Google is aiming to blunt Apple's upcoming abandonment of Google Maps. As Apple moves away from using Google as the built-in mapping product for iOS, Google is trying to keep control of the mobile mapping market in the way we like to see: By innovating on the product. New features from the Google mapping team will make its maps more fun and more useful.
Will they make Google Maps more fun and useful than Apple's maps? That's the big question.
3D: Table stakes
Both Google and Apple now have technology to create 3D maps that include buildings. Neither has rolled the product out yet. Today at Google's San Francisco office, we saw Google demonstrate its new 3D mapping product that will use its own library of aerial imagery to build fully-modeled 3D cities.
The ability to fly through a city and see all its buildings and trees as if you were "flying in your own private helicopter" is incredibly cool. In the demo we saw, most buildings looked close to photorealistic, although some (in particular the AT&T ballpark), had strange artifacts showing.
This 3D feature would be a great spiff for Android users and a great reason for iPhone users to download a new Google Maps app for that platform. Except for one thing: Very soon, this won't be a unique feature. Apple bought C3 Technologies in October, and that company does exactly what the new 3D feature in Google Maps does: It turns aerial photos into 3D models.
So the game will be coverage and usability. Apple's got the leg up in designing beautiful interfaces, but Google certainly has more experience in geo interfaces, both grown in-house (Google Maps) and from acquisitions, like Keyhole, the foundation of Google Earth, acquired in 2004. Read More
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