Apple Maps

For those iPhone owners who aren't the biggest fans of Apple's home grown Maps application, take heart. The company has explicitly stated during its earnings call today that work continues on improving Maps. Apple made the decision to replace Google Maps with the launch of iOS 6.

The announcement came directly from CFO Peter Oppenheimer, who stated that Apple has "made a number of improvements to Maps over the past month and will work nonstop until Maps lives up to our incredibly high standards." No doubt Apple has Google in their sights and does not want to be considered the inferior solution.

Ever since the iPhone 5 launch, Apple's Maps application has come under fire as one of the top five iPhone 5 complaints. Google Maps fans miss street view and transit directions, and some have experienced other glitches as Apple continues to work on the software. Added functionality from Apple such as turn-by-turn navigation and Flyover mode have made it easier to accept the new Maps.

Rumors have been bouncing around that Google would attempt to release its own stand-alone iOS app to compete with the native Apple version. Whether or not Apple will approve such an app remains to be seen. The images above are purportedly of the alpha version of Google Maps currently in development. Assuming these are genuine, Google is in fact working on a Google Maps application for iOS.

As owners of older iPhone hardware are painfully aware, the iOS 6 update is limited on A4 devices including the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. Some of the features that iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 users enjoy include turn-by-turn navigation and 3D Flyover maps in major cities. Well now thanks to a new jailbreak tweak you can unlock full iOS 6 maps capability on a jailbroken iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS.

Apple made iOS 6 available on these older devices, however the company intentionally limits some features to keep performance optimized. That being said, iPhone 3GS users who are interested in turn-by-turn directions are turning this feature on at their own risk. Sluggish performance could occur because the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 hardware is significantly more powerful than the iPhone 4 and 3GS. Even though you can run iOS 6 maps on your device with this tweak, it could be slow or use up too much memory to function.