Every Apple-Made App On Your iPhone Can Be Replaced By A Better App
With yesterday's launch of Google Maps for iOS, I reached the point where I no longer use any of Apple's built-in apps on my iPhone. — Well, there are three very basic exceptions: Clock, Messages* (the texting app), and Phone.
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs through Apple's own mapping stumble: after iOS 6 shipped with a homegrown Maps app that drew widespread ridicule — down to close readings of its icon — Business Insider had already framed the stakes in June 2012 by asking what Google stood to lose when Apple wiped its Maps app from the iPhone. Yesterday's launch of Google Maps for iOS answers that question: Google rebuilt its audience through the App Store rather than the preinstalled slot.
The story traveled unusually far for an app review — Computerworld, NYT Bits, VentureBeat, Fortune, Search Engine Land all picked it up within a day, with angles ranging from European data-protection complaints to what the app means for Nokia. The BI columnist's claim that no Apple-made app except Clock, Messages, and Phone earns a spot on his home screen lands as a verdict on that whole arc.
First-order effects
- iPhone users who abandoned Apple's Maps after its September 2012 debut can now reinstall Google's version directly from the App Store, ending the forced choice between Apple's app and switching to Android.
- Apple's bundled apps now compete head-to-head inside its own store, where users — not Apple — decide the default.
Second-order effects
- Nokia, whose HERE mapping ambitions lean on being the credible non-Google alternative, faces a rival re-establishing itself on the world's most profitable phone platform.
- Third-party developers get proof that displacing a preinstalled Apple app is commercially viable, raising the bar Apple must clear to keep its own software competitive — pressure that falls first on Maps.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform value migrates from bundled defaults toward best-of-breed downloadable apps, weakening the integration argument that justified Apple's closed app model since 2008.
- Regulators and watchdogs — already probing Google Maps for iOS under European data-protection law per Computerworld — gain a concrete case study in how preinstalled defaults and user-installed substitutes differ legally.
The trend: Smartphone platforms are shifting from integrated preinstalled apps toward replaceable best-of-breed services, with the App Store — not the home screen out of the box — deciding which apps win.