By The pinnacle of brand advertising is when your brand name is used to identify an entire product line. For example, when people tell you to “Google” something but don’t really care where you search. Some others that come to mind are Kleenex, Xerox and Q-Tip. At one point, Mapquest held that position for online mapping.
I still frequently tell people to just “MapQuest It” when in reality, I would suggest they use Google Maps. But MapQuest is not only alive and kicking – they’re making some pretty nice moves. Today they announced that MapQuest.com is now optimized for display on Android devices:
iPhone users have enjoyed this for quite awhile and now all Android Smartphone Users can enjoy the same experience. Except you’ll need 1.5 to enjoy what MapQuest calls “draggable maps”.
Apparently there was a large demand for MapQuest.com for Android:
As soon as we launched MapQuest.com optimized for iPhone, we immediately started receiving requests from Android users voicing their desire to have the same experience on their beloved Android Smartphone devices.
I find that peculiar and surprising… maybe a bunch of MapQuest employees were GMailing eachother those requests, cause I think the vast majority of Google Android users would prefer clicking that little “Maps” icon on their home screen that takes them directly to an Android Application for Google Maps.
But as with everything, it is a matter of preference. So if you’re still using MapQuest for one reason or another, or perhaps want to give it a spin for comparison, MapQuest.com is now officially optimized for use on your Android Phone. Enjoy!
It’s good to have choices and, with the potential for hundreds of millions of smartphone users globally, even a little market share can translate to a LOT of users.
this is good news I myself use mapquest all the time it is good for me and every other person who has no idea where the hell they are going.
Maybe they should work on a Application instead.
But I’m happy with the built in Map app. It works perfectly fine and I’m sure it’ll be updated as time goes on.
MapQuest looks great on the G1. In a quick test getting a map from Boulder to Denver MapQuest seemed to load more quickly than Google Map. If the MapQuest site were to have access to my current location and addresses in contacts it would be even better. I hope they do make an app.
I have their turn by turn direction software for my blackberry. Recently converted to the G1 and I hope they release it for the G1. Its about $49/yr for voice turn by turn directions. A bargain :)
Looks spiffy, but they could have really gut-checked Google if they’d included Public Transit directions. It really baffles me that such a feature wouldn’t be included in *any* mobile OS with map capabilities.
(And please, let me know if I’m wrong somewheres.)