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Remember how Apple is booting Google Maps in iOS 6 in favour of its own maps app? And remember how Google Maps is still way better? Well a Google exec just dropped a major hint that it won’t be leaving iOS users high and dry. Probably.
Yesterday Jeff Huber, Google’s Senior Vice President of Commerce & Local, was on Google+, patting the backs of the Google Street View team for their exhibit at the Computer History Museum. An iOS-using commenter said he was hoping Google Maps would still be available on iOS. To that, Mr. Huber responded, “We look forward to providing amazing Google Maps experiences on iOS.”
Naturally, everyone wants to know what the hell he meant by that. Would Google make their Maps app available for download in the App Store? Or would this just be some kind of HTML5 solution that would be accessible by mobile browser (shudder)? Huber hasn’t said anything more, but we’ve reached out for comment and will update if we hear anything. At any rate, a glimmer of hope for Google Maps-loving iOS users. [9to5 Mac]
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Ever since Apple announced their own map service, I wondered if google would do exactly this. I think they will launch a dedicated Maps app that looks exactly like the current one found on the iPhone. Or they include it in their current google + App. If they do this well then that will be awesome
Haha bundle it in their G+ app. Thus forcing more people to use G+. I can kinda see El Goog doing this..
Maybe they could get off their ass and make an official Windows Phone app as well?
Does it already have Bing Maps?
Goog was the soul providor of maps of iPhone so that’s probably why they put more energy into iOS
Yeah it has Bing Maps and a crappy unofficial version of Google Maps. But Bing just doesn’t have the detail of Google. And I don’t have a Lumia so I don’t get Nokia Maps.
Google Maps is probably the thing I miss most about about Android
I hope Google creates a Maps app that is at least as good as their Search app, because the HTML webapp is not a souliton. (It is not iOS-conform, and incredibly slow and painful).
Is it just me who thinks that Apple will block this from going onto the app store and make some cock and bull rule up to justify it not going on?
No, I imagine even Apple loyalists expect this to happen.
The rule already exists; it’s the “Don’t replicate inbuilt apps” rule.
Although Apple have been increasingly lenient on that score, ever since permitting Opera Mini.
In any case, there are already Google Search and Google Earth apps that could easily have a Maps mode squeezed in.
Personally, I think I’d prefer to see them just make a more iOS-optimised web version, particularly since that’ll be accessible by the standard Google web search results anyway. I see no reason why they couldn’t do a reasonable street view via CSS transforms.
Hasn’t this been assumed to happen ever since we heard about Apple Maps? If people use Google, Google gets the advertising revenue – it would be poor business sense not to.