Google challenges Apple: the Mountain View giant has in fact distributed outside the corporate headquarters the trial version of a new app that allows you to view its famous map on Apple iPhones. He writes it on Wall Street Journal citing sources close to the company. Once the app has been developed, which should also work as a GPS, Google intends to ask for the green light to make it available on the iTunes store of the Cupertino group. If accepted, the new application will compete with Apple's own map software, now pre-installed on its mobile devices.
The move by the search engine comes after Apple launched iOS 6 in mid-September, the latest version of the operating system for iPhone and iPad which automatically replaced the Google Map application with the new Apple-branded software. The application was pre-installed on Apple technological devices and was built by the Cupertino group using Google data. The reaction of Apple users was so negative that it led Steve Jobs' successor, Tim Cook, to apologize, a move that Scott Forstall, head of the iPhone software division, refused to do publicly.
A Google spokesperson argued that “Google maps are the most comprehensive, accurate and easiest to use in the world. Our goal is to make Google Maps available to everyone who wants it regardless of the device, search engine and operating system you are using”.
