Google announced several major upgrades to Google Maps on Wednesday, featuring complete 3-D maps, offline maps for mobile and more indoor maps included in its Street View service.

The announcement came days ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 11, where Apple plans to release a new version of its mobile operating system, iOS6. The new iOS introduce a new in-house app as the platform's default mapping service.

The move is set to have a major impact on the user base of Google Maps, which has been the pre-installed mapping service on Apple's iPhone since its initial launch in 2007. Google Maps has provided the key GPS mapping service for iPhone users, while the popularity of iPhones bought in huge web traffic for Google.

Such a split between the two giants is due to the huge benefits underlying the mapping service, said Lu Junshang, secretary-general of the National 3D Innovative Design Competition and president of 3ddl.net.

Now, operators including China Mobile have begun to refocus their service from voice to data. Mobile maps bring huge data traffic and hence attract the attention from those operators and mapping service providers.

Location Based Service has been incorporated in a wide range of mobile applications. Users use it to locate banks, restaurants and gyms on their mobile maps, so this is also a great platform for advertisement.

Apple has reportedly planned to ditch Google Maps from its iPhone for several years. As the market share of smart phones with Google's Android system surpasses that of iPhone, Apple has stepped up its efforts to promote the plan. At present, Apple has purchased three mapping companies with cutting-edge mapping technologies.

Despite brewing battles between Google and Apple over mapping services, users in China may not be much affected as the mapping market is occupied by other competitors due to China's policy restrictions.

According to the latest statistics by Analysys International, China's mobile map app users have amounted to 172 million by the end of March 2012. Baidu, Sougou and Mapbar account for almost 90 percent of its market share.

Google Maps was actually at a disadvantage in the whole market, said analysts from Analysys International, since China's National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation has issued a regulation that Google Maps is not allowed to add new content to its present internet mapping service as of February 1, 2012.

Joining the fray could be other companies including Tencent and Sogou, which have become unsatisfied with their marginalized market shares. They now strive to promote products with novel features such as street views and localized services.

(China.org.cn by Wang Wei, June 8, 2012)

周三，谷歌宣布對(duì)谷歌地圖做出數(shù)項(xiàng)重大升級(jí)，其中全3D地圖、推出移動(dòng)離線版、街景服務(wù)添加更多室內(nèi)地圖成為此次升級(jí)的亮點(diǎn)。

過(guò)不了幾天，6月11日，蘋(píng)果將召開(kāi)全球開(kāi)發(fā)者大會(huì)，屆時(shí)會(huì)發(fā)布新一代移動(dòng)操作系統(tǒng)iOS6，而新系統(tǒng)將默認(rèn)使用蘋(píng)果自己研發(fā)的地圖服務(wù)應(yīng)用程序。

此舉將對(duì)谷歌地圖的用戶群帶來(lái)巨大沖擊，因?yàn)樘O(píng)果公司iPhone手機(jī)自2007年問(wèn)世以來(lái)，一直默認(rèn)使用的地圖服務(wù)都是谷歌地圖。谷歌地圖為蘋(píng)果iPhone用戶提供重要的GPS定位服務(wù)，而iPhone的熱銷也反過(guò)來(lái)為谷歌吸引了巨大流量。

全國(guó)3D大賽秘書(shū)長(zhǎng)、3D動(dòng)力總裁魯君尚表示，兩大巨頭之所以在地圖方面關(guān)系破裂，還是源于其背后的巨大利益。

隨著中國(guó)移動(dòng)等運(yùn)營(yíng)商開(kāi)始從語(yǔ)音服務(wù)向數(shù)據(jù)服務(wù)轉(zhuǎn)型，移動(dòng)地圖所帶來(lái)的巨大數(shù)據(jù)流量，是地圖的提供者和運(yùn)營(yíng)商所樂(lè)見(jiàn)的。

另外，地理位置服務(wù)運(yùn)用越來(lái)越廣，在手機(jī)地圖上就可以查出銀行、酒店和健身館，這也是個(gè)龐大的廣告平臺(tái)。

據(jù)了解，蘋(píng)果醞釀從iPhone手機(jī)中剔除谷歌地圖的計(jì)劃已有數(shù)年時(shí)間。隨著搭載谷歌安卓系統(tǒng)的智能手機(jī)市場(chǎng)份額超越了iPhone，蘋(píng)果的這一計(jì)劃隨即提速。蘋(píng)果目前已收購(gòu)了三家擁有尖端技術(shù)的地圖公司。

盡管谷歌和蘋(píng)果全面開(kāi)戰(zhàn)，但在國(guó)內(nèi)地圖市場(chǎng)，由于政策因素，出現(xiàn)的是另一番競(jìng)爭(zhēng)景象，因此國(guó)內(nèi)用戶受到的影響并不明顯。

易觀國(guó)際發(fā)布的最新數(shù)據(jù)顯示，截至2012年3月底，中國(guó)手機(jī)地圖客戶端累積賬戶數(shù)已達(dá)1.72億，其中百度、搜狗、圖吧三家廠商占據(jù)了近90%的市場(chǎng)份額。

據(jù)此前國(guó)家測(cè)繪地理信息局出臺(tái)的規(guī)定，谷歌地圖自2月1日起，其互聯(lián)網(wǎng)地圖服務(wù)不得增加新的服務(wù)內(nèi)容。易觀國(guó)際分析師認(rèn)為，該規(guī)定將使谷歌地圖在整體市場(chǎng)的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)格局中處于劣勢(shì)。

另一方面，以騰訊、搜狗為首的其他競(jìng)爭(zhēng)企業(yè)已不滿足于既有市場(chǎng)份額，紛紛力推以街景、本地生活服務(wù)等為特色的差異化產(chǎn)品。