Apple Maps surging back in fight against Google

[sincity]

It would be easy to assume that Apple Maps is having a hard time, given its rough launch and the fact that despite making numerous strides since then it's still the subject of numerous jokes and criticisms.

But, according to an EE study, not only is Apple Maps doing well, but it's actually outperforming Google Maps according to a recent Mobile Living Index study.

The information, spotted by BGR, highlights that "Traffic on the new Apple Maps now represents 70% of mapping traffic on the 4G network, from 60% in the second half of 2013, taking market share from Google Maps, which is down 7ppts.

"This difference is even more marked over 3G where Apple Maps is up 19ppts and Google Maps is down 15ppts."

The info suggests that iPhone users are using mobile mapping far more than Android users and that they're choosing to use Apple Maps for it.

Inconclusive

Of course it's hardly a conclusive study. It only looks at the UK and only at users of the EE network. EE also neglects to mention what percentage of its users have an iPhone, so it could be a disproportionately high number, and anecdotally we hear that the iPhone is the number one seller on that network, which means Apple Maps (which is preloaded) is always going to get a head start.

There's also the question of data: could Apple Maps be sucking down more bytes to achieve the same thing compared to its Android counterpart, on both iOS and Google's platform?

And of course there's the fact that this survey was carried out with 1000 people, which only just teeters into the realm of acceptable sample size.

Nevertheless it certainly bodes well for Apple's mapping contender and comes as something of a surprise given the seeming ubiquity of Google Maps.

• Apple Maps has come on leaps and bounds since just 4% of iPhone users were standing by it in 2012.