Apple Maps Launches on the Web, but the Website Isn’t the Point
Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser.
Now, users can get driving and walking directions; find great places and useful information including photos, hours, ratings, and reviews; take actions like ordering food directly from the Maps place card; and browse curated Guides to discover places to eat, shop, and explore in cities around the world. Additional features, including Look Around, will be available in the coming months.
People have been complaining that the Apple Maps website isn’t available on mobile browsers or Firefox, but I think that criticism is missing the point. I think Apple will expand it to other browsers eventually, perhaps before the end of the summer, but its main purpose is to appear alongside Google Maps in Google Search. Google Maps has always been the standard for people looking to find new restaurants or other places of interest near them because the most useful search engine for that is Google, and obviously Google prioritizes and links to Google Maps. Thus, Google Maps has become almost indispensable — there isn’t someone who doesn’t have it installed on their iPhone.
The Maps app had a rough start and still relies on Yelp for reviews and photos, which I think is a poor choice — and the only reason I have Yelp installed — but it’s also pre-installed on every iPhone and Mac, even though rarely anyone uses it. That’s because there is no good way to access it from Google; Apple Maps results don’t appear there because it doesn’t have a website. Now, that’s changed, and the people who are most likely to click Apple Maps links on Google are those with iPhones and Macs anyway. This new website is just a catalyst for the native Maps app, which has gotten very good in recent years. It’s been my mapping application of choice for years, ever since the new map launched in the United States. The Mac app is vastly superior to the clunky Google Maps interface on the web.
I still think Apple Maps needs work, not in directions, but with other data like hours and photos. Apple’s version of Street View, Look Around, has expanded to most large cities in the United States and around the world, and its directions are better than Google’s in most cases. The app and map are impeccably well-designed, its CarPlay interface is superb, and traffic data is no longer spotty. And transit information in metro areas like New York and San Francisco is top-notch, well-labeled, and simple, unlike Google, which still looks like it’s from the early 2010s. For Americans, Apple Maps is the best navigation app by a long shot, especially since Google Maps has been bogged down with advertisements and other unnecessary information brought in from Waze, a company Google bought for $1.1 billion in 2013 and since has merged into its Google Maps team.
But looking at photos requires going into the Yelp app — which also looks like it’s from the early 2010s — and reviews aren’t well surfaced. Apple didn’t want to deal with content moderation back when Maps was the pet project of Scott Forstall, the company’s former software chief, but now that it has added ratings (thumbs-down and thumbs-up), it should also allow users to write reviews and attach images like the App Store. It’ll take a while for the reviews to accumulate, but it also has the advantage of a user base of one billion people.
To do all of this — improve Maps in ways that make it more attractive — it needs to be indexable by search engines. People need to choose Apple Maps as their desired way to explore the world, and the way most people get into their navigation app in the first place is via Google. Apple Maps for the past few years has had the potential to be a really great app, and launching it on the web is a great first step to drive up user numbers.