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Apple may be gearing up to boot Google Maps from the iPhone. Back in July Apple purchased mapping company PlaceBase. PlaceBase has a reputation for being very customizable with a rich set of APIs. This might make it ideal for adaptation to the iPhone.
Apple has relied on map tiles from Google since the iPhone launched in 2007. After the fiasco that was the Google Voice rejection, it’s not completely unthinkable that they might want to move away from Google technology on the iPhone platform. Consumers expect high quality map applications on phones these days. So this may be a risky way for Apple to deal with its Google dependence.
Is it possible that a future iPhone OS update might replace Google Maps with a new Apple branded maps app using Placebase? If that happened, would we at least get some sort of Google Latitude app?
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Stinky Fartface
October 03, 2009 at 10:25am
I figure anti-trust laws probably don't apply here, but Apple's denial of Google apps on it's platform is an unfair practice to vendors and users. The rationale for denying Latitude and Voice from the platform is thin at best. Clearly they are just trying to exclude competitors to their and AT&T's services. Are there any laws to prevent this?
