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，谷歌宣布对谷歌地图做出数项重大升级，其中全3D地图、推出移动离线版、街景服务添加更多室内地图成为此次升级的亮点。

过不了几天，6月11日，苹果将召开全球开发者大会，届时会发布新一代移动操作系统iOS6，而新系统将默认使用苹果自己研发的地图服务应用程序。

此举将对谷歌地图的用户群带来巨大冲击，因为苹果公司iPhone手机自2007年问世以来，一直默认使用的地图服务都是谷歌地图。谷歌地图为苹果iPhone用户提供重要的GPS定位服务，而iPhone的热销也反过来为谷歌吸引了巨大流量。

全国3D大赛秘书长、3D动力总裁鲁君尚表示，两大巨头之所以在地图方面关系破裂，还是源于其背后的巨大利益。

随着中国移动等运营商开始从语音服务向数据服务转型，移动地图所带来的巨大数据流量，是地图的提供者和运营商所乐见的。

另外，地理位置服务运用越来越广，在手机地图上就可以查出银行、酒店和健身馆，这也是个庞大的广告平台。

据了解，苹果酝酿从iPhone手机中剔除谷歌地图的计划已有数年时间。随着搭载谷歌安卓系统的智能手机市场份额超越了iPhone，苹果的这一计划随即提速。苹果目前已收购了三家拥有尖端技术的地图公司。

尽管谷歌和苹果全面开战，但在国内地图市场，由于政策因素，出现的是另一番竞争景象，因此国内用户受到的影响并不明显。

易观国际发布的最新数据显示，截至2012年3月底，中国手机地图客户端累积账户数已达1.72亿，其中百度、搜狗、图吧三家厂商占据了近90%的市场份额。

据此前国家测绘地理信息局出台的规定，谷歌地图自2月1日起，其互联网地图服务不得增加新的服务内容。易观国际分析师认为，该规定将使谷歌地图在整体市场的竞争格局中处于劣势。

另一方面，以腾讯、搜狗为首的其他竞争企业已不满足于既有市场份额，纷纷力推以街景、本地生活服务等为特色的差异化产品。