When Google announced what is clearly the best car navigation application on any mobile today, it didn’t just take a swipe at GPS navigation companies such as Garmin and TomTom. It took a swipe at Apple.
Beyond the advanced features of the Google Maps Navigation app (voice search, crowdsourced traffic data, Street View navigation), what makes the app noteworthy is that it launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone.
Navigation apps are a key category for mobile phones, and the iPhone is for once at a disadvantage here. Even the paid navigation apps in the iTunes store can’t compete because Google’s new navigation app is an extension (albeit a customized one) of its search engine. When a navigation app becomes an interface to Google’s massive search engine, it begins to deliver things that GPS app developers like Garmin and TomTom will never be able to build (search along a route, natural language search). Oh yeah, and did I mention it is free?
This is but the latest sign of a growing rift between Apple and Google. A couple years ago, when the iPhone first launched, Google and Apple had a strong partnership. At the time, Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the relationship as so close that it was akin to merging “without merging. Each company should do the absolutely best thing they can do every time.” Google supposedly didn’t need to create its own phone, because it could simply create software for the iPhone. And, in fact, some of the best apps on the iPhone—Mail, Maps, YouTube, Search—were developed by Google.
Only two years later, Apple and Google no longer have such a cozy relationship. A new Android phone is now launching every other week, it seems. Feeling the competitive threat, Apple started blocking Google apps such as Google Voice and Latitude from getting on the iPhone, and Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board (although there were also other reasons for that having to do with antitrust scrutiny).
The tensions really came to a boil around the whole Google Voice saga. As we wrote at the time:
Multiple sources at Google tell us that in informal discussions with Apple over the last few months Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features.
So Apple starts to back away from letting Google take over the iPhone with all the best apps by rejecting them. And now we have Google’s response: a big middle finger. If Apple is going to make it hard to get on the iPhone, then Google will stop giving Apple its best apps first and use them to make its own Android platform more appealing.
Apple is in a terrible position here because the future of mobile apps are Web apps, and Google excels at making those. Apple needs Google, it’s most dangerous competitor in the mobile Web market, to keep building apps for the iPhone. Google would be foolish not to since the iPhone still has the largest reach of any modern Web phone. But it will no longer be a priority.
The sad thing is that Apple has been here before—with Microsoft. In the late 1990s, Apple had to beg Microsoft to keep building Office for Macs. Now it may be in the same position with Google. There may be more than 85,000 apps in the App Store, but it is only a handful which actually drive purchases. If Google Maps Navigation becomes one of those types of killer apps, Apple might need to do some begging first before Google goes through effort to make it for the iPhone.
Not so fast. This has yet to work. My mobile (Android, iPhone) has a tough time keeping a connection when driving. All on-line navigation systems that I know have failed so far.
Cool features but high risk of unhappy users due to mobile data availability and roaming issues.
Google said that when you plan your route, it precaches map data for that route to help alleviate this problem.
Ah, yah? Is this totally confirmed? I’m not doubting you at all….I was thinking about the data connectivity problem and was wondering if they had done something like this.
Sweeet….
I have no problem with real time web based GPS.
I use Amaze on my Blackberry Bold on ATT with no issues. It downloads real time turns and maps without any issue. Granted it is not as detailed as this, but I am sure it can be solved with some simple caching.
Agreed. Online GPS is only useful when in urban areas in the US.
Google says they are caching route data in case you lose your data connection, but this is only useful if you plan all your route ahead of time. What if you want to look up something on the way? No signal, no look ups.
Also, what if you are trying to go to a national park or a hike where there is no cell phone service? Useless.
What if you want to take your phone with you on vacation to Europe to find your hotels, etc? Unless you want to pay tons of money in data roaming charges, useless.
A native GPS service with maps loaded locally still has infinite advantages over a web based one. It’s a great option to have if you just stay in US cities all the time, but outside of that limited use, it’s not a full replacement option to a Tom Tom or Garmin yet.
You’d be a fool to rely on only a single device in a case like this anyway. If you are doing any sort of real hiking you should have up to date trailmaps for where you are going anyway….papermaps…not anything electronic that can get wet or have a battery die.
It’s a full replacement for 95% of their users, and that’s what matters.
It’s not like Apple is completely inexperienced in writing apps for the iPhone or for the cloud. (Granted, .mac may not be the *best* example, but they’re learning.) Also, didn’t apple just start building a massive data center? Maybe both companies are playing a long game and just smirking at our slow uptake.
No but apple generally sucks at writing apps. That’s a given. And considering they were trying to squeeze out Google with their recent map acquisitions I would say this is a shot over the bow. F the iPhone…these are the Droids you’re looking for.
Um…what? How exactly does Apple suck at writing apps? iLife suite is best in class in consumer digital creation and it’s integration within it’s core is amazing. Final Cut Express and Pro are taking over. Granted they didn’t write the original version, but the newer version has far surpassed where it started from.
Ryan is right, This is a long-term game and to believe there won’t be some give and take is pretty short-sighted.
Yeah, What?
Apple has won many awards and high praise for some of it’s Applications. Not to mention Snow Leopard itself.
Not sure where you got that BS from, but it is quite untrue.
nice hater post.
rigth on, nuff said, let’s RUUMMMBLEEE
Apple will get what’s coming to them. I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords.
So you would want to replace a Microsoft with a Google? This is the direction that Google wants to go with cloud computing. It would no longer matter what OS you’re running and the OS itself would be replaced with a Google data management system. ANY one faceless company with a large market share over the rest of the field is going to turn evil. That’s what happens. They get big and defend themselves in any way possible.
Agreed…but there’s a little-known, de-funded, lost art called, “anti-trust regulation.”
As Teddy Roosevelt & FDR and, later, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson illustrated: when you don’t enforce the law, the problem only gets worse…
http://www.anti...tinstitute.org/
This inevitable Google is becoming to big. Front Back end wise, soon controlling everything
I like this new Google Maps. It’s almost as good as Ovi Maps 3 and this might edge it.
The iPhone has a huge market share in the industry right now, the Navigation app will make google a TON of money with relative ads it can display. It’d be weird for google to not put the navigation app on as many phones or devices as possible. Even if they’re not android.
Although I’d wait a while to keep it as a competitive advantage.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if they came out with a Navigation API for people to create their own web apps or android apps with it. Google has a weird way of opening up it products like that.
I agree. The API is the way Apple will get maps.
Yes all of that is possible and true and what not OORRRRR> http://daringfi...maps-navigation
Then again why would Google spend money and time developing another complicated app for the iPhone when Apple might find another highly questionable reason to deny it from the marketplace?
Google has stayed up all night more than once baking delicious cakes for Apple’s party…only to have the door slammed in their face. Now Google has another party to take their cakes to….and this party is on dozens of phones from multiple carriers.
I don’t think google can afford not making its apps for the iphone. It’s an image issue.
I thought that there was a comment from Schmidt that essentially Apple could have it if they wanted. Google should simply stop building for the iPhone. As I have been a developer slighted by the process, my bet is that Google feels rather similarly. “Wanting” in my estimation means developing it themselves (Apple).
Thinking about my iPhone, I am less of an app lover than interested in information, services, and solid experiences. I love Google maps and search, and use Gmail exclusively. I use Facebook and LinkedIn. I read various paper’s mobile editions. But, if you took the Google services away, I would be off to another device instantly.
I am now looking at education in addition to the media apps, and would rather not develop them on the iPhone. This would require a lower cost device, and Android may facilitate that more rapidly than Apple. As a life-long user of Apple products this has been humbling and infuriating.
Time to return the feeling!
Maybe Google will give them Navigation when Apple approves Voice. Plus, Navigation only on Android sets is a great way to jump start Android phone sales. Free apps>more choices>more phones>more users>more searches>more ads>more $.
Aren’t you jumping the gun here? How do you know that Apple and Google haven’t already made a deal on this? After all, this is not an any currently released phone (until 6th November). I don’t remember you predicting last week that Google would release this today so obviously you don’t know about everything before it’s announced.
good call http://daringfi...maps-navigation
Does the iPhone have a native maps application? Maybe Google was afraid Apple would reject the updated Google Maps for having confusingly similar functionality. That was, after all, their excuse for not approving Google Voice.
The IPhone’s native Map app is Google Maps, but it doesn’t offer turn by turn voice nav. ATT has an App for that but it cost $10 a month.
The iPhone’s native Map app is not Google Maps, it is a proprietary front-end that uses Google Maps data. That might sound like a meaningless distinction, but it means that Apple could in the future switch the data source without updating the UI or features of the app.
Apple better think long and hard about what they’re doing here…I LOVE my iPhone but if I have to choose between Apple and Google I’ll pick Google every time
Google is already working with Apple according to Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice President of Engineering.
A little fact checking would have been nice… talk about jumping the gun.
“However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it’s not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.”
Source:
http://news.cne...384544-265.html
Let’s see how long that takes.
Apple bought a Placebase sometime this year. Placebase is a map maker. Imo apple would go to placebase rather then beg google.
Maybe Apple saw this coming and is preparing to replace google maps with its own map maker.
Don’t care what Google does with Apple, just want them to make Navigation available on my T-Mobile MyTouch with earlier Android OS.
MyTouch can run 2.0, download the SDK and follow some tutorials online.
Every 1.5 or 1.6 phone can run 2.0. Don’t be fooled by the version number, 2.0 is more like 1.7 when it comes to added features.
No, Google should keep this for themselves, continue to give out the Android OS, and before you know it they will be the Windows of mobile.
Everything does not have to come back to Apple, there are other companies doing awsome stuff as Google has shown.
Maybe Google should make all it’s maps in FLASH.
Check your facts before you write.I just don’t understand all this hate about the iPhone and I beg to differ ,there are many apps among the 85,000 plus apps that are great and have nothing to do with google.
Apple recently purchased their own mapping company: Placebase.
I suspect they knew all about this…
The difference between Apple vs. Microsoft and Apple vs. Google, is that Google isn’t evil, right?
wrong. All 3 are evil, it just depends on what kool aid you drink.
Being a loyal and enthused iPhone owner for 2years for the first time I am now thinking how awesome it’d be to also own an Android2 because of the StreetView capability in the navigation that is not available anywhere else. Apple has got to tread carefully but boldly here.
nahh… Apple might be threatened by Google but Google should not feel threatened by Apple.
For Google, the more wide-spread their applications (and brand) can become the better. They saying goes “Any press is good press”.
By spinning it’s spiderweb of technology across all platforms (PC’s, Mac’s, Mobile devices etc..” Google get’s what they want…. DATA
Talk about losing your head when writing this article.
Google loves Apple’s iPhone. Why? Because this is the platform that liberated mobile networking. This is the platform that first showed what Google’s technologies and services are capable of. And for that Google loves Apple.
Next, Google is not let itself be run by silly emotions that you are displaying in this article. Google is a business. They are in this to make great technologies and money. Google’s business model is advertising, and extending its advertising reach is of most importance for Google.
Google Maps Navigation will come to the iPhone. Who knows when.
Google says it will come to Apple:
http://www.appl...e_approves.html
@ Frank
At least some folks have a clue about the landscape. Apple built the Map app on Iphone but the fool would think they can’t extend it. If memory servers, Google introduced street view other platforms before iPhone, but if you have an Iphone today you have Street View so you need to chill. Maybe a free Christmas present from Apple and Google. They are not all enemies.
um, have you *used* an iphone? it already has great turn-by-turn directions, using google or mapquest or whatever you want to use. it’s not a full-fledged GPS, but it’s close enough.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you even watched the video?
Guys sometimes you have this extra apocalyptic flavor..
By reading TechCrunch today, looks like navigation companies will end tomorrow, Apple has lost every chance of competing with Android, is cutting relationships with Google, will beg Google for surviving..
Whoa, who knows what will happen tomorrow.
You say, “Google would be foolish not to (build apps for the iPhone) since the iPhone still has the largest reach of any modern Web phone.”
Would they really be foolish not to do that, Erick?
I’m not convinced.
The relationship is no longer cozy since Google as usual turns and preys on a partner. Same thing happened to Yahoo, when after Google talked big about taking on Microsoft it simply turned around and targeted every single property Yahoo had (though other than search it never eclipsed Yahoo’s popularity in the various properties).
So now they’re going after a core business for Apple. ‘Do no evil’. LOL.
Web applications are not a core business for Apple. You seem to be confused about what competition means, it certainly does not mean “evil”.
The iPhone is. And I think that for most the notion of partnering with someone, working closely with them, then going after that exact same market is considered somewhere between shitty and evil.
Not saying that it’s illegal or anything, but there’s an irrational urge for the Google fanboi to identify with them as a ‘Good Person’ (do to some vaguely stated mantra they don’t even follow), when they’re neither good nor a person, and definitely not your buddy.
Just like apple does what’s best for apple, screw everyone else. There is no good or evil, just business.
Apple and Google worked together when the competition was MS. Now it’s each other and they will compete just as hard.
When it’s in their interest, they will work together, when it isn’t, they won’t. Simple.
“And, in fact, some of the best apps on the iPhone—Mail, Maps, YouTube, Search—were developed by Google.”
Google developed the built-in Mail app on the iPhone? huh?
Its alright, you have to let go some of these jingoistic comments by Erick, MGS, Robin and sometimes Arrington himself
Maps was developed by Apple too. Google didn’t write any apps which come preinstalled on iPhones.
Indeed, a senior Google person confirmed that to me too. The iPhone Maps and YouTube apps were written by Apple, not by Google. Indeed, there is some frustration at Google that Apple has been so slow to update them with what Google sees as key functionality (such as the YouTube app not showing subscriptions for years).
The iPhone development team has always been very obviously underresourced for a while, and the apps have really suffered a lack of updates. 3.0 fixed a lot, but one really hopes we don’t have to wait two more years for a meaningful update just so Apple can have a showy press conference.
That’s another good point though – if *Google* are writing a turn by turn element to the iPhone Google Maps that probably means it’s a seperate application like Latitude and isn’t built into the OS. That would really suck – weak integration with the OS and no background availability.
Maps developed on iPhone by Google? Erick needs to watch the interview of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at All things digital, 2007
This idiot Erick rushed to write the article the moment he saw the google maps navigation video.
He should have done enough research instead of smoking pot !
And of course, search happened well after 1.0, and has nothing to do with Google…
I heard on Buzz at Loud (CNET) that Google Maps is coming to the iPhone, but it’s going to take a little longer. If memory serves me right it was the same for street view – it came out first for Android and the 2nd for the iPhone – right?
As long as Apple allows it (and I’m 100% sure they will) Google will be updating Apple’s Google Maps App with whatever changes they make to the version on Android. It’s in the best interest for Apple, Google, and the consumer.
I doubt Google will be updating or developing anything which comes preinstalled on iPhones, even the apps based around Google services. Apple has a tight grip on that.
@Anthony Hocken – Maybe you forget that they already updated the Google Maps application twice. They will do it again as well. Google has already made a statement to this affect – basically saying that they will update the Maps application on the iphone as long as Apple approves the update.
“Apple is a close partner, and millions of users experience Google Maps on the iPhone. We will continue to work with Apple to bring innovation, including Latitude and Navigation, to users, but you’ll have to speak to Apple about availability.”
http://www.pcwo...ndroidonly.html
It is fascinating to see how fast the whole IT mobile etc. industry moves.
“And, in fact, some of the best apps on the iPhone—Mail, Maps, YouTube, Search—were developed by Google.”
o rly? i’d like to know where you found out the mail app was created by google.
Don’t judge book by its cover. Google map navigation looks absolutely stunning but i don’t agree the fact that they make the best web apps.
Erick, A good advise don’t write for the sake of writing. Do your research before you write articles.
Please don’t forget to share with Techcrunch readers on what you smoke to come up with this crap.
I love this post.
Yes. It perfectly explains press releases through soap opera emotions. And tomorrow is another day, which means all emotions can change according to the next episode requirements.
Now you need an astrology guy.:)
STFU you twit
Of course you do. It’s inaccurate about who developed these core apps your boy snidely suggests Google pull from under apple, but then your so-called journalism is nothing more than Opinion with you pushing your favorite company ahead, facts be damned.
Other than a fanboi who hangs out with the current golden boy, what is it that you do at TechCrunch? Covering the technology sector you aren’t.
Hey Mike,
How much of Apple’s $500 million marketing budget goes to astroturfing?
Hum, how can you compare aapl asking msft for office on the mac and google? That was a different time and aapl was moribund by real bad management and bleeding cash. That’s the time Steve came onboard the rest you know what happened.
Okay I see it makes a great fiction story for the younger crowd.
The only reason I would want to own an iPhone is its browser, which gives me usable access to apps in the cloud. Of those apps, 90% I use are Google’s.
If Android provides good native application support for Google Apps with a serviceable browser (something which Blackberry currently lacks), there’s really no reason to use an iPhone.
I have a Windows Mobile Smartphone and I´ve played around with android based devices… There is nothing like using an iPhone… Simply… The best!
There is no bad blood between the two companies. Google wants as many people as possible going through their apps, regardless of platform. Plus not servicing the iPhone would be evil to the customer, regardless of what Apple did with Voice.
It’s more that if Apple accepts this app, it essentially kills off the navigation part of the App Store, and gives the middle finger to TomTom. Especially after they featured them so prominently during WWDC, who would really bother to pay $100 for the TomTom app when the Google app is cheaper and better?
Google has Apple between a rock and a hard space. And we have to hand it to Google, they are probably the most powerful competitor Apple has right now.
I would call them a coopetitor, rather than a competitor. Very interesting dynamics between these two companies, that admire each other…
I wonder why Apple bought a map startup recently. Hmm…
Go for it G!
Is this a sponsored post? Sometimes I get the real opinions and sponsored posts on TC confused. Not sure which opinions are paid for and which are real.
Obviously a tech-bloggers wet dream: “Get down Apple and beg!”
And In typical Techcrunch fashion the Google overlords are welcomed with open arms so that they may crush all existing markets to harvest our data at will, just as long as we believe their services are free and open…
:…Maps Navigation app…launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone…”
From what I’ve read, Google did not build the Google Maps App on the iPhone in the first place. Apple did, using Google mapping data. And Apple’s Google Maps already has very good turn-by-turn navigation — it just doesn’t have voice over narration, but I’ll bet that comes eventually. It also has terrific links to a database with millions of addresses and corresponding map locations, any of which can be added to your phone’s address book with a single push of a button. I don’t even launch Safari to use the traditional “yellow pages” Web sites for phone numbers any more — they are outmoded. Instead, I just launch Google Maps to search for any company’s phone number and simultaneously get this along with the mapped location AND the street address. With that search result, you can map a route from your current location in seconds. The stand-alone navigation devices all are obsolete. How can they compete with such brilliant integration?
The observations about the new Google Maps Navigation in Shonfeld’s piece would be relevant if only the suppositions behind them were accurate, but they really aren’t. And yes, Apple did just purchase its own mapping company. Let’s see what comes of that. It appears to me that Apple is continuing to work with Google where possible, but wisely gearing up to compete against their Silicon Valley partner should it ever become necessary.
And in a completely unrelated matter, Google Voice will be approved by Apple within weeks……LOL. Latitude, too.
iPhone = Knights of the Round Table
Android = Little White Bunny
“Run Away” now and enjoy the clip! http://www.yout...h?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg
Anyway you look at it.. Google wins.
It wasn’t google who developed apps for iphone like the maps, youtube. Instead it was apple who made use of google api and built those apps. Steve Jobs himself mentioned about that.
“Google supposedly didn’t need to creat its own phone, because it could simply create software for the iPhone.”
Did you mean “create”?
This is a great feature, I’ll be able to use the Maps a lot.
I am definitely looking to get an Android phone when its time for me to upgrade.