There has been a lot said recently about Apple’s new iOS 6 Maps app, and whether or not Google is planning to release a native Maps app for iOS – and a new report from The New York Times muddies the waters even further, claiming that Google will indeed release a new Maps app by the end of the year.
Google is developing a maps application for iPhone andiPad that it is seeking to finish by the end of the year, according to people involved with the effort who declined to be named because of the nature of their work. There has been widespread speculation about whether and when Google would release a maps application for Apple devices since Apple released a new version of its iOS operating system with an Apple-made maps service.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt recently made some comments in Tokyo suggesting that Apple hadn’t “done anything” on a Google Maps app so far – but several previous reports (and now, this New York Times) beg to differ. The reasoning in the NYT report is also interesting.
According to the report, Google was caught of guard by Apple ducking out of their Google Maps contract ahead of time (as previously reported by The Verge), and needs more time in order to complete a new app to submit to the App Store.
Another reason for the delay reportedly has to do with complications caused by Google Earth:
Another complication, according to a person with knowledge of Google Maps: Google would likely prefer to release a maps app that includes 3-D imagery so it is comparable to Apple’s. But Google has 3-D images in Google Earth, which is a separate app with a separate code base from Google Maps, so it would take some time to combine the two.
The report seems fishy to me. It’s been known for months now that Apple was planning to abandon Google Maps in iOS 6, and I have a difficult time believing that Google couldn’t come up with at least an intermediate solution in that amount of time.
