking in many parts of the world. All I am looking for is reasonable accuracy and some useful public transport info and it fails to deliver on both counts. Thank heavens the Google app appeared.
Many Apple enthusiasts seem to assume that Apple Maps will eventually get it right and will then lead the field. Not much evidence of it so far.
It been three months! Actually less, because of change of leadership in maps at Apple.
Care to tell us what momentous achievement you made in the last couple of months?
Eventually, Apple Maps will quietly become the dominant mapping app used on the iPhone (if it isn’t already), for the same reason that IE dominates on Windows and Safari on the Mac. It comes already installed, it’s right there on the main screen, and for the vast majority of users, it will be more than good enough. People bitched about Safari and IE back when they were introduced, but today, only power users install other browsers.
I have the Google Maps app “just in case”, and I’ll probably use a couple more times to evaluate it, but long term I expect to be using Apple Maps for all my mapping needs.
——RM
google apps on the iPhone has different privacy implications for end users – be aware and read the fine print.