Apple’s Competitors Pile On With Map Critiques

By Brian X. Chen

Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chairman, told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday that the company had done nothing to get its maps back onto the iPhone since Apple removed them in its new iOS 6 operating system for mobile devices. He said Apple should have stuck with Google’s maps, but, according to Bloomberg, he declined to say whether the company had submitted a new maps app to Apple’s App Store.

And why would Google show its cards? All of the criticism of Apple’s maps is a chance for Google to tell the story that Android phones have better maps, and perhaps to wean loyal Apple customers off their iPhones.

Plenty of Apple competitors are taking this opportunity to say they have something better to offer.

Motorola Mobility, which was recently acquired by Google, minced no words. In a posting on Google Plus, it showed a picture of an iPhone next to its new Razr M smartphone, directly mocking the new maps:

Looking for 315 E 15th in Manhattan? Google Maps on Droid Razr M will get you there & not #iLost in Brooklyn.

Nokia, which recently suffered its own embarrassment when it posted a misleading promotional video for its new Lumia 920 phone, published a blog post comparing its maps with Apple’s. Of course, Nokia concluded that its maps were better.

In other words, we truly understand that maps and location-based apps must be accurate, provide the best quality and be accessible basically anywhere. That’s been standard practice at Nokia for the past six years, and we also understand that “pretty” isn’t enough. You expect excellence in your smartphone mapping experience.

Now that Apple is a maps provider, it is competing with navigation companies as well. Barry J. Glick, chief executive of a navigation company called ALK Technologies, and earlier the founder of GeoSystems Global Corporation, which made MapQuest, said in a statement that Apple faced a tough challenge but should get better at maps over time:

Developing a successful, user friendly, accurate and reliable mapping application is harder than most anyone can realize. The sheer man-hours needed to ensure proper detail, routing, and integration with third-party data is staggering. Apple is in a steep learning curve in a, new to them, industry that demands an elite level of precision over large amounts of interconnected data. We have over 30 years of mapping knowledge and expertise behind our CoPilot Live applications and are still finding better ways to help our customers navigate. Given time and resources, I think Apple will get this right.

Waze, a navigation company that is providing some traffic data to Apple, wasn’t gentle about its critique of Apple’s maps. Last week, Noam Bardin, chief executive of Waze, was quoted in Business Insider as saying that the maps would be problematic for a while.

What’s going to happen with the Apple maps, is that you’re literally not going to find things. When you do find them, they might be in the wrong place or position geographically. And if you do have it, the route to it may not be the optimal route.