Top Google bod Eric Schmidt admitted today that a stand-alone Google Maps app isn’t going to arrive on iOS 6 any time soon. It follows the removal of Google Maps and the new not-quite-as-good Apple Maps getting added instead.
Speaking to Reuters, Schmidt said…
We think it would have been better if they kept ours (Google Maps). But what do I know?
When asked if a new Google Maps was headed to iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 he told a small group of reporters..
We have not done anything yet.
Earlier rumours that an app was in development were obviously just hot air. 🙁
Link – Reuters
I would update the Blackberry version first, just to rub salt in the wound.
For once I am actually quite enjoying this tussle between Apple and Google, usually it is quite boring and Apple comes out on top, but this time looks like Google are just having some fun, sitting back and watching the drama.
Why should Google spend time and money developing an App to get Apple out of a hole?
Use Safari to get to Google Maps, if you don’t like Apple Maps, downgrade to ios 5 or get an Android phone. No sympathy from me for iPhone 5 owners, early adopters of ios6 on iPhone 3gs/4/s are unlucky.
Surely Apple should have thoroughly tested their App before releasing it? It’s not like they don’t have a mountain of cash to spend on the resources to fix this.
Google should never build a maps app for Apple, if it is important for people to have then they will have to choose the platform that gives the best functionality / features / quality over the actual handset.
There’s no denying that iOS maps overall is pants but its not a complete failure. Parts of it are great, like 3D maps (although this only covers such a small percentage of the country), turn-by-turn directions (which are accurate in my experience due to the Tom Tom maps) and the map rendering speed is noticeably quicker than google maps. I didn’t realise how much I liked Street View until it was gone but what really let’s it down is the POI information which is either out of date, inaccurate or missing altogether. This will improve with crowd sourced information and then the app will be fine. It would be great if Google released a maps app but to be honest it doesn’t matter that much to me as I can still get the information I need from Google search and I use CoPilot for navigation. Hopefully this whole fiasco will embarrass Apple enough to update the information quickly and hopefully in the future it will compete with Google and encourage some innovation to improve features for all smartphones (unless Apple sue obviously!).
It has to come at some point. Google are missing out on a huge amount of crowd sourced data, not to mention potential ad revenue.
Google isn’t in the business of selling Android phones, it’s in the business of selling ads. And iOS is a massive audience to miss out on.