Did Apple Get Exactly What it Wanted for Users in Google Maps Spat?

[darcyjames]

This certainly wasn't intentional, since no one makes business decisions like that based on uncertainties.

That said, I think it did work out in the end. Apple probably thought they could do better, and the last minute contingency plan was that Google and others would quickly step up. Fortstall just failed to deliver.

Agree - no spin here...also no strategy.

To imply they planned it this way is ludicrous, but that is exactly how it worked out. Except that the stock price has suffered in part because of it; thanks Maps...

 

[tomjleeds]

Forcing Latitude on people is not a reasonable concession. Sorry, it's just not. That would NOT be good for the users.

Who said anything about forcing anything?

Latitude is very much opt-in on Android and in its current incarnation on iOS. There is absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that that would change.

Had you used Latitude you would know that Google even go to the extent of emailing you every few months to remind you that they're holding all this data about your movements, and how that might not be the best idea ever, and how you can delete it all and stop any further tracking.

But of course, you'd rather just froth at the mouth a bit.

 

[arashb]

Obviously Apple didn't mean for it to happen this way, but I'm sure they're happy about Google's app until they can fix theirs.

But they both still suck. Waze and Sygic are the only two navigation apps that will ever be able to replace a dedicate navi.

 

[renodude18]

Oh well, I still trust my cars GPS over my iPhones. It's tried to take me to the wrong places several times no matter which app I've used, I've tried almost all but the outrageously priced ones.

 

[louis.b]

Why can't they get along?
I love Google products on my iOS devices!

They make a great team, if you ask me

But greedy Google just wants to eat Apple's iOS' market share.

 

[WhoDaKat]

Yes, if he'd wanted to make the PR disaster even worse than it already was. Can you not imagine the furore had they denied it? Since they'd already approved other maps and navigation apps it would have been blatant discrimination against Google. Might even have been lawsuit territory.

The only furore would be from people like you and your tech blogging friends. It was Google themselves that didn't think it would be accepted in the first place.

Yes, they did. Think.

The iPhone 5 had just been launched, and mapping/GPS is a pretty important feature for many smartphone users. Apple had to reassure buyers that they could get decent maps on their iPhone 5 straight away, or it could have decimated sales. Taking a hard "you'll use our maps and like them or you'll eat them for breakfast" line would only have made it worse.

I'm thinking but its making my head hurt. Clearly you can look at sales numbers and see the maps debacle didn't hurt them very much. I mean they still broke all their intro sales numbers, even after every tech blog decreed them to be total crap. So, I guess its not as important to most people as you think.... or hold on to your hat(e), the maps app isn't as bad as people say! Eeegads!

Personally, I was all set to get an iPhone 5 until I upgraded my iPad to iOS 6, opened Maps, hit 'Satellite' and saw a black-and-white cloudbank where my house used to be. That's fixed now, but the question in my mind was "What's Apple going to wreck next in order to spite the competition? Gmail/contact/calendar sync? Dropbox/Google Drive?

Oh there was a cloud over 1 sq mile of the 196,900,000 sq miles that is our planet. Clearly Apple is wrecking anything and everything in order to.... wait, what good does it do them to wreck everything? Oh thats right, they are in business to spite their competition. Looks like spiting your competition pays pretty good.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Ok, who drank all the Apple koolaid?

 

[navra233]

This certainly wasn't intentional, since no one makes business decisions like that based on uncertainties.

That said, I think it did work out in the end. Apple probably thought they could do better, and the last minute contingency plan was that Google and others would quickly step up. Fortstall just failed to deliver.

I am agree with you.

Now its time to get best Maps on your new iOS device.

 

[Jeans89]

Cook planned all this to get a decent excuse to ax Forstall and to get better Maps from Google for iPhone users. Well played.