Google Maps triumphantly returns to iOS

Google Maps is finally back on iOS as a standalone app and is now available to download from the App Store.

Apple famously ditched Google Maps for iOS 6’s built-in mapping when it launched the iPhone 5 in September, replacing it with its own ‘Maps’ package instead.

Even more prominent were the widespread reports of the massive failings of Apple’s alternative solution, it was by all accounts quite literally full of gaping holes, as well as misplaced or mis-named locations and warped satellite imagery to name but a few of the problems encountered universally.

Most recently the Australian police issued a warning that Apple’s mapping service was leading to people getting lost in some of the country’s most dangerous outback territory.

Apple’s response to the whole debacle has been that the software is ‘unfinished’, although as has been pointed out numerous times, this was never made explicitly clear as it had been previously on beta software such as Siri.

Since then, chief executive Tim Cook has gone on record saying ‘we made a mistake’.

Google’s new dedicated Maps app is an all-round improvement, not only on Apple’s deficient offering but on the earlier builds of Google Maps which were built into older versions of iOS.

Most notably, it now includes the much sought after voice-narrated turn-by-turn navigation. Other features include local search, public transport directions and Google Street View.

Google Maps is free on iOS, although currently there’s only an iPhone compatible build. It probably goes without saying that Google will be hard at work on an iPad version which will arrive fairly soon.