Nokia would like to take this opportunity to remind you that its maps are better than Apple's
Nokia took the opportunity today to post up an interesting entry on its Conversations blog called “Benchmarking mobile maps” (thanks to Tim Bradshaw for pointing this out).
Context & Ripple Effects
Nokia has been running at Apple since at least its anti-Apple campaign of October 2007, and this week it found fresh ammunition. Apple's iOS 6, released this week, replaces the Google-supplied maps standard on iPhone since 2007 with an in-house mapping module that is drawing widespread user complaints over bugs.
Nokia's Conversations blog post 'Benchmarking mobile maps', flagged by the FT's Tim Bradshaw and picked up by Forbes, the Inquirer and ValueWalk, argues with side-by-side comparisons that Nokia's own maps outperform Apple's — turning a rival's launch stumble into a marketing moment for Nokia's mapping assets.
First-order effects
- iPhone users who updated to iOS 6 have lost Google Maps and are left with Apple's buggy in-house replacement, making map quality an immediate pain point rather than a spec-sheet detail.
- Nokia gets a low-cost promotional window: a single blog post positioning its maps as the credible alternative while Apple's mapping is under fire.
Second-order effects
- Pressure builds on Apple to either rapidly improve its mapping data or open the App Store door to rival map apps — which would hand Nokia and other map providers a distribution channel on the iPhone they have lacked.
- Google, displaced from the default slot it held since 2007, faces renewed incentive to ship its own iOS maps app, intensifying competition for the audience Apple just alienated.
Third-order effects
- If platform owners keep pulling core services like maps in-house, mapping data quality becomes a visible differentiator between ecosystems, and specialist map providers' value rises as both competitors and acquisition targets.
- The episode strengthens the case that controlling the default app matters more than feature parity — exclusivity of placement, not just technology, decides which maps users actually see.
The trend: Smartphone platform owners are pulling mapping in-house, converting map data quality into a public competitive battleground and an opening for third-party providers like Nokia.