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You're right, and it's also data and algorithms. A handful of fancy patents on basic smartphone functionality will be no match against hardcore algorithm development and data management.

Google maps is astonishingly good. The data is accurate, and it always maximizes the amount of information at any zoom level. The depth of quality isn't about features, it's about mastery of a complex dataset.

It's not just maps. Google Now vs Siri. Ask yourself which will evolve faster? Where will these products be in 2 years? 5 years? I predict an increasing gap.

Google has deep experience developing algorithms and managing data. Apple will have trouble matching this.

I love Apple. I used to work there. But they need to wake up a little.

Google is good when it comes to managing the map data but it is hardly unique. Many data providers have been doing exactly what Google has for far longer.

And I don't see there being an increasing gap going forward. There simply isn't an unmanageably high turnover of street names/locations in most cities. And Yelp already handles turnover of POI data quite well.

In the areas of Europe where I live, Apple Maps doesn't know most of the POIs I search for – and if there's a result, it's often wrong.

Examples from last week:

- I stayed at the Radisson Blu Alcron hotel in Prague. Searching for 'radisson blu prag' (in German) with Google Maps immediately lead to a correct result. Apple Maps delivers no result. Using 'Prague' instead of 'Prag' didn't help either.

- I had an appointed at Skyguide's Zurich HQ (Skyguide is the Swiss air navigation service provider). Google Maps again showed the correct location while Apple Maps showed for some reason only results named 'Skyline'.

- I often used Google Maps for public transport routing. Apple Maps of course does not support this feature.

- On Apple Maps, the street I live on goes through my house. In Google Maps, it's where it's supposed to be, i.e., in front of my house.

- I went hiking in the mountains last weekend and the quality of Apple Maps' aerial and satellite images was simply awful in comparison to Google Maps.

- Etc.

Maps need to be deeply integrated with other services, as in Google Now. This deep integration goes well beyond what map providers do. And this is where you'll see an increasing gap.

I'm in Tokyo right now, and I use my Google maps constantly, but I can imagine how much easier they could make it. I can already read Japanese web pages via Google translate, soon I'm sure the integration will be even better so I dont need to copy and paste addresses between. And Google Now would integrate all that with my calendar and contacts in my address book. If you've ever tried to read Japanese or interpret Tokyo addresses before Google's products, you'd understand the breakthrough here.

The needs are way beyond a map dataset. And we'll see how easy it is for Apple to just go out and license a few of those existing datasets you mention to get a product a deep as Google's.

EDIT: Integration is what -I'M- talking about because that will make the long term difference in a successful mobile product. Which is the real underlying question. And I dont see how Yelp's data can help me navigate Shibuya station (missing from Apple maps, very detailed on Google maps. Good thing as I got lost within the station a few days ago).

Google Maps != Google Now. So your use case is cool and may well be the future but that isn't what we are talking about here. My point is that street/POI data does not have a high turnover so the gap between Apple and Google will get closer not wider.

The interesting question is whether Apple is even going to bother to license data. They could well rely on Yelp's geo expansion to do the work for them. God knows what will happen if Yelp goes out of business though.

1. You were searching for an airport, left out the word "airport", which is the most important word, and it's Apple's fault?

2. I just went into Maps and searched for "San Francisco International". There were two hits, and the second hit was the airport. The other hit was for a business in SF with "International" as the first word in its name. These do not seem like completely awful search results to me.

3. Why are you assuming (and yes, it's a complete assumption which is free of evidence) that "Apple partisans want to believe" (you can read minds now too?) that it's only a data problem? I'm an Apple partisan, and I worked on the Maps team, specifically on quality of search results. I can tell you that what I believe is that it is both a problem of needing to refine the database, and also a problem of needing to continue to improve the search capability. Does this change your assumptions?

  > 1. You were searching for an airport, left out the word
  > "airport", which is the most important word, and it's
  > Apple's fault?

Yes, it is Apple's fault, in a sense, because the customer is always right. Moreover, a competitor (Google) is able to connect the dots and return the right results. I just searched that same phrase on Android and it gave me directions to the airport in question, along with a phone number and other useful information.

Whether it is able achieve that feat because it knows that I have been to SFO within the last month, or knows that I have emails in my inbox that pertain to the airport, or because more users click through to SFO than other hits for that search phrase or because they use black magic is beside the point: Google's search results are simply better.

Why not just search for "sfo" or "airport", both of which return the airport correctly on iOS 6's maps? Typing out "san francisco international" and leaving out "airport" seems incredibly contrived.

No, it isn't.

When most people refer to a place, they refer to it by it's common name. You fly to JFK, Heathrow, Charles de Gaule, Gatwick, Luton, O'Hare, etc. There is no need to add "airport" to something which so obviously is one in the context.

The familiarity of common names is why wikipedia uses them for article names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common...

You're missing something obvious, which is that out of all the airports you listed, NONE of them is named after the city it's in or near.

SFO, of course, is. Which makes this particular search MUCH more ambiguous unless you include the word "airport".

Why should I have to? Google knows exactly what I'm asking for when I enter any of those terms, Apple does not. That is a deficiency on Apple's part, I shouldn't have to change my behaviour.

The answer to the problem of not coming up with the right answer for a perfectly reasonable query is 'Change your query'?

Apple apologists are actually making Apple lazy and entitled. Any sub standard stuff needs to be pointed out. Not hand-waved away.

1. I can't make you see the problem if you don't want to see it. The phrase "San Francisco International" is conversationally unambiguous.

2. I'm no longer in the area, but at the time I made the search I got something like 5-10 results, none of which was clearly the airport.

3. That's my explanation for why nobody is talking about what I feel is the giant elephant sitting in the corner. Maybe I'm wrong. If Apple partisans actually think that the search is fine, that might be a better explanation.

Imagine how much better Google results would be if, instead of returning what you wanted, they told you off for not typing an easier to find query.

Search could be better. The POI information is pretty inaccurate in places and just sparse in others but the address information is pretty good.

By the way couldn't you just have searched for SFO? That works even when looking at another part of the world. And it is much less typing.

Spotlight is an excellent search product in my view.

Surely the problem could be solved by recruiting people with the relevant experience any talent, ie. throwing money at it?

Sorry but you don't have a clue what you're talking about. The problem IS the data.

Apple has four problems: (1) inaccurate street data coming from TomTom, (2) missing data for parks/green/open spaces, (3) missing internal data e.g. shopping centres, campuses and (4) missing POI data from Yelp.

The key difference between Google and Apple is that Google has initiated partnerships with key data providers in each country e.g. Whereis in Australia whilst Apple is relying mainly on two: TomTom and Yelp.