Reports are suggesting that Apple is to use crowdsourcing to improve its Maps service. The rumors started to emerge when a vacancy for a Maps Community Client Software Engineer was advertised. The job description says that the company is “building and extending the Maps application to allow [it] to crowdsource improvements to the Maps experience”. It’s also been announced that Apple plan to integrate Maps into Siri and Passbook in order to attract more feedback and compete more efficiently with Google and their Maps service.
Apple has changed its Maps service on numerous occasions since it was first launched in 2012 but has been unable to establish its service is a viable alternative to Google’s. The company already asks users to take advantage of the ‘Report a Problem’ feature in order make suggestions on how the service could be improved. Google’s Maps service has attracted significant praise since the company bought startup Waze and incorporated a number of its features into it. Apple were also interested in acquiring Waze before Google paid over a billion dollars for it.
Can Apple’s Maps service become a serious competitor to Google’s? Let us know what you think below.
