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Why Did Apple Agree To Let Google Maps Back In The Tent?

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Why shouldn't they? The App Store is full of alternative mapping apps already, many of which actually use Google Maps APIs, so omitting Google Maps would be hypocritical at best and anti-competitive behavior at worst.

If the Google Maps app meets the App Store requirements, there's no reason (and certainly no justification) for *not* approving it.

Further, Apple has already admitted that Apple Maps has its failings and recommended alternatives to users. Google Maps is just another alternative.

Remember that allegedly the main reason Apple pushed Google Maps out of iOS 6 was that the companies couldn't come to terms on things like additional features from Google and increased user data sharing from Apple. Contrary to Jobs's "thermonuclear war" declaration, it was basically just a business decision at the end of the day.

As a third-party app, Google Maps gets to live under the same data privacy restrictions as any other third-party app with no special privileges or placement, and users are given the choice of using Google Maps -- and sharing data with Google -- rather than having it forced onto them by Apple.

Consider that one of the data sharing requests that Google made to Apple was user location information, which Apple refused. Despite this, Google has long had an iOS version of Latitude on the App Store for users who choose to use it. Apple had no problem approving that.

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