What I want to know is -- why did they release the app in the state that it was in vs partnering with someone like Microsoft?
Let's assume that Apple's contract with Google was ending soon, and that Google had failed to deliver features for Apple (turn by turn, etc), meaning Apple wanted to go a different direction.
Sure, Apple then started buying up mapping companies, building their own product, but they must have known they were on a tight schedule. My question is -- why didn't they partner with Microsoft to use Bing maps?
Microsoft gets a huge win in that suddenly 40 million people are using their service. Apple gets a win in that they have a pretty comparative product out of the gate to Google Maps, and it gives them time to build up their own service.
But instead, Apple released maps that had 1/3rd the quality of the maps they had before. Where's the logic in that?
Let's assume that Apple's contract with Google was ending soon, and that Google had failed to deliver features for Apple (turn by turn, etc), meaning Apple wanted to go a different direction.
Sure, Apple then started buying up mapping companies, building their own product, but they must have known they were on a tight schedule. My question is -- why didn't they partner with Microsoft to use Bing maps?
Microsoft gets a huge win in that suddenly 40 million people are using their service. Apple gets a win in that they have a pretty comparative product out of the gate to Google Maps, and it gives them time to build up their own service.
But instead, Apple released maps that had 1/3rd the quality of the maps they had before. Where's the logic in that?