(Image source: AndroidADN


BY EVAN THOMAS

 

ANCHOR LOGAN TITTLE


The fallout from Apple’s mapping split with Google still isn’t over. As CNBC reports , it looks like Google’s maps aren’t coming back to the iPhone anytime soon.

“Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt says he has made no move to provide Google maps for the iPhone 5 after it was dropped.”

According to All Things D , the whole maps fight started while iOS 6 was still in development. Google wasn’t willing to hand over a core feature of Android without getting something from Apple in return.

Native spoken turn-by-turn directions are an advantage in the smartphone wars — Google’s Android phones have them, iOS doesn’t. And if Apple was going to use Google’s maps, Google wanted more presence on Apple’s devices. Apple didn’t want to grant that sort of control to a competitor. Stalemate.

So Apple fast-tracked its own mapping software for iOS 6. And as the Internet is fond of pointing out , it’s less than polished in places.

The Wall Street Journal agrees. It’s going to take time for Apple to get its maps up to speed.

“Clearly, they have a track record of delivering very high quality hardware that’s complimentary with software.… I would imagine that they would be working overtime to try and figure out whether they can repair the damage they’ve done with this mapping system.”

But as iDownloadBlog points out , Google’s not an outright winner in this fight, either.

“On the other hand, Google too is feeling the heat because over a hundred million iOS devices no longer rely [on] a Google Maps backend. That’s nearly a quarter of the more than 425 million iOS devices sold to date.”

Is Google working on filling the gap? Wired reports on comments made by Google’s Eric Schmidt Wednesday.

Google is in talks with Apple, Schmidt said, but “we’ve not done anything yet” to get maps back on the iPhone. Wired points out this isn’t a clear-cut answer — it could mean Google hasn’t sought Apple’s approval for a maps app, or that Google is content to let Apple stew in its bad PR.

In the meantime, says ReadWriteWeb , users lose.

“As the companies butt heads, that's who has ended up stuck in the middle, left with an experience that's markedly worse than it was before.”

And Apple and Google will have to cooperate to resolve the issue. If Google is working on a replacement app, it will need Apple’s approval before it can get into the App Store.