According to Reuters, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told a group of reporters in Japan that the company, in essence, has not submitted a native Google Maps app to Apple as of yet.
He stated that Google and Apple do talk “daily”, however.
Just what the two companies talk about daily is anyone’s guess. There could be software and hardware discussions, legal back and forth, hellos from old friends or discussions about search, maps and more. From reading Schmidt’s quotes, he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry on anything:
“We have not done anything yet.”
“We’ve been talking with (Apple) for a long time. We talk to them every day.”
There’s really nothing to reach out to Google on as far as clarification or statement, since Schmidt holds his current role. Consumer reports fluttered out today discussing concerns with the location-guidance app that Apple released with iOS 6.
Here’s what Schmidt had to say about Apple’s decision on removing Google Maps in the first place:
We think it would have been better if they had kept ours. But what do I know? What were we going to do, force them not to change their mind? It’s their call.
Schmidt stayed loose and even showed off some new map functionality on the Nexus 7 and said: “Take that Apple.” He quickly followed that up with “That was a joke by the way.”
As I said before, this could turn into a crazy game of poker. Let Apple suffer a bit and wait a few months. When I visited the Google Maps team in Mountain View last Friday, everyone had their poker faces on about a native Maps app. Publications had reported, incorrectly, that an app was already submitted and sources told Alexia that there’d be an app by December.
It seems like Vegas to me, will Apple lose it all when it comes to Maps? Apple bet on an extremely important core functionality of its device, and I hope it’s worth it.
h/t The Next Web