Google Maps (application) facts for kids
| Original author(s) | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | December 13, 2012 |
| Stable release |
2.0 / July 16, 2013
|
| Operating system | iOS 6.0 and later |
| Size | 11.6 MB |
| Available in | English, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese |
Google Maps is a mobile app for mapping that was released by Google for Android in 2008. An iOS version was released on December 13, 2012. The iOS version was released as an alternative to Apple's built-in maps application, which was released with iOS 6.
Background
The built-in maps application on iOS used Google Maps until iOS 6. With the release of the first iOS 6 beta in June 2012, Apple announced that they had created their own map service. iOS 6 was released on September 19, 2012 with a new maps application that uses map data by Apple. Google decided to create its own maps application after Apple's built-in maps application was criticized a lot.
Release
Google Maps was launched on the iOS App Store on December 13, 2012. After only two days, the application had been downloaded over 10 million times. It was initially reported shortly after the application was released that the number of iOS upgrades to iOS 6 increased by as much as 30%. Later reports suggested that the increase was actually because of the iPhone 5's release in China.
Features
Google Maps has many of the features that are in their Android map application, including turn-by-turn navigation, street view, and public transit information. The application's user interface was completely redesigned. The original version did not support the iPad, but Google planned to add iPad support. iPad support was added with version 2.0.
Related pages
Images for kids
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Screenshot of Google Maps running on iOS 7
