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@Ken. The new Maps actually did kill support for transit directions, insofar as native support is concerned. Killing native support and directing users to download 3rd party apps is, for all intents and purposes, killing support.

Almost all the native apps that Apple provides - namely, email, calendar, clock, SMS messaging, Youtube, Safari and Maps -- can be provided by a 3rd party app. So imagine if Apple just said, "OK, we're no longer going to support Safari, instead, users can download Atomic, Opera Mini, Aquari from the App Store if they want to browse the internet on an iPhone". Imagine if Apple said, "OK, we're no longer going to support a built in clock app on iPhone, instead users can feel free to download the hundreds of available clock apps from 3rd party developers that offer more features than the built-in clock". The kind of head scratching this would provoke among users is basically what's happening on a smaller scale with respect to transit directions.

Worst of all, Apple's excuse to remove native support for transit directions is pretty lame. Apple chose to drop transit support and pick up native turn by turn nav support on the basis that there are plenty of good transit apps out there. Yet, reality is that there are a LOT of great turn by turn apps out there from 3rd party developers. Apple is simply making this move to try to compete directly with Google's turn by turn navigation, and instead of acquiring good transit data from local agencies like Google did, is hoping by dropping transit support it will buy itself some time and earn a little chunk of app revenues in the process.

On top of all this, Apple has always positioned itself as a brand for cosmopolitans in major cities (particularly in New York and SF), so it's kind of troubling that it would drop native support for transit directions.

by Scoot on Jun 14, 2012 11:35 am • link • report