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From Google Maps' terms of service:

10.2 Restrictions on the Types of Applications that You are Permitted to Build with the Maps API(s). Except as explicitly permitted in Section 8 (Licenses from Google to You) or the Maps APIs Documentation, you must not (nor may you permit anyone else to) do any of the following:

(a) No "Wrapping." You must not create or offer a "wrapper" for the Service, unless you obtain Google's written consent to do so. For example, you are not permitted to: (i) use or provide any part of the Service or Content (such as map imagery, geocoding, directions, places, or terrain data) in an API that you offer to others; or (ii) create a Maps API Implementation that reimplements or duplicates Google Maps/Google Earth. For clarity, you are not "re-implementing or duplicating" Google Maps/Google Earth if your Maps API Implementation provides substantial additional features or content beyond Google Maps/Google Earth, and those additional features or content constitute the primary defining characteristic of your Maps API Implementation.

(b) No Business, Residential, or Telephone Listings Services. You must not display any of the business listings Content provided by the Maps API(s) in any Maps API Implementation that has the primary purpose of making available business, residential address, or telephone directory listings.

(c) No Navigation, Autonomous Vehicle Control, or Enterprise Applications. You must not use the Service or Content with any products, systems, or applications for or in connection with any of the following:

(i) real time navigation or route guidance, including but not limited to turn-by-turn route guidance that is synchronized to the position of a user's sensor-enabled device.

(ii) any systems or functions for automatic or autonomous control of vehicle behavior; or

(iii) enterprise dispatch, fleet management, business asset tracking or similar applications. If you want to engage in enterprise dispatch, fleet management, business asset tracking, or similar applications, please contact the Google Maps API for Business sales team to obtain a Google enterprise license. (If you are offering a non-enterprise implementation, you may use the Google Maps API(s) to track assets such as cars, buses or other vehicles, as long as your tracking application is made available to the public without charge. For example, you may offer a free, public Maps API Implementation that displays real-time public transit or other transportation status information.)

Those features in Android's Google Maps only exist because they don't have to follow the TOS.



Apple isn't exactly a random API user. Until you find written copies of the agreement between Google and Apple, don't claim any of that even applied to them.


That's the simplest explanation, though. These other conspiracy theories about Apple wanting to withhold features from its customers and catch Google with its pants down are nothing more than mindless speculation.




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