Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 5 Sales are Up, but Mapping App is Severely Criticized

Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 5 is a hit despite not selling 10 million units as analysts had hoped, which led investors to berate the company. Even so, it managed to surpass the records of its predecessors. But the mapping app is a huge disappointment and has somewhat thawed the popularity of the smartphone. The stock has declined after the figures were revealed.

Shaw Wu, analyst at Sterne Agee, has stated that though sales figures are not as expected, Apple should not be concerned. Even if the latest iPhone sold only 5 million units, which is a slight letdown, the company is still making money hand over fist. A product is not successful when it performs well in a few days, but it is successful when it retains that success consistently.

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Customers have gushed about the bigger screen and better speeds, but the mapping tool, which is a part of the iOS 6, has been severely criticized. Apple ditched Google Maps in favor of its own tool, but it was not a very wise move as the app is full of glitches and bugs that gives incorrect information and is no way an alternative for Google Maps.

The navigation is the major problem in Apple’s mapping tool. Apple has tried to incorporate the concept of “Voice Navigation” but their Point of Interest (POI) databases are far less than Google Maps and the routing engines with street information can’t match up to Google Maps. Yelp is responsible for POI’s of Apple, but here too the issue is that Yelp's POI's leave out many stop signs and street signs of the real world. The Street View feature is also missing in iPhones and the technology does not look too promising right now.

It was being speculated that Google was developing a mapping tool for iOS 6, but it is nothing but a rumor as of now. If Apple wants to compete with Google in the app domain, then it needs to re-structure its mapping infrastructure right away by implementing better techniques such as reaching out to strategic partners that can provide better street signs, names and landmarks. So far, Microsoft’s Bing Maps and ESRI with GIS mapping can be considered as partners.

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