Google Maps return to iPhone with new mobile app

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Google Maps have found their way back to the iPhone.

The world’s most popular online mapping system returned late Wednesday with the release of the Google Maps’ iPhone app. The release comes nearly three months after Apple Inc. replaced Google Maps as the device’s built-in navigation system and inserted its own maps into the latest version of its mobile operating system.

Apple’s maps proved to be far inferior to Google’s. The product’s shoddiness prompted Apple CEO Tim Cook to issue a rare public apology and recommend that iPhone owners consider using Google maps through a mobile Web browser or seek other alternatives until his company could fix the problems. Cook also replaced the executive in charge of Apple’s mobile operating system after the company’s maps became a subject of widespread ridicule.

Among other things, Apple’s maps misplaced landmarks, overlooked towns and sometimes got people horribly lost. In a particularly egregious example flagged this week, Australian police derided Apple’s maps as “life-threatening” because the system was steering people looking for the city of Mildura into a sweltering, remote desert 44 miles from the desired destination.

Google Inc., in contrast, is hailing its new iPhone app as a major improvement from the one evicted by Apple.

“We started from scratch,” said Daniel Graf, mobile director of Google Maps. Google engineers started working on the new app before Apple’s Sept. 19 ouster, Graf said, though he declined to be more specific.

The additional tools in the free iPhone mapping app include turn-by-turn directions. Google’s previous refusal to include that popular feature on the iPhone app while making it available for smartphones running on its own Android software is believed to be one of the reasons Apple decided to develop its own technology. The friction that has developed between Google and Apple as they jostle for leadership in the increasingly important smartphone market also played a role in the mapping switch.

Google’s new iPhone mapping app also will offer its street-level photography of local neighborhoods for the first time on Apple’s mobile operating system, as well as three-dimensional views, public transit directions and listings for more than 80 million businesses. The iPhone app still lacks some of the mapping features available on Android-powered phones, such as directions in malls and other buildings.