Nowadays smartphones have become the primary tool for navigating and searching the web. The online mapping services sector has been intensely competitive with unexpected monetization methods. Google is the strong market leader, but Apple is increasingly clipping their heels.
The Market Leader But Not The Pioneer
MapQuest was a household name in 2000, soon after being purchased by AOL. It was a verb, people were “MapQuesting” instructions and a travel guide to their destination was printed to better assist. Launched in 2005 and 2008, Google Maps, the current industry leader, proceeded to rapidly replace MapQuest as the number one web mapping tool. In order to replace the Google Maps app on all iOS smartphones, Apple Maps released in 2012 with iOS 6 and is now Siri’s native built-in navigation with activated visual assistance.
Newest Features
A variety of new features have been introduced by Google, continually upping the ante of current functional mapping technology and seeking ways to combine their large division of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality. Walking instructions combined with virtual reality are among the most inspired new Google Maps features now being carried out. Google Maps compares the view from your camera to Google Street View when you keep your phone open, then directs you in your chosen direction. While this feature has been confirmed as in the works, it has yet to confirm its launch date.
Conversely, the newest update announcement from Apple Maps is a beta of maps embedded in your browser. Apple eventually catches up to the baseline functionality, at least with touch screen accessibility, including pinching to zoom, flipping the direction of the globe with two fingers, and the option to display the map in the street view or satellite mode, one of the earliest features available from Google Maps.
Apple has built in a few fun gimmicks, such as Big Ben showing the current time in Flyover mode, which might provide a fun glimpse into how immersive these mapping characteristics could get over the next little bit. A ground-breaking implementation, introduced in 2007 around several cities in the USA, Google Street View has since extended to cover cities and rural areas worldwide. The Traffic Prediction function is perhaps one of Google’s best implementations: using the cellular data of drivers, it can forecast the flow of traffic based on the number of signals and how fast they travel in a location.
Who Wins?
Although Apple has been creeping up on the web mapping industry’s stronghold of Google Maps, they are still only sitting at around 25 percent of the market share of smartphones, although Google is at a solid 50 percent. Ultimately, Google Maps has become a household name and plans to remain that way for the first to market style of delivery for the Mobile boom. Over the past 4 years, Apple Maps have significantly expanded their market share, mainly related to the popularity of the iPhone, but Apple Maps have a long way to go before they lead the way through creativity, and not just holding on to Google Maps’ coattails.
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