Comments on: New Kids on the Block: Apple Maps Launch

By: Hi Apple. Welcome to the Mapping World. How was your first day? | Prioleau Advisors

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 04:23:37 +0000

[...] data and in search. If I were the type to say “I told you so” I’d be doing that now…but I am not that type….so I won’t say [...]

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:04:07 +0000

Ironically, as you say, both needed this deal to happen but for different reasons. Could be a win-win if Apple gets (a) very good terms for massive use, including the typically expensive navigation application, (b) some sort of guarantee of supply should TomTom get acquired by an unfriendly and (c) jont planning for new data types and TomTom gets (a) a ton of user generated traffic and map correction data and (b) some really good marketing story to feed to all their auto, PND and off-board nav customers who just took another hit.

By: Gary Gale

Gary Gale — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:41:13 +0000

It would be interesting to know about the deal between Apple and TomTom, specifically whether they are working more closely that a traditional vendor relationship. Interesting doesn't even come close. I think that there's only two ways this could have panned out. On the one hand, TomTom/Tele Atlas was really the only viable option that Apple had. Partnering with Nokia for NAVTEQ's data wouldn't have been an option to my mind, for oh so many reasons. OSM has made massive inroads into the mainstream recently but while OSM is good enough, to quote Mukki Haklay's assessment of OSM, it wouldn't be good enough on its' own to do what Apple wanted to do and have done to a greater degree. Owning their own data set, unless it was via an acquisition no-one knew about, wasn't an option either. So they had to partner and TomTom was really the only option. On the other hand, as this was the only option, TomTom undoubtedly knew this and would, I image, have bargained hard based on this. Only time will tell, or an unauthorised insider leak, as to who gained the upper hand in the relationship. Personally, I suspect Apple did.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:06:29 +0000

Good point: Apple has the resources to go after this in a big way. It will be interesting to see how it evolves. Apple is very good at building a better user experience for a focused application. For example, Siri doesn’t try to do everything a voice recognition system could do; it’s tuned specifically for the mobile experience. Perhaps Apple can do the same with local search. But Google has a huge effort there to and Maps and Local all report to the same person so you’d expect a unified effort.

By: Andrew Shotland

Andrew Shotland — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:58:07 +0000

“the quality of local search may be Apple’s number one risk area. If it is not as good as Google’s,…”

While I agree this is a big risk area for Apple, and Google has done some amazing things with local/maps, Google still has miles to go on improving the quality of its local search for both users and businesses (particularly for businesses). Apple is the first player to get into this space that seems like it can provide a needed counterweight to Google. And given their potential “narrow” focus, they may be able to provide a much better experience out of the gate, or soon thereafter. Devils in the details of course…