Apple reportedly waived one year of Google Maps contract in switch to iOS Maps [u] - Page 2

iOS 6.0 is almost 6 days old. Sanity and prudence require I reserve judgement on the doom of Apple. Apple had to cut the cord sometime. .0 sounds like an imaginary time to do so.

.1 feels more rational.

P.S. cutting google off a year early (at the knees) was probably strategic planning.

 

WHERE'S THE FIX, APPLE?! YOU'VE HAD ALMOST 144 HOURS ALREADY!

what's the timing again?

other reports say "Apple had a year left when it decided to replace Google Maps"

that does NOT sound like 'a year left from iPhone 5 launch (now) ' . (a year before the contract expired... so when was the contract supposed to expire? )

anyways I will await clarification from those who know.

Anyhow although the maps seem (from user comments) that it needs work many are finding it OK and some even better.

Remember Google didn't want to include advance functions available for Android like turn by turn navigation for iOS. Apple might have rushed it but it didn't have a choice.

For the whiners... This type of data needs to be crowd-sourced. You're ignorant fools if you really think Apple is capable of knowing the GPS location of every spot/address on earth immediately out of the gate. Hell, even Google Maps isn't completely accurate and it's been around for YEARS.

 

Furthermore, Apple HAD to ditch Google's data if they wanted to add turn-by-turn navigation; Google's license forbids the use their data for "live" navigational purposes.

 

If Apple doesn't make the switch now, then we'll be at this exact same spot whenever they do decide to release it. Letting it "bake" another year, IS NOT going to help, only delay the service.

 

 

It is actually brilliant on Apple's part. Apple caught Google off guard. It will take months for Google to get a Map on iOS and months for Apple to approve it. Apple's current Maps will appease most people in Countries like the US and China. By the time Google comes to iOS, Apple will have fixed whatever issues it may have and people will not care about Google maps anymore. 

 

Apple is playing hard ball. I like it. 

 

 

What are you talking about? No suitable replacement? Google maps sucked on iOS. Map Quest's free app with turn by turn worked better. Don't believe me, go down load it. Bing's Maps were based on Nokia's mapping software, which is reviewed better then Google's Maps. I preferred that as well over Google's Maps. Moreover, there are plenty of stand alone Apps like Tom Tom and Navigon. 

 

Moreover, I have been using Apple's Map app now for a couple of days and I honestly don't see people's grievances. I live in Ann Arbor, so I can't speak for other places. Here, however, it works much better than Google maps ever did. 

This is a good decision.  The reason is simple:  DENY iDevices revenues to Google.  Why fund your competition?

Just because you never figured out how to use Street View it doesn't mean it wasn't available. Here's Street View on iOS 5.1.1's Maps (click to enlarge a bit):

Keep the faith people. It is important for Apple to introduce Apple Maps ASAP to users and get it into developer's hands in order to start developing layers.

Make no mistake, Google knows what Apple Maps is capable of. The potentials of Apple Maps are limitless and the earlier the better. Development in Apple Maps is much faster than Google Maps and very soon it will surpass Google Maps to become the Killer iOS application that it is.

Keep the faith. Time will tell.

 

Right, clearly only crowd sourcing will tell Apple where the Washington Monument really is or what the name one of the nation's most important national parks up the road is; only crowd sourcing will tell them it hasn't been what they labeled it as since the 1970s. Come off it.

Yep. Maps is quite good by any rational standard. Maybe 0.1% of people have a problem with it, but a number had problems with Google Maps, as well. And there are alternatives. This gives Apple some time to get entrenched and to work out the worst of the bugs before Google can respond.

Exactly. Apple needs to make Google realize that Google needs Apple more than Apple needs Google. Already, Google has found that their ad revenues are lower on Android devices than on iDevices, so every Android device that is sold instead of an iDevice costs Google money.

Ultimately, Google might realize that their success will be greatest if they stop ripping Apple off and cooperate with Apple rather than trying to rob them blind.

In the end, given the choice between believing that Cook and his team know what they're doing or believing that all the Apple-hating trolls know more, I'll go with Apple's management team.

 

 

Why do people like you keep saying that as if it were an established fact? Nokia Maps has often gotten better reviews than Google's. Moreover, it largely depends what part of the world you are in. 

 

Check out Nokia Maps.  Nokia even has a excellent Apple like Fly Over for big cites like Chicago. You have to install a browser plug in, but it is worth it (maps.nokia.com). 

FlyOver is actually much better than StreetView.

 

FlyOver can be developed more rapidly, it is more consistent and moreover it provides detailed "Back Yard" view in addition to the StreetView.  Google 3d view is not nearly as good.  AppleMaps will soon surpass Google Maps and blow it away.  Google Knows This.  Keep the faith.

 

Time will tell.

Edited by AppleSauce007 - 9/25/12 at 7:39pm

Developers have access to the betas, we don't need this crap on our main devices to develop for it.

 

Wait another year for what? Mapping software doesn't progress quickly if no one is using it, so wait another year to play catch up from further behind? That doesn't make any sense at all. It had to be done, so sooner is the smarter decision than later. Sticking with Google maps for another year is short-term thinking that leads no where. Switching now is long-term thinking that will put the platform, and its mapping services, on a solid foundation for the future. Change rarely comes without some pain. The trick is to make the change with a little pain as possible, and I think the decisions they made were the right ones for that, despite the fact that everyone is freaking out now. Imagine how they'd have been freaking out next year if they waited a year to do it. I think by this time next year, everyone will have forgotten what all this fuss was about.

Maybe I'm the only one, but Apple Maps worked great for me during the beta and even now, although I *think* a lot of issues occurred due to overtaxed servers from the iOS rollout and iPhone 5 launch. The new Apple maps included updated overhead photography of my new housing development and could actually geolocate the new roads. Other GPS units and Google maps would give wrong directions to the other side of town, but Apple maps got me home perfectly. I don't travel a whole lot, but I seriously doubt that everybody hates the new maps app. A lot of people I talk to like it, but understand that the maps data needs more work and will get there soon.

From a competitive standpoint, Apple couldn't just let maps be in beta for a year because Google would do what they have proven they have done in the past... see what Apple is doing and then wholesale copy it. Apple had the element of surprise and they used it. It's EXACTLY what Steve would have done. Is Apple Maps the best mapping solution? No. Will it be. If Apple is Apple, definitely. They are going to give Google one hell of a run for their money.

My guess is that given one year, no one will ever remember any of these blips. Siri was released to great fanfare and then people found all these glitches and what it doesn't do and how bad it was compared to Google Voice, etc. It didn't matter. Apple pushed ahead and made it fun and quirky and just gave it a huge boost in the arm with iOS 6. Apple continues to iterate their products until they are pretty damn perfect. Google should watch it's back.

 

Yes we do.  The earlier Apple Maps is out the earlier it will start gaining mind share from users and developers.  Next update will clear up the first release issues.

Don't under estimate the popularity of iOS and make no mistake, Google Maps will lose and Google knows it.  The Apple architecture is superior.

 

Time will tell.

This is exactly why in the near future Apple will be the absolute best mapping system. Vector graphics. I guarantee Google know this and are already hard at work copying the SAAB system Apple purchased.

There won't be a need to wait for "the next update". The data comes from Apple's servers, and it will be continuously updated there, available immediately on your iOS device as it is.

I thought we were talking about Google maps? I wouldn't call it the best mobile mapping solution

You're displaying some basic ignorance in this post. Perhaps traffic data does, but map data does not need to be crowdsourced, certainly not at this stage in the game. Apple does not need to know GPS locations out of the gate, but the major providers that it relies on, such as Tom Tom, do. Nothing is 100% accurate or perfect, but Google's accuracy levels are likely far, far higher than those of Apple's maps at this point.

 

You can certainly have blind love for any and all Apple products -- many of us here do -- but you do need to get your facts straight.

Care to explain how exactly Google made money off maps via 'iDevices'?

Wow. Those are the only two possibilities? Really?

 

What a laughable caricature of a post.

Apologies to bring up a slightly different topic (related to iOS6, however): In the Mail app when one clicks on a mailbox, does anyone else think the wording at the bottom asking one to wait -- "Checking for Mail" (i.e., not 'mail') -- somewhat unApple-like? And, what's with "VIP"? Who uses that acronym anymore?!

So Apple in its blood feud with Google, dropped Google Maps, eating a year of service left on their contract, in order to get a jump on Google and stick it to them good, all the while throwing some of their customers under the train and denying their customers CHOICE, when they could have easily offered them at least another year?

Yeah, the FCC won't want to look into that.

If Apple's Maps works so well, and the majority of users like yourself have no problems with it, then what would have been the harm of placing Apple's Maps on the home screen, and making the Google Maps an optional download? Apple would still have a large portion of its iOS users content with their Map app, helping them perfect it and improve over The licensed Google counterpart, and for those few (as you contend) who are having such problems with Apple Maps, they could download and use Google Maps. Right? In a year, those users would know they would have to migrate, and by that time Apple's app would be as good as Google's thanks to the millions of satisfied Apple Maps users, eager to embrace Apple's superior offering, which you and your friends are having no problems with. Right?

If Apple wants to do the right thing for its customers, it would give them a choice. As it stands, many of my friends who are having trouble with Apple's Maps are looking for other solutions anyway, made all the more bitter that the old Goigle option is no longer on the table, even though they find out today it could have been.

Remember the whole Flash issue? Apple made a case for Flash. Steve Jobs told us why it was bad for us. Maps was a corporate jab, without any pep talk to the troops about why it was necessary. This time the customer is getting screwed, and Apple has only said publicly they're sorry, they screwed up. Do you really think Apple would publicly acknowledge a problem if it really didn't affect a substantial number of users? And If they really did this in the best interest of the customer, don't you think they would have told us that instead? I'm reading the Steve Jobs authorized biography, and Jobs admits "antennagate" was as big a problem as the media reported it was. But it also talks about the genius of Apple's response, turning the debate outward to all phones. Jobs did this with Flash. And whatever Jobs would do about this (and please stop suggesting you have any idea what he would do), Cook has chosen to accept blame without any explanation, which this article suggests Apple otherwise has. Well if they had one, they surely screwed the pooch in their handling of it.

Truthfully, Apple's Maps has been adequate for me as well. It has reported a number of errors that were not especially problematic since I knew better, and it has its shortcomings, poor traffic representation, and lack of street view among them. But I'm happy to keep using it, so long as I have Maps.google.com handy. And yes, Google was not perfect either. But as a consumer, shouldn't I get to make that choice, especially when there is an actual choice available?

If this is indeed the truth, then I hope Google hires a team of programmers to get a new Map App submitted to Apple by the end of the week, following their guidelines to the letter, forcing Apple to contend with the specter of an FCC investigation if they drag their feet any more slowly than any other app submission. While you may not believe it, this thing affects real people with real needs and dependency on this app in their daily lives. For those who are having a problem with it, to arbitraily take away their choice when it's not necessary merely to grind some corporate ax against Google is truly not in the customers best interest, and Apple deserves to pay the penalty. Assuming of course that this story is right and they actually feel about it the way you do.
Edited by Mac_128 - 9/25/12 at 9:11pm

They didn't - yet. But there was talk about them adding ads to future versions.

Actually, there really are only two possibilities:

a. Apple shouldn't have released their own Maps
b. Apple should have released their own maps.

All the whiners are choosing 'a'. Apple clearly chose 'b'.

I'm far more willing to believe that Apple knows what they're doing than all the loud-mouthed trolls on AI.

 

Yes, because it would have been asolutely awesome to go another year with a barebones maps app with image tiles instead of vector, and no turn by turn? Really? There's a million reasons why Apple felt the need to get their own map app out, and if they didn't people like you would have bitched either way how "pathetic it was" that Apple still didn't have turn by turn, vector maps, etc. while Android did. And if they waited another year, what would that have accomplished? They would have strengthened Google's position further, giving them hundreds of millions of new maps customers, and when they DID eventually release it it would not have been up to par with Google maps anyway. This stuff needs to be released to the piblic to improve dramatically, it can't be incubated in a lab then somehow released in a perfect state. But of course, I wouldn't expect someone apparently as mentally limited as you to understand that. 

Crowdsourcing for corrections sounds like a good idea--if there weren't as many jerkwads in the world as there are. Unfortunately, the world is full of Fandroids, Googlesuckers and similar scum. What's to keep them from sending in "corrections" of streets and POIs that are completely wrong? I'll bet money that an organized campaign to do just that is starting up already.

As an official whiner, I'm here to prove you wrong. I don't care whether Apple releases their own solution so long as the old one is kept around. See? That's a third possibility! You're officially wrong!

Then rephrase my statement:

There were two options:

1. Apple should have released Apple Maps and dropped Google Maps at the time and in the way they did.
or
2. Apple should not have done so and should have done something different.

No matter how you stack it, you are claiming that you know more than Apple's management team - which is not even remotely plausible.

When it is strategic that people change, you do not offer them two choices -- you offer them one.

There are apps for that (and Maps on Android aren't vectorial either). As a matter of fact, as far as the current implementation is concerned, the vectorial maps are a hindrance, not an aid. They're taking longer to load and they're much slower to render. Finally, Apple could easily have struck a deal with Google to offer turn by turn navigation; there is absolutely no evidence to support the belief that this wasn't a possibility.

Just as there is no evidence that it WAS a possibility.

So, once again, we have to decide who knows better how to run the company - you or Apple's management team.

I'll go with Cook and company.

I'm not really claiming anything, I'm stating my dissatisfaction as a customer. Furthermore, your second option represents an extremely broad set of options.

Google is a company, like any other company they're after money, and unlike Apple they aren't known for being platform-specific, so the burden of proof lies on your side because there is no logical reason to believe that Google wouldn't be open to such a deal. This is not to mention that Schmidt himself said he was willing to continue the partnership, which is infinitely more evidence than you have.

Google is working 24/7 at severing the emotional bond which glues the Apple ecosystem together. They've covertly mapped out the typical end user's psyche through their five year old grassroots partnership with Apple, ...just as they've overtly and thoroughly mapped out the executives' mindset through...in part...Schmidt's probing sentience deep into Apple's inner sanctum.

And Google holds enormous sway with the press. The Google myth, along with a few pat-on-the-back incentives, works wonders on tech bloggers and news columnists. While Apple was busy innovating like there was no tomorrow, ...Google was investing time and PR money with politicians and pundits, and getting away with murdering privacy on the WiFi bandwidth.

For Google...it was a twofer. Get some street-view sweet-and-sour addiction onto the iOS platform, affording Google the mortal threat of a high severance pay...the mindshare withdrawal syndrome so to say, ...while riding the antenna...shotgun, on a wild scramble for people's unguarded privacy. Shady business indeed for Google's monetization purposes only, ...in an 'all rights reserved', 'no trespassing' kind of a way. One of those crimes that...pay.

If one aims at any kind of life expectancy, one cannot partner for long with a drug dealer. A nascent platform experiences some growing pains that are somehow soothed by drug use...with the danger obviously looming larger at or beyond puberty. It's time to cut off ties with cut drugs from the creepy-friendly narco-neighbor, ...and rely on in-house dopamine production to maintain, nurture, and thrust the iOS platform's metabolic equilibrium into full maturity.

Apple's playing rope-a-dope to survive commoditization, ...and fighting the odds ain't pretty...

Apple paid them to use the map backend data.

 

You just don't get it.  Mapping is important and Apple want's to bring it in house and not be dependent on Google for it.

Citation?

That's why Google took out it's all time high intraday today right? ...and the band played on.