Native Google Maps App for iOS Reportedly In Wild

As the Wall Street Journal reports today, Google is said to be now testing its Google Maps application for iOS. The native iOS app is said to have native turn-by-turn directions; this means that the Google Maps app will be here within the next couple of months, just in time for the new year.

The source of the article says that the final touches are just needed before it is submitted to the Apple App Store. One concerning bit that the author notes is how it is implementing turn-by-turn navigation.

The forthcoming Google Maps app for the iPhone is expected to contain turn-by-turn navigation that would allow people to use it like a GPS device while driving, said the person familiar with the matter. The turn-by-turn navigation feature didn’t exist in the previous Apple-device version, partly because of various disagreements between the companies over other aspects of the Apple-controlled app.

The way that Google wants to implement turn-by-turn directions sounds a lot like Apple’s own maps application and might be grounds for not approving the application into the store. Depending on how bad Apple wants to shun Google from the iPhone this could be a major hinderance to getting the app to those who really want to use it.

As noted by some of my colleagues, Google’s own maps application on Android is superior and they believed that Google would have withheld it from iOS to give Android the comparative advantage. It doesn’t seem to be the case and Google looks be bringing their A-game to their app to prove its superiority over the default iOS app.