14 DAY TRIAL // Data provided by mobile ad service MoPub reveals that a lot of iPhone and iPad owners waited until Google finally deployed its native iOS Maps application in order to upgrade to iOS 6.
Released officially in September, iOS 6 is the first version of Apple’s mobile operating system that ditches Google Maps as its default mapping service.
Replacing Google’s solution in iOS 6 was “Apple Maps,” an ill-fated solution which, to this day, still causes people to get lost in remote places across the globe.
In this respect, a lot of people waited for Google to re-launch their Maps application, this time as a third-party solution, so they could finally get the best of both worlds.
MoPub revealed to TechCrunch that the 12,000 apps it supports experienced a 29 percent surge in unique iOS 6 users in five days after Google Maps launched for iOS. Most of the users waited for the weekend to install iOS 6.
Monitoring over 1 billion ad impressions every day across a dozen ad networks, MoPub’s data set is a reliable indicator.
Its data showed a 13 percent increase in iOS 6 impressions from Monday to Wednesday. In other words, a lot of people actually took to Apple’s servers and downloaded iOS 6 the instant they heard about Google Maps launching in the App Store.
MoPub’s CEO said, “we observed since the launch of Google Maps for iOS 6 a 30 percent increase in unique iOS 6 users, and we think it’s related to Google Maps.”
“It verifies the hypothesis that people were actually holding back to upgrade until Google Maps was available,” according to the company’s chief.
Google Maps is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), iPad, and requires iOS 5.1 or later.
Google is yet to release a version that displays natively on large iPad screens.