There’s bad news for Apple iPhone users struggling with the seriously shonky new Apple Maps app that has been foisted on them in the iOS6 update, with Reuters reporting that Google has made no move to provide Google Maps for the iPhone 5.
Keen to keep on rolling in vast vats of cash, Apple made the decision to dump Google’s well-regarded mapping app for their own alternative – a move that has proved calamitous for many users.
Based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom NV’s data, Apple’s new map service has become something of a laughing stock on the web, with some quite insane geographical errors and bizarre 3D images appearing.
Talking to reporters in Toyko, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said, “We think it would have been better if they had kept ours. But what do I know?”
“What were we going to do, force them not to change their mind? It’s their call.”
Schmidt said Google and Apple were in constant communication, but noted that it’s up to Apple whether an updated Google Maps app would be allowed into the Apple App Store.
“We have not done anything yet,” he added.
Schmidt was in Japan to announce the launch of the highly rated Google Nexus tablet, and took the opportunity to show off a natty new new function of Google Maps which allows users to shift their view of an area by moving the device in the air without touching the screen,.
“Take that Apple,” he is quoted as saying, adding quickly, “That was a joke by the way.”
[Reuters]
