If you are missing Google Maps after updating to iOS 6 over the past 24 hours, good news may be just around the corner. As previously rumored, The Guardian suggested this afternoon that the folks at Google built a separate Maps app for iOS 6. The report further added that it will “appear in time,” to which well-known developer Steve Stroughton-Smith seemingly confirmed with a “Yep.”
The same sources say that Google is preparing a Google Maps app for iOS6, which will appear in time. No official statement has been made and there will inevitably be questions over whether Apple will approve it in the App Store. (Apple might not, on the basis that it “competes with existing functionality”, but would invite a further backlash if it did.)
Separately, we’ve heard Google has been building separate versions of a iOS GoogleMaps.app for quite a while that goes back years. Additionally, we’ve learned an updated iOS 6 version of the Google Maps.app has been submitted to Apple. It is awaiting approval, however, and that could take some time. It took a year for Apple to approve Google Voice, for instance, and Apple could technically likewise claim Google Maps “duplicates a native service” even though there are quite a few mapping apps already in the App Store (like Google Earth). Last month, it looked as if Apple were putting an update to Google Voice that featured Siri-like functionality through purgatory.
Update: Jim Dalrymple says “nope”. While this is clearly from Apple, it is a matter of semantics. Google has the app ready and Apple has seen it. It isn’t any different than the below:
This is sitting in Apple’s App Store approval queue too
Over the past 24 hours, Apple’s Maps application has received a ton of negative feed back from the press and some users. Sure, Apple’s Maps has great functionality like turn-by-turn navigation, Siri integration, and more, but many have found Apple Maps to be sub-par without key mapping data (that Google once brought to iOS). The Guardian claimed the folks at Google are enjoying the bad press thrown at Apple:
Google, I hear from roundabout sources, is enjoying the bad press Apple is suffering. It would be surprising if its mappers could resist some schadenfreude, since they are very proud of their work; having it rejected wholesale must be galling.
TechCrunch says that Google hopes to have the app approved in the next few months:
Debunking the diabolical theory that Google will take as long as it likes to release its Maps App, in an effort to convert people to Android, I’ve got a source telling me that the Google Maps team is taking this as a crisitunity, doubling down on staff, lining up the team and resources to have a standalone iOS app in the App store “before Christmas.”