mapping

The surge in adoption of Apple's iOS 6 may be due more to new users in China than users upgrading to the operating system while grabbing Google's new mapping app.

Adoption of the mobile operating system, which was released months ago, has increased by 30 percent since Google Maps was released to the Apple App Store on December 12, according to data from mobile ad exchange MoPub. iOS users unhappy with the in-house substitute Apple supplied after dumping Google earlier this year flocked to Google's new iOS app, downloading the software more than 10 million times in … Read more

Google is making it even easier to take a virtual visit to business interiors without leaving home.

Launched in September, Google Business Photos presented Google Maps users with 360-degree panoramas of the inside of businesses, a handy tool for scoping out the interior of a business before going there in person. However, the images were often hard to find.

Starting today, the Web giant began posting the photos to its Web search results page, presenting them along with the business results that appear to the right of requested results. As with the maps product, a simple click on the "… Read more

A surge of people adopted Apple's iOS 6 since last week, but it has been months since the latest operating system was released.

This growth in iOS 6 upgrades may not be as random as it sounds. According to TechCrunch, which got data from mobile ad exchange MoPub, iOS adoption has bumped 30 percent since Google Maps released its app for iOS. MoPub surveys more than 1 billion ad impressions a day across more than 12,000 different apps and got its data from seeing users upgrade to iOS 6.

"We observed since the launch of Google Maps … Read more

Android 4.2 is full of new features, some are fairly minor, such as the Settings shortcut in the notification bar. Other features, such an improved photo editing process, are bound to have a bigger impact on the overall user experience.

Here are five new features you can find in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, with the sixth item being a workaround should you decide against lock-screen widgets.

Developer Options Developer Options is an important settings menu for developers and those who like to fiddle with their Android device. For whatever reason in Android 4.2, Google hid the Developer … Read more

Days after Google launched its Google Maps iOS app, rumors are circulating that Apple is making another play to beef up its own mobile mapping service.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the tech giant is said to have been talking to social network Foursquare about integrating user data into Apple's maps app. Apparently, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue has been meeting with Foursquare representatives over the past few weeks about how the service uses data to find locations and business listings.

Apple debuted its new mapping service and booted Google Maps from its mobile devices in September … Read more

It's no secret a lot of people have been downloading Google Maps for iOS since it came out last week, and today Google released the full numbers.

In its first two days on the App Store, the software was downloaded more than 10 million times, Jeff Huber, Google's senior vice president of Commerce & Local, wrote in a post on Google+ this morning.

"We're excited for the positive reception of Google Maps for iPhone around the world," Huber said. "Congratulations to the Maps Team on the recognition for the passion and hard work they … Read more

Much has been made of the general suckiness of Apple Maps, but, hey, we're stuck with it, right? If you ask Siri for directions, that's gonna be her go-to app.

Turns out, it doesn't have to be. As discovered by JailbreakNation, there's a simple way to trick Siri into using Google Maps for directions. Sort of.

All you do ask for directions like you normally would, but tack on "via transit." So, for example, to find the nearest Starbucks, you'd say, "Take me to the nearest Starbucks via transit."

What happens … Read more

Google Maps returned to the iOS platform this week, but that was not enough to rescue Apple's map app rep.

Banished from Apple's iOS earlier this fall, Google Maps returned to the mobile platform in the form of a standalone app. The official Google Maps app returned to Apple's App store Thursday evening with turn-by-turn navigation, as well as public transit directions, integrated Street View, and a 3D-like Google Earth view. Google Maps didn't take long to capture the top spot among free iPhone apps.

The release came a few days after Apple again became the … Read more

Google Maps for iPhone is getting off to a very good start. It quickly became the No. 1 free iPhone app with lots of five star user reviews.

To find out a bit more about what Google was thinking when it developed the app -- and to get some tech support on how to use its swiping features -- I spoke with Daniel Graf, Google's director of Google Maps for mobile (scroll down to listen to the podcast).

Graf said it was always Google's intention to "be present on all platforms" and that "we wanted … Read more