Seven years ago, Apple decided that it’d had enough of using Google’s mapping data. They realized that maps and mapping services were so strategic that they couldn’t really afford to depend on a smartphone rival. So, they began building their own, and in September 2012, the company launched Apple Maps. And if I am being honest, the program has always been akin to that baby face that only a mother can love.
During the keynote at the recently concluded WWDC 2019, Apple executives made a big deal about the massive improvements in the Maps… My reaction to Apple Maps was a shrug. So, they are finally catching up to Google — but will they ever be able to catch up with Google Maps?
So when I think of Apple Maps, no matter how improved they might be, all it does is remind me of Bing — an also-ran that can never catch up to Google, because more people use Google’s search… But 10 years in, globally, it still has less than one percent of usage share on mobile. On desktops where Microsoft is the dominant Operating System provider, it has a mere 8.24 percent of market share, behind Baidu with its 10 percent usage share, and not even close to Google, which has a 75.5 percent usage share.
For the month of May 2019, Google Maps was ranked at number eighth among all applications in the United States, and it was ranked fifth in Europe. The new Apple Maps may be nice to look at, and it might be quite improved, but it will always be — at best — a distant second. It is the Bing of maps.
MacDailyNews Take: Malik employs some slight of hand here by comparing apples and oranges. He states that after 10 years, Bing has less than 1% usage share globally. So why does Malik then compare Apple Maps to Bing in terms of app “rank” (which we assume mean downloads as Malik provides no further explanation or source)?
So that he can call Apple Maps the “Bing of Maps,” that’s why.
Let’s compare apples to apples instead: After 10 years, Bing has less than 1% usage share globally. After just 6 years, Apple Maps already had 11% usage share globally* – and that’s year-old data and before the current round of significant improvements, including rebuilding the app from the ground up!
As of 2017, 75% of iOS users used Apple Maps, not Google Maps. That doesn’t sound anything like “Bing.”
The fact of the matter is that the world’s best customers — those with disposable income and the proven will to spend it — use Apple Maps, not Google Maps.
“source: The Manifest navigation app survey, July 2018
