Virtual Pants

The launch of iOS 6 came with rave reviews for most of the features, but one update in iOS 6 has many people upset. The maps app in iOS 6 now uses Apple’s own maps instead of Google’s. A quick look at “The Amazing iOS 6 Maps” is all you need to understand why people are upset. Apple’s maps aren’t as good as Google’s. 

The YouTube app has also been removed from iOS 6, but here, Google released its own YouTube app into the App Store. People have been asking when Google will do the same for maps. Well, the good news is that Google Maps are already available as a standalone app in iOS 6, kind of. The Google+ Local app allows you to search for restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and other POIs and displays the results using Google’s maps. Cleverly, the button at the top, which allows you to “Open in Maps” doesn’t take you to Apple’s Maps app, but instead to Google’s own web app for maps.  Google’s web app provides most of the same features that the Google maps app did in iOS 5 and earlier, such as directions via car, public transit, walking and biking.

So, for local searching, which I suspect is one of the most popular uses for the maps app on the iPhone, the Google+ Local app appears to work quite well. It’s the best option we have until Apple improves its maps app, or Google releases a full-featured native maps app for iOS.