Re:Apple Antitrust Probe – Responses to Congress [pdf]
by scarface74 on Thursday November 21, 2019 @05:01AM
(#21592738)
The GMaps team was much larger and better funded than the iOS team, so iOS rapidly fell behind the featureset available on Android and the web. Google attempted to fix this by writing their own GMaps app, which Apple then blocked on the grounds it was competitive with their own (this was back when they had this policy)
Since the integrated map apps didn’t have turn by turn directions, there were plenty of 3rd party apps that were in the App Store. I used MapQuest. This was during the iOS 4 era.
Apple had a policy that no maps app could use turn by turn directions until iOS 3 or 4.
I’m of course in no position to know the technical details of the Apple Maps/Google Maps spat. But the negotiations as far as licensing wasn’t happening on the engineering level - it was happening on much higher levels of the org chart. Are you sure you had the entire political picture?
Since the integrated map apps didn’t have turn by turn directions, there were plenty of 3rd party apps that were in the App Store. I used MapQuest. This was during the iOS 4 era.
Apple had a policy that no maps app could use turn by turn directions until iOS 3 or 4.
I’m of course in no position to know the technical details of the Apple Maps/Google Maps spat. But the negotiations as far as licensing wasn’t happening on the engineering level - it was happening on much higher levels of the org chart. Are you sure you had the entire political picture?