“Google Maps was leagues ahead of Apple Maps two years ago — and still is, in many respects — but recent studies show Apple is catching up in a big way,” Dave Smith writes for ReadWrite. “According to the most recent insights from ComScore, Apple Maps gained 35 million regular users from September 2012 to September 2013, while Google Maps users across iOS and Android dropped from 81 million in 2012 to just 58.7 million in 2013.”
“On the iPhone, the numbers are stacked in Apple’s favor. Whereas Apple Maps gained 35 million new users in the last year, just 6 million iPhone users rely on Google Maps—and according to The Guardian, one-third of those individuals use Google Maps because they simply haven’t upgraded to iOS 6 or iOS 7,” Smith writes. “In other words, Apple Maps is finally becoming the default app for most iPhone users. Still, despite the boost it received in iOS 7, Apple Maps still has a lot of growing up to do.”
“At least one-third of Apple’s 15 acquisitions in 2013 were for mapping companies. Clearly, Apple is serious about making its maps better — soon,” Smith writes. “This may be the first year Apple Maps finally appeases drivers and public commuters alike, but the new navigation app could also come with a few surprises. Apple might also use augmented reality to provide indoor maps for malls and buildings as well.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Maps is already leagues ahead of Google Maps in many respects.
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Apple’s 3D recording patent could bring user-generated ‘street views’ to Maps – January 7, 2014
Apple patent filing reveals interactive maps with dynamically adjusting content layers – December 19, 2013
ZDNet: Apple Maps’ worldview is now better than Google Maps – November 30, 2013
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The best hands down! Once you use Apple Maps you will never go back. Now google doesn’t have to know every turn or location I visit!!!
The new Google Maps is completely unusable. It sucks in every way. It routed my wife through Atlanta, GA to get from Portland, OR to Reno, NV. I think this will finally get her to switch to iOS 7. Apple Maps is light years ahead of the “upgraded” Google Maps.
Wish I could agree with you. It’s on my iPhone, but Google on my iPad (still kept on the earlier IOS for this reason) is quicker, more detailed, and has Street View, immensely useful for my purposes.
Apple maps is just awful on so many levels, I’ve had an iphone since iphone one and for the first time I jailbroke my iphone just so I can get rid of apple maps and make google the default … that’s how much I was annoyed with apple’s ‘attempt’ at mapping !!
Very, very weak attempt at trolling. Don’t quit your day job, if you have one.
I still need google maps because apple frequently sends me to the wrong location. Also apple still doesn’t have bicycling directions.
Who gives a flying fsck about bicycle directions? Next, you’ll be whining about Apple maps not giving you walking directions!
It’s a valid point, Tom Tom, so swing back over to the banana tree and relax for a moment. I’m sure Apple will get bike and walking directions together in time. Some AppleScripting support might be nice too.
Tom Tom, I really don’t care if you can’t find your way back to your mom’s basement.
Nautical navigation/map integration would be a nice addition. – waypoints, depth, hazards, channels, etc. Because sandbars shift so often a user updating feature would be a win. Also include the holes where the fish are biting and even shark alerts 😉
Apple maps currently has walking directions.
Use google maps to view 93 over the Hoover Dam Bypass. Pray you’re not traveling east. Those guys are bulletproof? Pfffftttt
93E appears to be the hovercar bypass. Must be a lot of standard vehicles piled up below.
Apple maps all the way baby!
I use it everyday, it’s simple to use, uncluttered and give me the information I need – no fluff.
Plus using it means that google can’t spy in me and drain off my travel info and sell it to advertisers.
I perfer Google Maps look and feel to Apples, but I LOVE that i can look up a site on my desktop and hit one button and send that location to my phone…once you do it you’ll never go back.
I’ve been using Apple Maps extensively. I travel up-and-down I-95 weekly, as well as, 301. It has never brought me to a wrong area.
I also use it everywhere. I have never gotten wrong directions. I used the GPS in a Lexus last week to get to children’s hospital in Washington DC. I also used apple maps…I shut the GPS off and used apple maps. The Lexus mapping was terrible.
If you want bicycle mode just use the walking mode. Either way…google or apple you going to get run over by someone using bing.
This is where everyone chimes in on which maps they prefer based on their personal experience and where they live.
My personal experience? I use maps for a living to find locations I’ve never been before on a daily basis.
I agreed with MDN’s take.
My “personal experience” is that looking up location after location after location yields more errors than correct data:
My local grocery store is not listed, and neither are the 10 other stores in the strip, most of which have been there for years.
The Exxon up the way is shown but on the wrong side of the road.
Maps lists a nearby Rite Aid on the correct road, but *two miles* from its actual location, next to the Post Office (which is not listed).
My home town has 3 banks on the same intersection, one of which has been there for 90 years, none are listed.
The little side road nearby has a dozen quaint little stores (all very well established). Maps has only two shops listed, both in the wrong place.
Down by the beach there’s an old pub right at the end of the road. Maps shows it at a residence some distance away.
The school across our street (built in 1974) is not there.
I simply don’t understand what you and the rest of the ‘never steered me wrong’ people are looking at!
Sorry, Apple sat imagery of UK is out of date.
Well the storms did change the coastline of late
augmented reality …the one thing my purse has been waiting for. figments of imagination were always too big.
it had to be ..apple had to pour itself into maps ..it was way, way too important to simply be just so so. besides, if i didn’t have a good apple map app i’d eventually feel compelled to get a blind guy dog for my car. 🙂 🙂
Not a huge deal but I hope they add an option for avoiding tolls when setting a route. I don’t mind paying the tolls but in some areas (looking at you Houston) you can’t pay cash. If it is in there already pleas teach me.
Big nope to this. I love Apple and nearly everything they do, but Apple Maps is nowhere near as useful as Google Maps. Google has insides of malls, buildings, and theme parks , amongst other things. Apple’s 3D flyover mode is totally awesome, but pretty much useless for actual tasks. Google ‘s StreetView is more well-documented and much more practical.
This, of course, is without mentioning Google Maps are reliable unlike Apple Maps. I’ve ended up in completely different places multiple times; addresses which Google had no problems finding accurately.
I want Apple Maps to be better than Google, and I think in time they will be. But Google has had longer to perfect it and to build their platform. Apple’s still learning in the mapping space.
Weird because after the initial interest I find street view almost totally useless, impractical and painful to use. Rather like getting close ups of a particular bush in a maze without any way of using it to actually manoeuvre through it, there is no bigger picture to make sense of it as a useful tool . Whereas flyover is the exact opposite you may not get a close up of a particular bush but you get a fantastic idea of how it relates within its environment and how to travel within that environment and to other areas. You can actually plan and get a feel for a place. And it’s oh so easy to use compared to the clunky un user friendly interface of street view that simply frustrates till the novelty of seeing your ‘neighbours’ house up close but never quite from the position you want wears off and decide going outside and seeing it for real is immeasurably more satisfying.
Good analysis. Flyover provides a basic sense of orientation. Street view has me wasting time looking at my ex’s driveway to see what skank might have been parked there when Google did the drive-by. It isn’t healthy.
@Chase Webb I have to agree. Street View is an enormously useful feature. One post above notes that UK imagery is out of date, and Apple must be buying some really cheap satellite images of other areas. Use an iPad to take screen shots of the island of Maui and compare Google to Apple; the lack of resolution in the Apple images is appalling. In comparisons of both sets around the world I have never found the reverse to be true. Our household of two has six iDevices, two Mac Pros and two Apple laptops and I am also hoping that Apple takes the lead and keeps it with Maps — but there is still work to be done.
You are right that there are areas where Apple maps has poor quality coverage though I havn’t checked of late if that has improved but when I first compared them a year or so ago there were certainly areas in particular around the coast of North West England where the quality was markedly superior to Google Maps In detail and quality. I remember it because I wax surprised that a newcomer could be so much better in this case than a long established competitor. That said it is the ease of use that makes me prefer it mostly all Google interfaces leave much to be desired.
I would differ with MDN here. I really wish to make Apple Maps my preferred mapping app in my phone. But Google Maps have saved me on more than one occasion – For instance I wanted to drive from Milwaukee to Grand Rapids without having to take the Lake Express to cross Lake Michigan during the freezing months in Winter. Moreover, the Lake Express is closed until May. Apple Maps did not show any other alternate route via Chicago (or any other city) to reach Grand Rapids, MI – It always routed me to take the expensive ferry to cross Lake Michigan – an option which I cannot take even I was willing to pay for 300 bucks to cross the lake! On the other had, Google Maps somehow knew Lake Express is closed during that time and showed me at least 2 different routes via Chicago going around Lake Michigan from the south.
‘Curious. When I use my Magellan GPS App on my iPhone it does not use WiFi or Data path. It does seem to use GPS. Why doesn’t Apple Maps do the same thing?
Certainly Apple Maps has bekomme a lot better since it started. And it also may be true that is is better than Google Maps in a technical way.
However, I hate to say that the underlying database is by far not as good as that of Google Maps. I always start of with Apple Maps and unfortunately about app. ⅓ of my searches can not be found by Apple Maps. When I then turn to Google Maps 95% of those things unknown to Apple Maps are found by Google Maps.
They still have to come a long way
Thank you for an unbiased assessment. It may be different in other parts of the world. It is helpful to make clear where you are when it does not work. Bremen, perhaps?