It was one of the biggest tech headlines of the year in September, Apple dropped its contract with Google, which had always supplied the data for the iPhone's Maps app. For various strategic reasons, Apple preferred to write a new app, based on a new database of the world that Apple intended to assemble itself.
Today, Google Maps for the iPhone has arrived. It's free, fast and fantastic.
Lots of iPhone owners report that they've had no problem with Apple's driving instructions, and that's great. But I've been idiotically misdirected a few times - and the trouble is, you never know in advance. You wind up with a deep mistrust of the app that's hard to shake. Google's directions weren't great in the app's early days either, and they're still not always perfect. But after years of polishing and corrections, they're right a lot more often.
The must-have features are all here: spoken driving directions, color-coded real-time traffic conditions, vector-based maps (smooth at any size). But the new app also offers some incredibly powerful, useful features that Apple's app lacks.
Street View, of course, lets you see a photograph of a place, and even "walk" down the street in any direction. Great for checking out a neighborhood before you go, scoping out the parking situation or playing "you are there" when you read a news article.
Along with driving directions, Google Maps gives equal emphasis to walking directions and public transportation options.
The biggest thing you give up is Siri integration. If you say to your iPhone, "Give me directions to the airport," Apple's Maps app opens automatically, your course charted. It takes more steps to get started in Google Maps.
And despite its superior design and fluidity, the iPhone version of Google Maps doesn't have all of the features of the Android version. It still doesn't let you download and store maps for use when you don't have an Internet connection. It doesn't have indoor maps (of shopping malls and airports, for example). And it doesn't have ads or pop-up offers.
Finally, although Google Maps runs fine on the iPad, it's just a blown-up version of the iPhone version. There's not yet an iPad-specific app.
Google says that goodies like those will be coming soon. But for a 1.0 app, created in the space of only a few months, Google Maps for iPhone is an astonishingly powerful, accurate, beautiful tool. For millions of iPhone owners, it's a drive in the right direction.
