ParisLemon

Scott Rafer responding to Anil Dash’s iOS 6 Maps rage:

What’s missing from this conversation is that map usage is critical. Regardless of Google’s PR success in the Atlantic’s unintentionally misleading Google Ground Truth infomercial, more than half of Google’s mobile map usage is going away in the next month or two. I love the Atlantic, but they got punkd. Usage makes maps better a lot faster than software does.

Rafer knows this space well as he’s right in the middle of it. For all the bluster about Maps in iOS 6, I’m surprised how little has been mentioned about the fact that this change is bad for Google too. Really bad.

As Rafer notes about Apple:

They need to stop making Google’s maps better, which is what they’ve been doing moment-in and moment-out for years.

Google had tens of million of iPhones and iPads and iPod touches working for them to bolster Google Maps until this morning with the launch of iOS 6. And not just in the Maps app, through the iOS SDK as well. Make no mistake, the change is going to have negative side effects on Google as well. Which is why I expect them to still make a Google Maps iOS app.

[via John Gruber]