So why did Apple dump Google Maps? David Pogue, The New York Times personal tech columnist, wrote in a September 26 article: “Every time you use Google’s maps, you’re sending data from your phone to Google. That information – how you’re using maps, where you’re going, which roads actually exist – is extremely valuable; it can be used to improve both the maps and Google’s ability to deliver location-based offers and advertising.” Pogue noted that Google was not supplying the iPhone with some of the most important features in its maps that it was giving to Android phones, such as spoken navigation. That is why, when their contract renewal came up, Apple simply said “no”, Pogue wrote.
Meanwhile, consumers voiced their displeasure quite loudly online. “There is a big outcry for a variety of reasons. Google is popular. Google also, I suspect, has an army of semi-official groupies who raise an outcry any time Google is disadvantaged by anything,” Clemons says.
For its part, Apple has stated that as more people use its maps, accuracy will greatly improve given that location searches are tracked. “There are a few things they could do that would make it better, involving small changes to the interface to make it consume less bandwidth at the start and to make it easier to specify that you wanted to navigate from your current location to someplace,” he suggests. “Apple Maps does not need to be much better [than Google Maps]. It just needs to be as good and properly integrated.”
Apple is accomplishing two things by kicking Google out, Clemons notes: “It is protecting the privacy of its users, which could be a source of competitive advantage, and it could be denying Google detailed information on the activities, location and interests of its users, which could be another source of competitive advantage.” Maps, while a popularly used feature on smartphones, are “not a killer app for users, but a Trojan horse for data parasites like Google,” Clemons says.
If Apple pledges not to track users, it could lure many more people from Google Maps, even if its maps are not perfect, according to Clemons. “Apple can say, ‘Our map respects your privacy’.” Google makes most of its revenue on advertisements so it is critical for them to track users, he adds, but the company has been taken to task for privacy violations. “Google sends ads based not just on searches, but on everything you do online.” In contrast, Apple derives the bulk of its business from sales of Mac computers as well as iPhone, iPad, iPod and iPod Touch devices. Thus, the company is in a financial position to forgo ad revenue opportunities and possibly gain some consumer goodwill in the process, Clemons notes.
Indeed, while people’s attention was focused on maps, what may have been overlooked are the enhanced privacy features in iOS6, according to an October 1 article by the Center for Democracy and Technology. “When iOS6 was released last week, the ‘big news’ was Apple’s decision to drop Google Maps. In the uproar that followed, iOS6’s privacy features received little fanfare, despite undergoing a major overhaul,” the group said. “Many changes [that the centre] has advocated for – including giving users more control over tracking and increasing the visibility of options in the privacy settings – have been adopted in the new version.”
But ultimately, the total ecosystem is what corrals people to a particular smartphone, experts say, whether it is iOS, Android, Windows Phone or others. An owner of several Apple devices would be hard-pressed, for example, to switch to Android because many of his or her devices use iTunes and operate on iOS. “The biggest key to mobile supremacy? It has less to do with the particular apps within an ecosystem, and more to do with the size of the installed base using it,” Fader says. “Google/Android has an obvious advantage here because they work with so many manufacturers. Apple is unlikely to be able to match their footprint in the long run. That’s the key. The size of the footprint drives the apps, not the other way around.” In the end, he adds, “that’s where the battle will be won or lost.”
