What Google Lost When Apple Dropped It From iOS Maps

Charles Arthur, in The Guardian:

But a year on, a total of 35m iPhone owners in the US used Apple’s maps during September 2013, according to ComScore, compared to a total of 58.7m Google Maps across the iPhone and Android.

Of those, about 6m used Google Maps on the iPhone, according to calculations by the Guardian based on figures from ComScore. That includes 2m iPhone users who have not or cannot upgrade to iOS 6, according to data from MixPanel.

Two factors:

  1. The inherent advantage of the built-in Maps app over any app that has to be downloaded from the App Store. The App Store makes downloading third-party apps easier than ever, but nothing can beat the convenience of an app pre-installed with the system.

  2. Apple Maps has gotten to the point where it’s pretty good, and it continues to get better.

★ Monday, 11 November 2013