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Comment by cwp | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, but... they've already "won". Winning doesn't mean driving Google Maps out of existence, it just means being good enough that Google can't squeeze concessions out of Apple by threatening to yank GMaps.

A few years ago Apple disclosed that Apple Maps has 75% marketshare on iOS. [1] Mission accomplished.

[1] https://apnews.com/df90458e58564f19b4b7c8510f9baa67/apple-ma...

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Where in the linked article does it say Apple Maps has 75% marketshare?

Assuming that number is accurate, as Apple Maps is preinstalled on iPhones it means 25% of users went out of their way to manually remove it. Mission far from accomplished (and hence Apple's efforts in the OP to rebuild Maps' dataset entirely in-house.)

I'm also curious what the active usage numbers are versus Google Maps on iOS.

Google Maps is also preinstalled on most android phones.

> Apple says its mapping service is now used more than three times as often as its next leading competitor on iPhones and iPads, with more than 5 billion map-related requests each week

That means 75% is an upper bound, right? It's only 75% if Google had the only other maps product, and even they have two popular ones (Maps and Waze) that are likely to be installed.

No, it's more than so it could also be 79%. But, I don't think it's clear if they count Google as the competitor or each app separately.

I wonder whether this includes all of the times where I tap an address link from Messages, Apple Maps opens as the default (which you cannot change[1]), I realize the horror of what I've done, and then I copy/paste the address explicitly into Google Maps. Count one map-related request for each!

[1]: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/228904

Yea I bet if you measure by in-app hours instead of frequency, Google Maps would come out on top even though it's not installed out of the box, and even though all map actions on an iPhone will invoke Apple Maps by default.

siri search may also hit "apple mapping services" - the phrasing is a swamp of marketspeak

Eighth paragraph. "Apple says its mapping service is now used more than three times as often as its next leading competitor on iPhones and iPads"

Ok, maybe slightly less than 75%, because Waze exists. But again, crushing Google Maps is not the goal. Keeping people on iOS is the goal.

That's some Bilbo Baggins phrasing. It's telling if no hard numbers were divulged.

Can I ask what you mean by "Bilbo Baggins phrasing"?

I agree with your point, and think I can guess what that phrase means, but I'm not quite remembering why Bilbo Baggins would be associated with being intentionally vague about something :)

The line he uses at his going away party is somewhat related, “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

I'm not sure if it's what OP meant though.

Ha, i'm adding "Bilbo Baggins phrasing" to my repertoire.

I've always assumed that was a veiled insult, but never thought about it long enough to tell.

I always assumed it was too, but now that I actually try to parse it... I think maybe it's not? But all who heard it probably assumed it was too? I think Bilbo probably meant the to be confused about whether it was or not, with plausible deniability, haha.

I also haven’t figured out how to get links I click on in my phone to open in Google Maps, so I accidentally open Apple Maps all the time.

I don’t think theres a way to set Google maps as the default :(

Once you could open it in google maps from Apple maps, now they removed this ability. I wish I could use google maps as a default and get rid of that useless Apple maps.

Wow, isn't that the same kind of behavior/pattern that made MS target of the antitrust charges in the end of the 90s, back then with IE being the default browser?

No, they had trouble because of they way they forced PC manufactures to ship IE instead of Netscape.

Also, they had practical monopoly. Apple doesn't

And if only gmail would open up safari by default without asking me every single time. And yes, I only use safari on my iPhone because it’s either just safari or safari AND chrome.

Firefox is reasonably performant on iOS.

I would uninstall Apple maps entirely from my phone if i could but then there’d be no way to open up dropped pins from my messages. I always feel like the user is grabbed by the balls when it comes to device manufactures trying to force you to give them your data rather than hand it over to someone else, just because they know the user can’t do anything about it really.

> I always feel like the user is grabbed by the balls when it comes to device manufactures trying to force you to give them your data rather than hand it over to someone else, just because they know the user can’t do anything about it really.

This isn't a manufacturer problem, it's an Apple problem. Lack of choice is baked into their design, which is uncontroversial among both proponents and detractors; the former would (reasonably) say that there are tradeoffs that are the other side of the coin to constraining the user so heavily.

That probably includes embedded maps in apps. They default to apple maps and this will make up a lot of usage. Direct map usage is probably more skewed towards Google Maps.

I use my phone with car play for nav, so Apple maps. Directions and time estimates are better then google. Finding near by stuff, google wins. To the other posters point, since I am a car play user, Apple won as far as that goes.

Google Maps, Waze, and other third-party apps are finally coming to CarPlay: https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-carplay-ios-12-will-fina...

If maps is installed on phones as part of the default install doesn't that mean that 25% of people go out of their way to remove or replace it?

It says nothing about the users that have no use for maps and just counts them anyway

It says nothing about anything, really. There may be specific jurisdictions where Apple maps or Google maps falls over because that is an area they happen to have some bad data for - we can't really tell.

Strategically, Apple maps is in a good spot for Apple - Google's offering isn't the major choice of users for a piece of critical functionality.

Apple maps is installed by default on iOS AND is the default mapping app when you tap an address - and you CAN'T change that default on iOS. Given that, their usage numbers aren't as impressive as all that.

Seems odd to just blindly accept whatever numbers Apple provides about the usage of its own apps. Isn’t it going to be inherently at best a little biased? I guess there’s really no possible way to independently verify these numbers anyway.

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