iOS was SO much more valuable to Google than Android - until Maps So what about this Apple Maps thing then? Isn't it just so wonderful that Cupertino wants to improve the fanboi experience and thus has decided to replicate a perfectly serviceable alternative from a competitor? Sorry, become a competitor to its previous supplier... As we might expect the reality is all about money and really …
I believe Google are about to start allowing you to download specific areas in advance so that Maps can use them without needing a signal. No idea though whether you could download the entire UK data in one go - or how huge that might be
That said - I've been using Navfree and its UK map recently (about 235 Mb - updated every couple of months). Admittedly you have to accept that the data might have errors/omissions, but as it comes from OpenStreetmaps there's nothing stopping anyone from correcting it.
"I can imagine a VC pitch along the lines of ...."
Don't think this is to far fetched ... I spent 3 years in Silicon Valley at the end of the 90s and one of my colleagues there once told me of a friend of his who'd made a fortune on a small company he'd helped found - they were working in the area of IC design tools and they business plan was that they looked ahead about 5 years and decided what array of design tools would be required then, looked at the current and planned tools from the major vendors (basically Synopsys and Cadence) and worked out where the gaps were (and possibly also where one company had a gap where the other would have a tool). They then developed a tool to address one of the gap and then waited until Synopsys came along saying "we need a tool like that, how much for the company" ... and the plan worked!
The other built-ins that aren't purely Apple are:
YouTube (Google, obv)
Weather (Yahoo)
Stocks (Yahoo)
YT is basically a client so they don't have to run Flash - now that YT is HTML5, they probably don't need a specific client for it.
Weather and Stocks seem to be things that are common for search engines - Yahoo, Bing and Google all have them, so Apple might switch those to a search engine provider.
Hi,
1) TomTom shares have go down a lot in the last few year.
2) Apple is very likely to become the biggest income share of TomTom
3) Providing turn-by-turn and traffic update on iPhone will hit TomTom own products and kill TomTom ios apps.
4) Down the line, Apple could either but TomTom or threatened them to move away and pick up the infrastructure at a a fraction of the price after TomTom collapse...
As the article says it would make sense to Apple to bring the whole service in house.
This post has been deleted by its author
Well I ditched tom tom for Google Navigate on my Android phone 2 years ago, Google maps didn't show me driving through a field when I was actually on a 10 year old bypass....
I wouldn't ditch TomTom for an iPhone app though, they are too tiny to use while driving...
Do you think Apple wants to deal with the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of existing TomTom devices out there? If they bought them they'd still have to support all the legacy crap, I seriously doubt that would ever happen. If, however, TomTom split off the mapping part of the company Apple could consider that for a buyout.
"how close are we to the point where the actual phone part of a phone becomes irrelevant and actually speaking to someone is the last thing anyone does with them"
That's pretty much me already. I make almost no phone calls but send a lot of texts and emails, and use apps'n'maps.
I probably wouldn't buy a phone that had no voice call capability at all but I'd consider one that only had VOIP options.
I just wish my android phone was actually as good a PDA as my old TungstenE!
The 'phone is much slower to do the PDA things that was the main reason to get it and I have to use a flakey 3rd party app to synch with my PC calender and address book (I don't do cloud storage - I may be a dinosaur, but I am a dinosaur who likes to take responsibility for his own data).
Turns out I can still buy new a new TungstenE2 on eBay - for 2-3 times the price of an unlocked android 2.3 smartphone! Hmmmmmmm
I wouldn't buy a VOIP-phoning only phone - I work in France near the Belgian border, and mobile reception in my office is horrible, so much so that I often lose data connectivity - no 3G, no EDGE, no nothing, except good old GSM voice.
Sometimes, even if I can get a decent data signal, it's on a Belgian network, so data roaming issues bite me hard. As a result, I have my phone locked on to its home network (and no, Apple, I don't like being forced into the Settings app every time I get on the Metro...), and so it goes...
FAIL for the idea of a GSM-voice-free phone.
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On this leaked document the split is 5% to Google (which they say is for "operating costs", and at least 2% of which will go to Visa/Mastercard), and 20% to the carriers. It may be different for other countries/carriers.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-25/tech/31397498_1_google-s-android-targets-chart
"(as an aside, how close are we to the point where the actual phone part of a phone becomes irrelevant and actually speaking to someone is the last thing anyone does with them?)."
Speaking? How quaint!
You mean my email and text device lets me talk to people too?
There is a difference in what I want from a search when at home or in the office, and when using a mobile device. Google doesn't always serve me well when I'm on the hoof.
Examples of mobile searches: Addresses, telephone numbers for businesses. Product reviews for a cut price product I've spotted in a shop and are tempted to buy. Wikipedia to settle pub arguments (the same reason the Guinnesss Brewing Co introduced its Book of Records).
Just posing the question: is there enough of a discrepancy between mobile and desktop searches to allow Apple to compete with Google? (I have no idea)
I would imagine the data is filtered and delivered a little more condensed to a mobile phone, but you can view full results on most phones nowadays. However replicating Google has been tried by many people and nothing has come close due to googles sheer popularity and integration. In search you have to hit the ground sprinting just to keep up. Its also not an industry you can buy, unless you buy Google because all of the other search engines are already failing wastes of space.
I just can't see people accepting anything other than Google for search. The 'average' smartphone user (and no, I'm not slagging iPhone users) is the user who takes a few photos, sends texts, updates their Facebook status, and maybe makes a call once in a while. You know, the type who really don't need that expensive smartphone and could probably get along with a much cheaper one. To people like these, Google is the internet (or at least the homepage of the internet) These are the people who 'Google' things, and they'd be very confused if they tried to Google something on Bing or some new Apple search engine.
Do Apple actually pay a license fee to have Google search on their iThings? Honest question. I've never owned one, but I would've assumed that Google search, certainly when done through the browser, is license free?
That being the case, what would the point be of Apple offering its own search, other than to take traffic away from Google (i.e. no cost saving to Apple)?
Unlike Google maps on Android, there's no turn by turn navigation included on iOS' google maps, it's verboten by licencing terms.
Apple's in house maps app will have turn by turn.
Google will release a maps app for iOS6, it will almost certainly include turn by turn. Neither Apple or the users are going to pay anything for it.
Apple aren't going to build a search engine, but they are reducing search costs by shifting the low hanging search queries through Siri.
Not quite, but I'm sure Apple is paying Tom Tom less for the use of its mapping than it was paying to Google.
It was a smart business decision and also was a way to spite Google. Apple does not play well with others..."You're holding it wrong"
Also, since Maps is a part of Android and not an add on...Of course Google doesn't make as much on that one app. This "Opinion" article is comparing apples to oranges. Pun intended.
Personally, I only own Android based products and will never own an IProduct. Just my personal preference. Apple is way to constrictive/closed for my tastes.
Apple as far as I understand it - are basically using OpenStreetMap as their mapping engine? They use OpenStreetMap for the iPhotos app - because a legal argument ran for a short while because Apple had accidentally forgotten to mention that it was using OpenStreetMaps... and here is a viewer proving it - http://www.refnum.com/tmp/apple.html however the benefit that Google have (on mobile at least) over Apple/OpenStreetMap is that they have changed from Maps being tile based to being vector based and drawn on the fly. The end result is that Google Maps download a lot quicker than tile based maps and can include a lot more information which can be redrawn in a number of different ways 'on the fly' rather than being part of the tile itself.
Then I figure iOS users win either way. Either we get a better map product from Apple than the totally outdated crapfest that the current Google Maps app is, or Apple gives us a crap app but Google is induced to give us a better app hoping to get iOS users to install it.
I know some think Apple will ban a Google Maps app on the grounds it competes with iOS features, but they allow the Google Search app even though iOS has search built in to the phone. Perhaps Microsoft might get into the game at that point and make a Bing Maps app available too. If we go from one app to three I'd be thrilled, because competition would insure things improve a lot.
While there are some other things I'd improve, I realize they are niche things. I think crap like 3D views are niche too, I certainly don't give a damn about them. Just getting turn by turn is all that is required. Having the maps and satellite photos as up to date as possible is also nice.
If Apple wants to provide a search engine to its punters and nobble the Google Collective then all it has to do is replace its current search options with a meta search - e.g ixQuick. Result: people get search results from multiple search engines and Google et all get little or no money...
really? google's maps stuffs has always utilized the output of other firms in this global mapping tech stuff... all that apple is doing at this point is eliminating one for another and getting less since they have now cut out all the others that google was also giving in its mapping technology...
If Apple can replicate street view, I'd be impressed.
Will we see a fleet of Apple branded camera wagons careering around the streets of the world?
Street View is Googles killer maps application - it really is that remarkable.
I've used it hundreds of times and when I drive to the location I've viewed online, it really does feel as if "I've been here before"
It also is massively useful when scanning for property - I'm currently looking to move to new rented accommodation and street view provides a way to have a look at the outside of a property and the surrounding area. Estate Agents are often less than honest :)
Then we have Google Earth - admittedly, it's not something I use that often, but from time to time I find it useful to brush up on my geographical knowledge.
Then the standard map view - it's impressive.
The only thing it's missing is ordinance survey - which is the only time I head over to Bing maps.
There's obviously a whole other side of digital mapping the public is generally unaware of, there are plenty of niche companies providing a level of data which is quite simply astounding. For instance, mapping which shows all the underground pipework, shows flood risk, detailed vector views of properties - you name it.
I often wonder whether those companies tie in with Google or Visa Versa, providing services? I suspect they must do.
@Tim Worstall
"If Apple decided not to integrate Google search, would people be turned off iOS altogether – feeling that if one cannot easily Google then what's the point of iKit?"
There are other search engines out there. I have been using a selection of those for several months and I don't miss Google search one bit.
I'd use Apple Search if it was slick. Google is just a pain in the arse these days because all links indirect via google - results not just requests. It's often quicker just to copy the real URL into the URL bar instead of clicking on the link. Even if it's a long URL that's abbreviated on the screen I copy the link into Edit and delete the google preamble. I'd like a browser tool to do that automatically. So if Apple gives me straightforward direct links I'll use it.
How much of that $2bn is maps? Tom Tom are valued at around 1 billion euros, which would suggest it would have been cheaper to have just bought them outright at that price.
As for creating a new search engine, the problem is that what Google do isn't simply an engineering and rewriting problem. It's not obvious where you start with it. That's why there's only about half a dozen successful search engines, but a lot more social networks - social networking an engineering problem.
What I think Apple are doing is using Siri to replace search for a lot of the things people want on the go, like booking a table or checking movie times, and having partnerships with the likes of Rotten Tomatoes and OpenTable to do so. This does then raise a question about how unbiased the results will be. Will you get a restaurant suggested that is nearby and most appropriate (which is how Google would decide what comes first), or will you get the ones that are on OpenTable?
Apple are even comfortable with this, because they like curated content. Google's philosophy is different and is based around openness of data and algorithms to sort it.
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