The modern age brought the technology on the fingertips of everyone irrespective of age, gender or race. And with the arrival of smartphones along with its cutting edge features, information sharing was never better as it is now. And the most sought out application in any such device is the navigation system or maps. They are quite handy specially while travelling to a lesser known place as we punch in the names or co-ordinates of certain place and it not only shows where the place is but even show a travelling plan along with distance and the shortest available route. The availability of this GPS feature has been of assistance to many globe-trotters to a simple man visiting a friend’s house. But sometimes the listing of various locations could be faulty too, Let us imagine a condition where we get out going to a new city and finding ourselves stranded somewhere that I completely opposite to the place we were heading to. Sometimes a faulty application produce unreliable results and we should avert it at any cost. And inclusion of Apple’s map in its product created a series of such confusion which made it revert back to the Google maps. Let us find out why.
In September, Apple software developed a map application called Apple maps and there was an uproar. It replaced the Google maps to be the only navigation system for Apple phones. As these applications are a must have for every smartphone users they were downloaded by many only get there directions wrong. It lacked the right directions or locations and was deemed inferior immediately by the users. The thing got worse when Australian police issued an advisory note against use of Apple maps when a driver travelling to city got himself driven to a desert where he was stranded without food and water for one full day. Finally it reverted back to the original Google maps for iOS in December with Apple CEO Tim Cook issuing an apology stating that the application fell short of commitment of providing a richer experience when it comes to navigation.
(source:betanews.com)
But the question is why at the first instance it tried to replace Google maps with its indigenous product when it was one of the most popular applications for Apple users. It was rumored that Apple came into a disagreement with Google with the inclusion of a key feature that is ‘Voice-guided-turn-by-turn driving directions. While this was a feature developed by Google for its Android mobile OS a few years back and comes free. Apple sought after it but the Google-Apple deal does not state that Google have to bring this feature necessarily to Apple users. So the feature enables Google users to just speak to get a direction instead of looking at the screen and use inputs every time. And tying up with Google map got Apple in such a position that though the application is used in iPhones but it was as if Google was pulling strings which is a clear disadvantage for the former. Also Google was not happy with only providing the back-end data and wanted more control including in-apps advertising which was declined by Apple as it felt that it would reveal too much user data and information to the data giants. More over the former wanted to include Google latitude which was another feature that enhances the navigation experience but Apple declined that too. These reasons acted as bone of contention as the two companies were already dealing with differences on other issues.
While the war was going on Apple tried to develop its own version of maps by acquiring various mapping companies, but was force to speed up their work with the problems with Google intensifying. But the product rolled out was faulty and they had no other way out of it so the inclusion of the Google mapping in its new operating system iOS 6 was quite inevitable. But the fact is that Apple is not the only company that got its ego bruised and Google was affected a lot too. Google maps are used by most of the iPhone users and exclusion of their application means a loss of a huge fan base.
Though there is a cold war still going on between these two companies, they declined to comment on the reasons for all this mayhem and officially kept silent. Though, Google tried to provide a patchwork for their bruised ego by stating that they try to provide navigation support to all those who wants it, irrespective of operating system, device or browser.
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