“TomTom NV, a maker of digital mapping technology, fell Friday after the website TechCrunch reported that Apple Inc. plans to rebuild its Maps application for iPhones with its own data, putting the companies’ long-running partnership at risk,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple dropped Google Maps in 2012 and launched a redesigned Maps app with data primarily provided by Amsterdam, Netherlands-based TomTom and other sources,” Gurman reports. “The app immediately received poor reviews.”
“For the past few years, Apple has been building a custom maps infrastructure, drawing from its network of more than 1 billion iPhones and information collected from vans touring the globe with cameras and high-tech sensors,” Gurman reports. “Apple will begin rolling out its new data through this year’s iOS 12 iPhone and iPad software upgrade, beginning with cities in Northern California, the website TechCrunch reported.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good riddance to poor data!
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Questions about Apple’s new Maps, answered – June 29, 2018
Apple has been rebuilding Maps from the ground up for years and it’s due to launch very soon – June 29, 2018
As long as there’s not a repeat of the cluster fk that was Maps release.
Well, Forstall isn’t around anymore, so THAT much is better
Forstall hasn’t been around for SIX YEARS, and now even according to Cue this week maps isn’t good enough. So if it’s Forstall (who got only a short period of time ) was to be blamed why didn’t the follow up guys fix it?
It’s obvious Forstall wasn’t got rid off just because of Maps.
Bigger reason was that Forstall didn’t get along with Ive and was perhaps a threat to Cook as some said he should be CEO. Also they said he refused to sign the apology and fall on the sword for the Maps as he thought it wasn’t his fault. Actually shouldn’t it be Cook who is finally responsible? He was CEO , it was his decision to CHECK and DECIDE whether it should have been released.
Cook not paying attention or checking products isn’t so strange..
LOOK:
Cook allowed the Apple TV remote to be released, didn’t pay attention to the update that ‘slowed down iPhones due to old batteries’, completely forgot about a whole bunch of Macs for years, he had Aperture on Apple store posting two years after it was Cancelled ! was oblivious to the education market as it fell apart, etc. etc. Not checking, letting slipshod products out seems more like Cook . He’s not a product guy and always too busy being a social justice warrior. Notice he’s half dead talking about Apple products and only perks up when he preaches on some social issue. Forstall for all his ‘anger management’ faults was a product guy.
People have always said Apple should be led by a product person and not a marketing guy, maybe they should add ‘no’ Social Justice Warrior as well…
Good analysis and a lot more so as time passes. Cook was a safe pair of hands for the 5 years post Steve but there is not a little irony in the fact that much of the criticism Jobs made of Balmer can be made of Cook too. We always assumed that Ive would take over the product mantle that Jobs sported so well but he has been a major disappointment in recent times and it is indeed becoming clear that someone with real product and innovative qualities starts to get a grip to stop what I see as infighting amongst the deputies with the Boss ill equipped to make the decisions between their arguments. Trouble is there is no obviously compelling candidate within (only one comes close) and I feel there is a great fear within at the thought of importing someone who might upset the apple cart and no obvious sign that Cook is willing to set in motion his successor. That is a real concern and the company is rapidly moved from the young upstart taking chances to the mature parent afraid to allow anyone with a vision have a strong role in fear of it being the wrong one.
yes i agree with much of your post
I don’t have a CEO candidate either
my post is to embarrass Cook to buck up.
Problem is there is no ‘peer’ to give Cook some advice. The BOD doesn’t seem equipped to do it. So it’s up to fans to ‘shake the tree’ like over Macs, Apple TV etc.
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I was thinking more about Forstall since my post, comparing him to Cue. Last few years Cue has dropped the ball more than Forstall with Maps yet is still around:
Cue missteps:
SIRI (key component to Apple’s biggest product the iPhone. SIRI in my opinion way bigger than Maps as Maps had alternates like Google Maps. A.I is next big thing in tech, something as big as the silicon chip. )
iBooks case. Fined 450 million. This is near the monster Samsung Apple case judgment which Apple won, but in the Samsung case, Samsung made off with tens of billions in ill gotten profits so the Apple iBooks fine is truly vast relatively as Apple hardly made any iBooks money.
The Mess which is Apple TV, now new hires reporting directly to Cook has to fix it.
Mac App store passed to Schiller etc.
Cue still around so saying that Forstall got kicked out just because of Maps is hard to believe. Forstall was one of the fathers of OSX and iOS. He won the internal competition for the iPhone beating Fadell’s iPod OS which is a big big deal as iPod OS probably wouldn’t have made the pocket computer which is iPhone today, iOS being related to OSX.
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for others:
I’m not against Social work, just think it shouldn’t be such a big part of the function of the CEO of Apple, a commercial product company.
And,you know I will be a cluster f.
Although Google Maps seems to have much better (more complete/extensive) data, I prefer the Apple Maps app interface. Also, a “Back” button would be helpful. It would be nice to be able to quickly recover when a search errantly zooms the user to who-knows-where in another country… Anyway, glad to hear Apple will improve this!
TomTom going bye-bye.
Fred Garmin/Data Prostitute, is worried too.
I have in recent times been very happy with Apple Maps I have no real preference between Apple and Google Maps and far preferred the formers interface. Well that was until Apple Maps has started to crash on my Mac on Sierra in the past few months.
As someone who had their TomTom GPS bricked by one of their software releases, with a “you’re on your own” response from complaints, TomTom share prices falling – all the way to zero – can’t come soon enough for me.
I’m rather glad Apple is building its own database; this is just one of the reasons I’ve stayed away from Apple Maps up until now.