Luni v-am spus ca Apple nu putea implementa un sistem de navigatie turn-by-turn in iOS 6 din cauza contractului incheiat cu Google, cei din Mountain View cereau implementarea mai multor functii proprii intr-o aplicatie ce ar avea aceasta functionalitate si Apple nu a dori sa le ofere control aproape total asupra ei. Reiterand cele spuse atunci de catre saurik, cei de la AllThingsDigital doar confirma faptul ca imposibilitatea de a implementa sistemul de navigatie turn-by-turn in iOS i-a fortat pe cei de la Apple sa anuleze contractul cu Google cu un an inainte de expirarea sa.
But multiple sources familiar with Apple’s thinking say the company felt it had no choice but to replace Google maps with its own, because of a disagreement over a key feature: Voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions. Spoken turn-by-turn navigation has been a free service offered through Google’s Android mobile OS for a few years now. But it was never part of the deal that brought Google’s maps to iOS. And sources say Apple very much wanted it to be. Requiring iPhone users to look directly at handsets for directions and manually move through each step — while Android users enjoyed native voice-guided instructions — put Apple at a clear disadvantage in the mobile space.
And if there were terms under which it might have agreed to do so, Apple wasn’t offering them. Sources tell AllThingsD that Google, for example, wanted more say in the iOS maps feature set. It wasn’t happy simply providing back-end data. It asked for in-app branding. Apple declined. It suggested adding Google Latitude. Again, Apple declined. And these became major points of contention between the two companies, whose relationship was already deteriorating for a variety of other reasons, including Apple’s concern that Google was gathering too much user data from the app.
