With the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, Google Maps has been removed from every iPhone, and replaced with Apple’s new Map service. Apple had been working on this for quite some time now, but Apple Maps did not meet expectations of customers, especially compared to Google’s.
It is so bad that Tim Cook apologized to customers, and Apple is now suggesting other independent iPhone apps to customers to replace their poor service.
This is a major downside of the iPhone 5, and from a business point of view it is not a good thing at all for Apple. iPhone 5 did not acquire that “revolutionary” reputation, and now it’s failing to provide a proper map service to users.
Does this, along with the few novelty about the iPhone 5, mean Apple is not going to succeed as well as before with this version of their iPhone? I don’t think that is necessarily true. Apple’s best bet is to rely on the coherent, homogeneous product set it offers: iPad, iPhone, MacBooks, all linked together with iCloud. This marketing strategy allows Apple to sell its complementary products to the same consumers, which in turn increases brand loyalty… and participates to Apple’s success.