Did Apple actually win 'Mapgate'?

Tim Cook apologized for replacing Google Maps with a disastrous Apple-built iPhone app. And that concession, says Farhad Manjoo at Pando Daily, was simply brilliant

Tim Cook
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Apple has been in hot water with iPhone customers for several days, thanks to a new mobile operating system — iOS 6 — that boots Google Maps in favor of Apple Maps, which even the most loyal Apple fans are deriding as a clearly inferior product. On Friday, in a surprisingly un-Apple-like move, CEO Tim Cook publicly apologized for the "frustration this has caused our customers," and swore that the company was doing "everything [it could] to make Maps better." Cook even went so far as to suggest that iPhone owners use third-party map apps until Apple sorts through the mess. Cook's was a "succinct, sincere, and brilliant note," says Farjhad Manjoo at Pando Daily. And the upshot is obvious: "Mapgate is over. Apple won."

Manjoo continues:

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