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，谷歌宣布對谷歌地圖做出數(shù)項重大升級，其中全3D地圖、推出移動離線版、街景服務添加更多室內(nèi)地圖成為此次升級的亮點。

過不了幾天，6月11日，蘋果將召開全球開發(fā)者大會，屆時會發(fā)布新一代移動操作系統(tǒng)iOS6，而新系統(tǒng)將默認使用蘋果自己研發(fā)的地圖服務應用程序。

此舉將對谷歌地圖的用戶群帶來巨大沖擊，因為蘋果公司iPhone手機自2007年問世以來，一直默認使用的地圖服務都是谷歌地圖。谷歌地圖為蘋果iPhone用戶提供重要的GPS定位服務，而iPhone的熱銷也反過來為谷歌吸引了巨大流量。

全國3D大賽秘書長、3D動力總裁魯君尚表示，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。

隨著中國移動等運營商開始從語音服務向數(shù)據(jù)服務轉(zhuǎn)型，移動地圖所帶來的巨大數(shù)據(jù)流量，是地圖的提供者和運營商所樂見的。

另外，地理位置服務運用越來越廣，在手機地圖上就可以查出銀行、酒店和健身館，這也是個龐大的廣告平臺。

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

盡管谷歌和蘋果全面開戰(zhàn)，但在國內(nèi)地圖市場，由于政策因素，出現(xiàn)的是另一番競爭景象，因此國內(nèi)用戶受到的影響并不明顯。

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

據(jù)此前國家測繪地理信息局出臺的規(guī)定，谷歌地圖自2月1日起，其互聯(lián)網(wǎng)地圖服務不得增加新的服務內(nèi)容。易觀國際分析師認為，該規(guī)定將使谷歌地圖在整體市場的競爭格局中處于劣勢。

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