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Home / News / Google Maps app coming to iPhone 5 and all iOS 6 devices

Google Maps app coming to iPhone 5 and all iOS 6 devices

The Google Maps app is coming to iPhone and iPad to put an end to any iOS 6 related travel woes

As you’ve probably heard, Apple made a bit of a boo-boo with the mapping service built into iOS 6, resulting in lots of people ending up nowhere near their destination. So it’s reassuring to know Google will be releasing a Maps app for iOS devices to alleviate the problems.

Expected to arrive before 2012 is out, according to the New York Times, the Google Maps app will once again bless your iPhone 5 or iOS 6 gadget with the ability to navigate. You’ll likely get to enjoy some Street View location-gandering, too.

Why the delay? Well Google only found out the mapping rug was going to be yanked out from under the iOS carpet in June this year. Fortunately for us, rumblings suggest the company had a contingency plan in place, but it wasn’t supposed to come into effect quite so soon.

Apple has taken responsibility for the blunder and has not laid the blame on maps provider TomTom. Nor has it blamed the 24 other sources it uses within iOS 6 Maps to provide restaurant and shop information. So at the least we’ve not been treated to Apple’s usual ‘you’re holding it wrong’ response.

But that doesn’t change the fact Apple will still have to manually adjust all the location hiccups. That should keep a few Apple employees busy for some time.

While you wait for the Google Maps app to arrive, point your browser towards maps.google.com if you miss how things used to be.

[via The New York Times]

Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home