A minor kerfuffle has erupted over claims that Google is blocking Windows Phone (and other non-Android or iOS) users from accessing Google Maps on their devices.
On 4 January, some users reported that they were getting redirected from maps.google.com to the Google homepage instead. A number of explanations were proposed -- that Maps requires a webkit browser (which Internet Explorer is not), for example, or that it was was somehow "incompatible" with these devices.
Then Google issued a statement saying that in their last test, Internet Explorer on mobile devices didn't "offer a good maps experience", but that recent improvements have fixed that and the company is working to remove the redirect.
It's clear that Google doesn't consider Windows Phone a terribly large priority, given that no-one had noticed that the web app finally works. The timing's pretty awkward too, coming just days after Microsoft accused the company of blocking a Windows Phone YouTube app.
In the meantime, Windows Phone users will have to resort to using Bing Maps. Hey, at least it's not Apple Maps.
No comments:
Post a Comment