Comment by johnthuss a day ago
The Google Maps situation is a great example of why this will be hard. When Apple switched to their own maps it was a huge failure resulting in a rare public apology from the company. In order to switch you have to be able to do absolutely everything that the previous solution offered without loss of quality. Given Google's competence in AI development that will be a high bar to meet.
That's the point of what the person you replied to is saying.
it's hard but not impossible. Unless Apple didn't learn the Google Maps/Maps lesson.
Well, yeah, Apple's Maps.app wasn't good enough when it launched (it's solid now though). That feels like a separate thing from white labeling and lock-in. Obviously they would have to switch to something of similar or better quality or users will be upset.
But it's a whole lot easier to switch from Gemini to Claude or Gemini to a hypothetical good proprietary LLM if it's white label instead of "iOS with Gemini"
I prefer Apple Maps for turn-by-turn navigation and public transit. However, I still keep Google Maps around for business data and points of interest. This is where Apple Maps is still lacking significantly. The fact that Apple still prompts me to download Yelp to view images of a business is insane to me.
>it's solid now though
Depends on where you are. In my experience here in Sweden Google Maps is still better, Apple maps sent us for a loop in Stockholm (literally {{{(>_<)}}} )
Yep, in my rural area Apple maps is not usable, Google maps works fine. Waze, also Google, is even better.
I think Google was withholding them unless Apple was willing to put the ads in.
Apple is a very VERY different company than they were back then.
Back then they didn’t have all sorts of services that they advertised to you constantly. They didn’t have search ads in the App Store. They weren’t trying to squeeze every penny out of every customer all the time no matter how annoying.
Google Search also has ads in it, but that didn't stop Apple from keeping it as the default, and now Apple is adding ads to Apple Maps. GP is correct. Google withheld turn by turn navigation from the iOS app. There are many deficiencies in the iOS platform, but this one was glaringly visible, forcing Apple's hand.
Apple does ads but they have a very particular taste with it. Not necessarily a better taste, but they do it in their own apple way. They're very much control freaks.
I was in agreement with the parent before I read this, and now I'm in agreement with you. It is a great example, I know so many people who never switched back to Apple Maps because it was so poor initially. Personally I find it a considerably better experience than Google Maps these days, but those lost users still aren't coming back.
Mobile digital mapping was already a useful thing though. Even though Apple Maps was initially a failure I still came back to it every so often to see how it was progressing and eventually it ended up pretty good.
Maybe I'm weird but mobile assistants have never been useful for me. I tried Siri a couple of times and it didn't work. I haven't tried it since because even if it worked perfectly I'm not sure I'd have any use for it.
I see it more like the Vision Pro. Doesn't matter how good the product ends up being, I just don't think it's something most people are going to have a use for.
As far as I'm concerned no one has proved the utility of these mobile assistants yet.
several years after that they still have their own Maps though, they didn't go back to Google Maps.