Google announced that Google Maps is getting 3-D maps of major cities and a backpack mounted with a Google Street View camera setup that can take pictures where cars can’t go called Street View Trekker. However, they avoided questions of the future of the service on iOS.
“I’m very proud of Google Maps services and they are available basically on all devices and we will continue to make Google Maps services as widely available as possible,” said Brian McClendon, VP of engineering for Google Maps .
There are reports that Apple will no longer install Google Maps natively on Apple iPhones or iPads in favor of Apple’s own mapping application. Apple is expected to announce its own mapping app at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference next week at the Moscone West Convention Center.
“Everyone expects them to be booted off of Apple iOS devices,” said Scott Ellison, an IDC analyst. Asked if Apple has the talent and engineering capabilities to match the features of Google Maps, which has been built up over seven years, he replied, “We’re going to find out next week.”
“Google Maps is one of the areas that has long been a core competency of Google,” he said. “It’s unlikely [Apple] has the same number of people devoted to maps as Google because Google’s been in it for seven years and you’ve seen the time they’ve spent on it.”
Google Map users will also be able to download parts of Google Maps to use offline for particular locations. “We do a lot of optimizations because we do want to be considerate of the amount of space on your device,” Chen explained. “We make … decisions about the level of zoom we save to make sure that you have the amount of data that you need at street level, but also so that we don’t overwhelm your device.”
Source: eWeek.com
