The Story
Back in July, Apple bought a company called PlaceBase, which was essentially a Google Maps competitor. Apple didn’t make an announcement about this at all. The information actually came to light when the founder of another location company, openplaces.org, said that PlaceBase had been bought in a tweet.
Interestingly, PlaceBase hasn’t said anything either. The only thing on the company’s homepage is a link to the API documentation. This is odd because when a startup gets bought out by a prominent tech juggernaut such as Apple, the normal mode of response is to throw confetti as high and as publicly as possible.
All we know is that the CEO and founder of PlaceBase, Jaron Waldman, is now part of Apple’s “Geo Team.”
So Long, Google
A few people are thinking that Apple’s impetus for buying a mapping company is to replace Google Maps. Let’s think about why that makes sense.
The first reason (skip this paragraph if you want a more Apple-y reason right away) is that while Google Maps is nice, it’s not necessarily the best product in the word. The directions, for example, are often pretty ludicrous – many times I’ve been given walking routes through standard city blocks that tell me to walk in loops around my destination. Apple may be trying to ramp up the functionality of the iPhone’s Maps feature.
More likely, however, is that Apple wants to ditch Google Maps to cement the divide between Google and itself in the mobile space. Google Maps, while usable by all, is fundamentally Google’s product. Apple might be tired of relying on someone else’s standard on their platform – to continue to overuse a metaphor, Apple is raising the walls of the garden. If the “Geo Team” is making a product which puts Google Maps to shame, all the better for Apple to convince people that they want to be on the iPhone and not Android.
