Apple Maps became iPhone’s default in 2012. By 2014, Google Maps had lost at least 60% of its mobile traffic a court case reveals.
Two years after Apple Inc. dropped Google Maps as its default service on iPhones in favor of its own app, Google had regained only 40% of the mobile traffic it used to have on its mapping service, a Google executive testified in the antitrust trial against the Alphabet Inc. company.
Michael Roszak, Google’s vice president for finance, said Tuesday that the company used the Apple Maps switch as “a data point” when modeling what might happen if the iPhone maker replaced Google’s search engine as the default on Apple’s Safari browser.
In a June 2020 email to his then-supervisor, Roszak shared data on how Apple’s switch affected Google Maps usage on iPhones.
“Almost 2 years later we were at ~40% of the prior peak (and assumed the actual loss was greater since Apple Maps usage was also growing across this time),” Roszak wrote in an email introduced in court. The chart Roszak included in the email that showed Google Maps usage on iPhone was redacted from the public version of the document.
MacDailyNews Take: This gives an idea of how much of Google Maps usage is/was focused in America, as Apple’s revolutionary, market-defining iPhone leads derivative Android wannabes in U.S. market share 56.92% to 42.65%, respectively (StatCounter, August 2023).
Also, you know, iPhone users own vehicles.
See also: DOJ antitrust trial focuses on the billions Google pays Apple to be Safari’s default search engine – September 11, 2023
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“iPhone users own vehicles”🤣 Mee-ouch!
So this factoid raises the question again: Why the heck is Apple accepting money and helping Google?
They are arch-rivals in iOS vs. Android.
They don’t need it (Apple has a >$160 Billion in the bank and prints money every quarter)
Steve Jobs swore he’d go thermonuclear on Google after they ripped off the iPhone.
Nixing Google search on iOS would clearly have a devastating impact on Google. Much more so than all the posturing from the politicians and Justice Dept.
And yeah, this is a dumb thing for the DOJ to go after. Most people actually think that Google search is BETTER than the competition. They should instead target Google’s profiting off people’s private info, and the online Ad Monopoly shenanigans.
Apple Maps is superb now. Love the graphics, spoken directions and full integration with Apple Watch. Superior to Google in every way.
And yet, a decade later, Apple Maps still does not display junction numbers on UK motorways. Weird…