What do Google Maps, Apple Maps and Bing Maps (Nokia Here?) mean for the future of mobility?
Reading Justin O’Beirne’s essays comparing cartography design between Apple and Google made me wonder whether Apple can compete with Google when self-driving cars are more the norm rather than the exception. Google is ahead of the game with respect to quantity and quality of map data (especially outside the U.S.); with maps being the basic input for a self-driving car’s route, Google/Alphabet probably has a significant advantage in this space. And this ignores the real-time computer vision based solutions that the cars would need (e.g. the one Waymo is developing).

UPDATE 1 (Nov. 1, 2018): Apple now has much more granular map data for California. Encouraging to say the least.

UPDATE 2 (Jan. 30, 2020): The updated maps have now been rolled out to all users in the US. I have updated this post's image one that Apple used to make this announcement.