Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone
5 is a hit despite not selling 10 million units as analysts had hoped, which
led investors to berate the company. Even so, it managed to surpass the records
of its predecessors. But the mapping app is a huge disappointment and has
somewhat thawed the popularity of the smartphone. The stock has declined after
the figures were revealed.
Shaw Wu, analyst at Sterne Agee, has stated that
though sales figures are not as expected, Apple should not be concerned. Even
if the latest iPhone sold only 5 million units, which is a slight letdown, the
company is still making money hand over fist. A product is not successful when
it performs well in a few days, but it is successful when it retains that
success consistently.
Customers have gushed about the bigger screen and
better speeds, but the mapping tool, which is a part of the iOS 6, has been
severely criticized. Apple ditched Google Maps in favor of its own tool, but it
was not a very wise move as the app is full of glitches and bugs that gives
incorrect information and is no way an alternative for Google Maps.
The navigation is the major problem in Apple’s
mapping tool. Apple has tried to incorporate the concept of “Voice Navigation”
but their Point of Interest (POI) databases are far less than Google Maps and
the routing engines with street information can’t match up to Google Maps. Yelp
is responsible for POI’s of Apple, but here too the issue is that Yelp's POI's
leave out many stop signs and street signs of the real world. The Street View
feature is also missing in iPhones and the technology does not look too
promising right now.
It was being speculated that Google was
developing a mapping tool for iOS 6, but it is nothing but a rumor as of now.
If Apple wants to compete with Google in the app domain, then it needs to
re-structure its mapping infrastructure right away by implementing better
techniques such as reaching out to strategic partners that can provide better
street signs, names and landmarks. So far, Microsoft’s Bing Maps and ESRI with
GIS mapping can be considered as partners.
I am actually a big fan of the new mapping system and think that it will quickly catch on.
ReplyDeleteapple doesn't have the technology to overtake Google's implements apple still needs google as a fundamental part of their devices and should want to keep it that way.
ReplyDelete