In recent news, if anyone of you heard, Australian Police has declared Apple Maps life threatening. This happened after more than one motorist got stuck in a situation like this due to using Apple Maps. Apparently, instead of taking him to a city named Mildura, Apple Maps lead them to the nearby snake-infested, deserted corner of the country.
This news can be laughed off as one more of Apple Map’s bloopers and shrugged off. For anyone using Google Maps, it’s even funnier as for them it is one more thing they can feel superior about.
In fact, before Apple Maps came into the picture there never was a killer app in Android that alone could be the reason for buying Androids. Apple, by introducing a half-baked product handed over that app to Google in a gift wrap.
Now, with “Google Now” already better functioning that Siri, and Apple Maps not just being worse than Google Maps but the worst mapping service in current situation, it really begs the question- “Why would Apple do that?”
By ‘that’ I do not mean release Apple Maps. It is necessary for Apple to get itself rid of every Google Product if it wants its war to continue. By ‘that’ I do not even mean release a not completed product. Mapping service is a crowd sourced service and improves with more people using it. So, unless some monkey is sitting in Apple Maps department, it is improving day by day.
My ‘that’ is- “Why would Apple remove Google Maps completely before testing Apple Maps in real world scenario?”
Any software in the beginning is a beta, even the one that is completely bug free. This is basic software rule. It is so because scalability is something that is always an issue in every business and every platform.
No one exactly knows what will happen when scalability strikes. Many times it has been seen that businesses that were working well in a confined space become completely dud when scaled. Something similar is with software.
What Apple did not realize was that when Google launched Maps, people were wary. It was a new service and people were not that dependent on Maps. People started using it but never completely believed it. In a country like ours even now Google Maps make mistakes. Not the kind of leading you to your death but a country where roads might or might not exist it has happened to me more than once that I almost ended up in a no road space. This is more prominent in smaller cities.
Yet, Google has had a lot of time to learn and people now trust this service. They have become dependent on it too. Apple cannot expect people to go through the same learning phase (of Apple Maps) especially since there exist a Google Maps in vicinity.
Anyone using Apple Maps is now in a fix as after four iterations using Google Maps, they might be used to using Maps for navigation (and maps that work majority of time). The choice from them from here is to go back to not using Maps at all or using Apple Maps at a potential risk.
What’s your take on this? I’d especially want to hear it from Apple fan boys!
[Suggested Reading: Why Railradar abandoned Apple Maps]
