There is no doubt that Google Maps is better Than Apple Maps,But one thing in apple maps that most of the industry experts and users did not noticed and this news is very important for iphone users,who want to save their limited megabytes.
Yes,the news is that apple maps is a lot more data efficient,nearly five times more data efficient than Google Maps
Of course, that could be twisted into a joke of Apple Maps being more data efficient because it shows you wrong data and/or gets you lost, but according to Onavo, the difference between the data consumed by Apple Maps and Google Maps is really significant:
Our data experts performed an identical series of activities on Google Maps and Apple Maps that included searching for several US cities, addresses and airports and zooming in and out to locate specific locations. On Google Maps, the average data loaded from the cellular network for each step was 1.3MB. Apple Maps came in at 271KB – that's approximately 80% less data! On some actions, such as zooming in to see a particular intersection, Apple Maps' efficiency advantage edged close to 7X.
Why is there such a disparity in data usage?
It's because Apple Maps uses vector graphics—the maps resize dynamically as you zoom in and out and doesn't need to download any more data. Google Maps for iOS uses raster graphics, new maps are downloaded every time a user zooms in or zooms out. So it definitely makes sense that Apple Maps use less data—the nice thing to know is that it's a lot less.
vector graphics can be resized with no loss of clarity because they aren't pixel based (rasterized). just like how say a vector eps logo file or something can be zoomed into infinitely in illustrator and you'll never see blocky pixels but if you were to do it in photoshop it would get pixelated. google gets around its rasterizing problem by continually reloading rasterized images at different levels of zoom. apple uses one vector image that can be continually zoomed without reloading.
Why this matters ?
Maps, a staple of iOS since the very first iPhone, is also one of the most popular apps on the device. According to our data, a whopping 70% of iPhone users use the Maps app. Furthermore, the Maps app alone is responsible for 5% of the iPhone data traffic on mobile networks today. Apple’s drastic improvement in data efficiency will be welcome news both for consumers watching their megabytes, but also for the mobile networks that are transferring all those megabytes.
And the data efficiency of Apple Maps is pretty important because as carriers begin to cap mobile data plans, the less you use on maps, the more data you can use in other places like using the Internet or uploading pictures to Instagram. If you can get more kilobyte bang for your buck, that's a very good thing. So though Apple Maps is definitely not good right now, if it can improve, it looks like Apple built a very solid and efficient base to build on.
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