Daily Report: Apple Takes On Google in Maps

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Last week, Apple announced that its phones would no longer come with maps from Google built in, but instead would feature Apple’s own map service, part of its new mobile operating system. In Monday’s New York Times, Quentin Hardy looks into whether Apple can build a map service that does as good a job as Google’s — or a better one.

Making digital maps is not easy. Google has spent years working on its services, pouring all kinds of resources into the effort, including its Street View project to photograph and map the world. If Apple slips up when its new software is released this fall, consumers in the highly competitive smartphone market may have a good reason to turn to Android phones.

If Apple succeeds, Google will be under pressure at a time when it already has to deal with other competitors in map services.

“It makes Apple more valuable and denies Google a lot of user data, and a brand presence, on the iPhone,” said Ben Bajarin, an analyst with the technology research firm Creative Strategies. If Apple cannot meet or exceed Google’s maps, he added, “it will irk their power users,” who are the most valuable customers.

In other coverage of Apple’s mapping service, The Unofficial Apple Weblog takes the turn-by-turn driving directions in the test version of iOS 6 out for a spin, as does GigaOM. The Next Web looks at the reasoning behind Apple’s decision to hand off transit directions to third-party apps. And Cocoanetics uses the example of Google’s experience in Vienna to talk about the thorny issues surrounding transit data.

via : nytimes.com