Wow. New GMaps totally annihilates Apple Maps in every which way. Not that this comes as a surprise...<p>Navigation is great, so much better than Siri's dreadful voice, easy to navigate from A>B with a tap of your destination. Let's not even mention the street data.<p>Great 3D flyovers, but no satellite-3D flyovers (if you're worried about that you probably have too much time to waste during the day - this is a maps app, to take you places, not give you a tour of Los Angeles).<p>UI feels great - intuitive, fluid, multi-touch works fantastic. Heard someone mention that it "lacks polish" or feels "laggy" - not sure I agree with that - feels fast on an iPhone 5 and on a 4S side-by-side. UI is clean and not cluttered, that's a plus. Someone else mentioned that it's simply GMaps in a UIWebView - no chance for that.<p>Of course, the public transport data is second to none. The data in general - we won't discuss that.<p>Great release - welcome back
This is leaps and bounds better than Apple Maps and even the original maps client on iOS that used Google Maps. I didn't even think Apple maps were 'that' bad. The huge hole was POI data, in London at least. Most POI's seemed to be approximated and the rest of them were missing, old or incorrect.<p>After playing with this app for 10 minutes I think this is far superior to the iOS5 Maps experience. It's an extremely refined and clean app that is extremely fast with lots of features. Start typing a street or location and it'll know what you mean within a few letters.
So a question I have for some people more knowledgable than me in the iOS system:<p>Now that we have an apple maps program, and various competitors including and not limited to google; we also have a chrome (and other) iOS browsers to compete with safari (and yes, I understand it's really just skinned web kit) and a new default video player,<p>Is this situation not akin to the anti-trust wars that threatened to consume Microsoft a decade ago?<p>For instance, they (the apple defaults) are all installed by default, and they remain the default option: for example if you receive an address (either physical or web) in messenger or whatsapp or whatever, iOS will attempt to recognise it and make it a hyperlink, but it will then open in the <i>apple default app</i> - if you want it to open in say chrome or google maps you have to copy and paste it.<p>So- is this the same as the anti-trust case against Microsoft?
Will apple ever change the default program?
Or will my next phone be an android..
It looks great, the fact that it has 480 upvotes on here shows that a lot of people wanted it.<p>The transport directions are <i>slightly</i> better, it'll find actual options for me now but does still occasionally go "Nope, no public transport around you!" when I live near a bus stop. And a train station.<p>It's <i>slightly</i> laggy on my iPhone 5, I popped it up with a high view when I was on the train and it was very visibly jerky, Apple Maps was much, much smoother.<p>Hey guys, SIGN IN. You want your search history? SIGN IN. That's really annoying, and given when the whole Maps shift started it was rumoured that Google was demanding more and more information on the searches it points to Google <i>really</i> wanting that search history with your account.<p>POI stuff spanks Apple, easily. Apple sucks at that at the moment, the fact that Google can autocomplete a hell of a lot of it is much nicer.<p>I don't like some of the UX choices, the 'tutorial overlay' says the bottom right button is tappable but it's actually a slide over, tapping did nothing for me. Accessing Street View is non-intuitive. Occasionally it felt like there was a few too many taps to get me where I needed to be. This is all stuff they can work on though.<p>All in all, it's pretty good. I'll have it as a secondary Maps app, I'm going to try stick with Apple Maps though. Not because I'm a glutton for punishment but because it has <i>genuinely</i> started getting better for the use case I need it in. Choice is always nice though.
I'm not seeing a lot of comments about how good for Apple this is.<p>Yes Apple want to own maps on iOS but given how their own launch went the ship has sailed on that for a while at least. But given the position they found themselves in this goes a long way to undermining the criticisms of mapping on iOS because if you think Apple maps sucks you just go and get Google maps for free.<p>One of Apple's big gripes supposedly was that they couldn't get Google maps turn by turn navigation on the iPhone and here it is (and without them paying for it it seems) plus they get to work on Apple maps with some of the pressure off which protects them some if Google start messing around.<p>I'm not in any way saying that this was Apple's plan all along - that plan went badly wrong in the summer - but as of this morning iOS, for regular users at least, just got more attractive.<p>Yes it's a win for Google, but it's a win for Apple too.
So far, it seems very awkward...<p>Two-finger slide from the right <i>sometimes</i> opens up a sidebar that apparently contains settings (not sure what the magic incantation is).<p>Zooming in works, but there's no street view, you just keep zooming waaaaay in.<p>No bike directions. :|<p>I might like the map drawing better, can't really say which is quicker on my relatively slow device, and it does work quite well. But so far I'm not impressed at all. The previous iOS 5- version was better, if less new-Google-aesthetic-y.
IOS SDK released as well: <a href="http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-new-way-to-add-google-maps-to-your.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-new-way-to...</a>
What I found really interesting is how after playing with Google Maps for a couple minutes, then hopping out to the Settings app to change something, the standard iOS look instantly felt really dated, with the bubbliness, heavy gradients and pinstripes.
So, I find this out, I go directly to the App Store on my phone, and I do a search for "Google Maps".<p>First five results:"Google Earth", "My Places for Google Maps", "My Maps Editor", "Road Tripper", and then finally "Google Maps"<p>Seriously, how difficult is it to bump an exact string match to the top of the list?<p>Seems to me that iOS is just getting worse and worse.
Is Apple Maps really completely terrible?<p>OR<p>Does it have a few problems that, when compared with all the progress Google has made in that arena, makes its performance untenable?<p>I say this because I have used Apple Maps to navigate the rural southeastern U.S. with absolutely no problems. I even had my dedicated GPS to make sure Apple Maps wasn't leading me astray.
I'm shocked how fast the UI is. I'm on an iPhone 4S and every UI gesture, view load and transition has absolutely no lag. For example, from the sliding info sheet, tap on the street view button and it loads instantly.<p>Even requests that are hitting the server seem to return almost instantly.<p>Is it just me?
On a cursory glance,
The panning performance is disappointing (looks like 20fps) on my iPhone 5, whilst Apple maps is buttersmooth at 60fps.<p>I like the overall look of Google maps more, having more detail and and the 3d buildings that pop-up are cute. Apple maps are right down bare looking in comparison.<p>I was sorely missing streetview, I was amazed myself how used to I was checking streeview of various places.<p>Can't offhand remember places Apple maps couldn't address-locate so I don't have any good comparison off the map data quality, but both have been mostly fine, with google having slightly better heuristics finding an address even if it doesn't know the exact street number.<p>I like the rotation with two fingers in google maps is less sensitive, I often rotate in apple maps accidentally. But then again, Google maps has this menu that comes up when sliding with two fingers (by placing two fingers and then dragging) and that came up accidentally few times.<p>In google maps, sometimes a quick tap tells you the address of that place, but sometimes it needs a tap-and-hold, feels erratic.<p>Google maps driving directions didn't say a word while staying still, so I can't say much about that. The finnish voice in apple maps is very understandable, but quite harsh. The US voice of course failed to read any finnish names in a comical way (but had to change phone language to get finnish voice, I usually prefer my electronics in english).<p>Public transport stuff has always been useless in finland, so nothing to say about that either..
Just one Data Point -
My first query (from my office in Redwood City) was "Directions to Lake Merrit" - it found Lake Merrit, but, unlike IOS 6 Maps, couldn't get me transit direction there. IOS 6 Maps one-clicked me over to "HopStop" which gave me a choice of Walk/Caltrain/Bart.<p>Prior to the uproar around IOS 6 maps not having Transit direction, I wasn't even <i>aware</i> the IOS 5 Map had transit directions. In San Francisco, Tokyo, New York and other places this is a big deal. But, if you want to get Transit Direction from Redwood City, CA to Oakland, CA, IOS 6 Maps currently beats out Google Maps.<p>With that said, I'm blown away by how quickly the interface can guess what I'm looking for as I start typing into it. Apple has a long way to catch up in that department. I suspect for much map searching, Google Maps is going to become my "Goto" client on the iPhone.<p>[Edit - Love the speedy Swipe Left/Right interface. Also Offline Maps. Just Cached all of California, Switched to "Airplane Mode" - and all my mapping data is cached. Awesome.]<p>[Edit 2 - Wow - this map is fast. IOS 6 Maps wasn't particularly slow, but switching back and forth shows me Apple has a long way to go. Have to Love Competition]<p>[Edit 3 - Jumping into StreetView is silky smooth, and, they make use of the accelerometer so you can look around]
Finally, I'm happy that this app is released. I refused to use Apple Maps any further.<p>The one major drawback from the Original Google Maps app is that the original one did an excellent job showing every single street name on even a deep zoom level. The new Google Maps one does a poor job on this and you have to hunt back and forth to figure out what zoom level you need to get to in order to read the street name. Once they get this right, things will be back to normal.
Apple had an interesting choice here, they could allow it, or they could not allow it. If they didn't, Google had a very good opportunity to slam Apply publicly and get users riled up, and enemies more ammunition. They chose the latter, which I think is the best choice as they now have real competition and they'll have to step up their game. This is app number two that will probably take place over the natively installed apps now by Google.
I'll throw my voice into this maelstrom.<p>1) Search for "Google Maps" and it is the 5th result. The app is literally called Google Maps. The results before: Fine Maps, PD Maps Worldwide Edition, Google Earth(?!).<p>2) 300 comments and the topic of Apple anti-competitive behaviour with regard to App availability is hardly touched. In fact the top most comments are on UI and nitpicking over details such as Bookmarks and response speed.
I used the new Google Maps for my GPS on the way to work this morning to do a side by side comparison with my regular GPS software from Navigon. A couple of things I love:<p>1). It connects to my car stereo via the phone bluetooth profile so even though my car can't stream music by bluetooth, I can still get my turn-by-turn directions. My Navigon uses the whichever audio profile is used for music, so I only get the turn-by-turn over the car stereo if I'm plugged in by wire. Kudos Google, that's a really nice touch. Thank you.<p>2). I like the way it displays the streetview when you arrive at your destination so you can see where you should be. Another great touch.<p>And a couple of things I really don't like at all:<p>1). "In 300 metres...[pregnant pause]... turn left".<p>2). I don't like that it doesn't provide the street names in the audible turn by turn directions. So in cases where you have two streets in close proximity, unless you actually look at the screen, you're left guessing which is the correct one.
nobody commented about this. any opinions?<p>"Google Maps Navigation is in beta. Use caution.<p>Please keep your eyes on the road and obey applicable laws. Do not manipulate this application while in motion. Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.<p>Traffic data is not real-time, and location accuracy cannot be guaranteed<p>"
Wow! This is a very slick and sexy app, I am impressed. I am going to give it a try for my commute to work tomorrow. Very fast, responsive, and the voice is nice (but a little too fast as compared to iOS)
It's certainly a great alternative for Apple's maps, which lack data in many parts of the world. It also appears to be vector maps, like Apple's, unlike Maps in iOS 5.<p>Some things that lack or incomplete in the meantime:<p>- iPad version, which is less critical, of course.
- Access to contact addresses
- Street view doesn't load high-resolution images when zoomed in.<p>The performance on iPhone 4S is good enough but zooming in and out is sometimes too fast and hard to do with precision.<p>Still, I already replaced Apple's Maps with this one of my iPhone's home screen.
The new Google Maps' shake to give feedback feature is so genius. Shake your phone in frustration, and get to yell at Google :)<p>Is this feature in any other app? Maybe I just haven't seen it yet.
It is available at:
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-maps/id585027354" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-maps/id585027354</a>
So, I'm really disappointed. The thing I was most looking forward to was the return of public transportation schedules on my iPhone. But this new app simply says, "Unavailable in this region." They were there before and they are still available for my area on a desktop computer. I don't understand why they are missing.<p>EDIT: I take that back, as others have noticed, it's there... just unavailable from the sidebar. Not sure why.
I thought this was for both iPhone and iPad but it's only for iPhones.<p>Not to be sour or anything but I would have been fine with a stretched version for the iPad.
The good thing is that OS on my iPhone can now be upgraded to iOS6...
The interesting conclusion for me as a user is that:
(1) I value the additional services like Maps more than the base OS...
(2) I don't care about Apple loyalty - my loyalty is towards iPhone and any app provider who continues to provide me an excellent iPhone experience
Will maps put the idea of unchangeable default apps on the radar of anti-competitive practices? The people clearly want their mapping from Google, but if you dont implicitly open the google map and type an address (by way of hyperlink in another app, etc.), all mapping will be routed to apple's app.
As a timed test, I wanted to see how long it would take me to search for my favorite Phoenix, AZ coffee shop (Lux). I did the test from start up to clicking on the pin on an iPhone 4.<p>Google Maps: 22 seconds
Apple Maps: ??? It took me to Luxembourg<p>I think I know which map app I'll be using from now on.
Not seeing this in the Australian App Store either. Can't wait, my girlfriend will be especially pleased she relies on having maps on her iPhone because she's a hopeless navigator and the iOS 6 maps frustrate her.
I wonder how this thing with Apple App Store works, and why some items appear in US store only, and in other (Croatian, and i see from comments Uruguay and Turkey) hours or even days later.
The first thing I did after reading the headline was go to the app store on my iphone and search for "google maps" - 328 results, and google maps isn't one of them.
Death rates of misguided tourists are plummeting!<p>But seriously, this is just great news for us folks outside the US and who use public transit. I can now get an iPhone 5 today! :D
Google dominate this area, obviously.<p>It's great we are happy to have working maps, but let's just hope other companies can break the monopoly on our location data at some point.
You've got to wonder how much Apple are paying Google to support maps on iOS....or what other kick-back (more valuable to Google than cash) there might be.
disclaimer.. I'm a little (a lot) drunk but still... Searching for 'google maps' does not bring up this app.. I could only find it by clicking on the link... Is visibility this poor on the App Store... The name I'm searching is identical to that of the app, what's going on here..
Pros:
1. You can pinch to zoom while during turn-by-turn navigation
2. You can select a point anywhere in the map and it instantaneously gives you the time to drive there from your current location (which is also a link to the navigation details/options.
3. Feels like a real map compared to the barren-ass land that Apple's Map shows.
4. Streetview (that is even smoother than the browser version)<p>Cons:
1. No integration with the address book.<p>Pros >>>> Cons.