The rivalry between Apple and Google has never been much of a secret. With Google’s new version of Google Maps coming close to completion, the question on everyone’s mind right now is whether Apple will integrate Google Maps into iOS 6 this year. Google Maps on iOS has become a highly pertinent issue since September 2012 when Apple discontinued Google Maps on the iPhone, iPad, and the iPod Touch with iOS 6, after nearly five years of not showing any resistance against the mapping and navigations application.
After severing ties with Google Maps, Apple attempted their own alternative called Apple Maps, but it proved to be a colossal failure. Users complained about towns not appearing on their maps, severe glitches in the imagery and a whole host of major defects that made the application generally inconvenient to use. In recognition of these slip-ups, the design head of Apple, Scott Forstall, stepped down and Apple was forced to apologize, promising to rectify all issues.
Apple has long shown a great deal of resistance towards competing applications and services, disallowing many of them from their app store in favour of their own apps. However, after the Apple Maps disaster, Apple has relaxed its policy and allowed certain rival apps and services to run on iOS. The list of allowed alternative services includes Google’s services like Gmail (email application), Google Chrome (web browser) and Google Drive (cloud syncing service).
Apple has gone as far as to recommended alternative mapping and navigations systems such as MapQuest, TomTom, Magellan, TeleNav, Garmin, and even Microsoft. However, while some are free applications, some of them aren’t and most of these applications lack the system-wide integration that Apple Maps, or even Google Maps for that matter, had with iOS. Despite this, users have insisted that they’re functional enough and are moderately capable of navigating them from one destination to another.
Apple customers are wondering now whether Apple will further lax its policities against its most formidable competitor, Google, enough to allow the integration of the new version of Google Maps into iOS 6. According to sources in The Wall Street Journal, Google has already begun field testing their newly upgraded mapping and navigation service and will soon be ready to submit it to Apple for approval. It would indeed be a very bold move by Apple against its competitors if they shoot Google Maps down, especially considering how lax they’ve been with recommending other alternative mapping services recently. Analysts are waiting to see what Apple will do when the time comes.
