When an organization becomes sufficiently large, it will try harder to eliminate dependencies and to fortify their own ecosystem. It can be verified by analyzing the history of multi-billion dollar companies which rose from Silicon Valley in the recent past. These organizations have different motives behind trying to do so; however, the common denominator is to sustain their operations even at times their suppliers fail to deliver. The latest examples for this behavior can be seen with Google and Apple; both been giant tech companies. Apple is trying to move the hardware segment of mobile platforms under their own wing, whereas they depended on other manufacturers to do that for them in the past. The best example is their new display panels and their new instruction set which was engineered in-house. Google is not far behind either; as a start, they have started to sell a range of mobility products under their direct supervision although they are made by third-party manufacturers. The word on the street is that Google has an Ace coming up which is strengthened by their purchase of Motorola Mobility Division. Only time can tell us the nature of these surprises from the tech giant. Today we are going to explore another step towards independency from Apple; we are going to compare Apple Maps with a prominent solution from Google, the Google Maps.
Apple Maps Review
Apple Maps is the proprietary version of the maps app that comes with Apple iOS 6. This was released few months back, and it was in its infantry then. It certainly provides the functions that a map app should provide plus some of their new features. At the base layer of any mapping app, there is the coordination between GPS and Data connection. The GPS enables the handset to locate where you are on a blank tile, and the map will be loaded through the data connection. This model is prominent in most versions, but there are several vendors who provide local storage when the data connectivity is not available. Unfortunately, Apple is not one of them; yet.
Apple Maps is only available to limited geographical regions due to fewer amounts of data Apple has although we are assured that Apple will cover everywhere soon. The golden thread in Apple Maps is turn-by-turn navigation that has a nice graphical user interface with signage and POI information. Apple Maps is said to be more driver friendly because of the bigger element size inside the map so that the driver can take a glance without distracting himself. As usual, Apple has integrated Siri to their maps application, and she can do the basic operations for you when you instruct her using voice commands. There is an interesting annotation that comes with Apple Maps known as 3D Flyovers. This option gives you a bird’s eye view of a certain area although right now it is limited to a couple of cities inside USA.
Google Maps Review
Google Maps is one of those services that you can’t live without provided by Google. It has been there for a long time as a browser based service before it was ported as a mobile application. Approximately it has gone seven years of refinement to come to what it is today. As is for Apple, Google Map application has all the basics in any map application following the GPS and Data connectivity model. However, Google also lets you download a portion of the map enabling you to have local storage when you don’t have data connectivity.
One of the most important features of Google Maps is the ability to display information about Public Transits. This has been there in Google Maps for a long time, and they are significantly accurate on this information. Google also offers turn-by-turn navigation, which is really important for drivers. It also provides audible instructions so that drivers no longer have to look in to the display panel to know where to go. It comes integrated with Google Voice Search which lets you perform voice commands on top of the maps application. Google Maps comes with a really cool Street View which provides you with rich images that Google has collected over a large span of time and stitched rather craftily. The customer reviews indicate that this feature is at the center of attraction. Google Maps has a higher level of detail and syncs your history with your desktop when you are logged in using your Gmail account.
A Brief Comparison Between Apple Maps and Google Maps
• Apple Maps provides turn-by-turn navigation with a traffic view and anonymous crowd-sourced incident reports while Google Maps provides turn-by-turn navigation with traffic view and reliable incident reports.
• Apple Maps has Siri integrated and enables you to query the Map application using voice commands while Google Maps has Google Search integrated enabling you to query the Map application using voice commands.
• Apple Maps provides you with a 3D bird’s eye view over a limited number of cities while Google provides Street View over an expanded number of cities.
• Apple Maps doesn’t provide you public transit information while Google Maps provides you public transit information on a unique user interface.
• Apple provides a less detailed map while Google provides a more detailed map with fast and efficient routing compared to Google Maps.
Conclusion
We have to understand that Google has had ample time to refine and re-refine their map application to what it is today. Compared to that, Apple Maps is an infant to say the least. But given time, Apple is bound to improve their maps application exponentially. However, we’ll give you an impartial judgment on who is best right now; a new version of Google Maps was introduced 3 days ago and it has become the Top Free App in Apple App Store in just one night. Need I say more on which is best?