Hail hail hail, after the long misery of almost THREE WHOLE MONTHS there is finally a native app for Google Maps available for iOS. \u00a0No longer the misery of Apple Maps! \u00a0No longer the sluggish indignity of the web-based Google Maps! \u00a0No more stooging around with Nokia’s half-assed Here or dallying with MapQuest as if it were 2003 again!<\/p>\n
Get a grip.<\/p>\n
First, yes, the iOS native Google Maps app is amazing. \u00a0It is, hands down, the best mapping solution ever for iOS, and by some reckonings the best smartphone mapping solution ever on any platform. Google has played entirely within the rules for third-party developers and still come up with something that quite frankly kicks the shit out of everything that came before.<\/p>\n
But this app also demonstrates why Apple and Google had beef. The standalone app has everything that Google was pouring into the Android version of Maps: vector-based graphics, so faster and lighter on your data service. Turn-by-turn directions, further killing the standalone GPS as a viable product. Full integration with Zagat reviews. \u00a0All the stuff that wasn’t getting put into the native iOS Maps app for the last couple or three years, so Apple chose to do the whole thing itself and paid for it.<\/p>\n
Thing is, the number-one advantage Google Maps has is the fact that Google Maps has been a thing for the better part of a decade. \u00a0Apple began its mapping effort seven years behind in terms of real-world data in the field, and suffered for it – and also got pilloried for the flaws in trying to combine 3D and satellite imagery. (Try the 3D flyover function in Google Earth for a sample of how Google’s solution to pasting 2D pictures over 3D models works. SPOILER ALERT: not impressive.) \u00a0As has been mentioned in this space before, Apple chose to take the hit and hope for the best, and ended up sacking some pretty high-level people as a result.<\/p>\n
I suspect that within a couple of years, Apple Maps will be a fully viable solution (although I wish they’d acquire a couple of these transit apps and get that integrated with a quickness). \u00a0Until then, though, Google Maps gets pride of place on the first screen\u2026at least until they start throwing ads in there.<\/p>\n
Of which\u2026you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hail hail hail, after the long misery of almost THREE WHOLE MONTHS there is finally a native app for Google Maps available for iOS. \u00a0No longer the misery of Apple Maps! \u00a0No longer the sluggish indignity of the web-based Google Maps! \u00a0No more stooging around with Nokia’s half-assed Here or dallying with MapQuest as if … <\/p>\n