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Since they got together in 2007, the iPhone and Google Maps have seemed like ideal digital bedfellows.

Google Inc.'s GOOG -1.81% blockbuster map service—which allows web users to find businesses, check traffic conditions and get directions—has helped Apple Inc.'s AAPL -0.68% iPhone become wildly successful. Surging iPhone use has, in turn, driven tons of web traffic to Google's search engine through Google Maps.

But not for long. Mobile map technology is about to become the latest battleground in the two tech giants' escalating war over who dominates the future of computing.

Later this year, Apple is planning to oust Google Maps as the preloaded, default maps app from the iPhone and iPad and release a new mapping app that runs Apple's own technology, according to current and former Apple employees. Apple could preview the new software, which will be part of its next mobile-operating system, as soon as next week at its annual developer conference in San Francisco, one person familiar with the plans says. Apple plans to encourage app developers to embed its maps inside their applications like social-networking and search services. Technology blog 9to5Mac earlier reported that Apple will launch its own maps app in its next mobile-operating system.

Apple has been hatching the plan to evict Google Maps from the iPhone for years, according to current and former Apple employees. The plan accelerated as smartphones powered by Google's Android software overtook the iPhone in shipments.


It's Apple versus Google in a battle of the maps as Apple is expected to unveil its new map app. WSJ's Jessica Vascellaro has the details.

Apple has quietly acquired at least three cutting-edge map companies, melding their technology with its own. Last fall, Apple took a first step in developing a proprietary mapping service with the virtually unnoticed release of a "geocoder"—the brains behind a mapping app that translates a phone's longitude and latitude into a point on a map, like an address. Before that, it relied on Google's geocoder.

Mobile ads associated with maps or locations are estimated to account for about 25% of the roughly $2.5 billion spent on mobile ads in 2012, according to Opus Research, up from 10% in 2010. That is expected to grow as the number of location-aware software apps grows.

But more than ad revenue, Apple is going after the map market to have more control over a key asset in the widening smartphone war. Google Maps is used by more than 90% of U.S. iPhone users. So Apple believes controlling the mapping experience and offering features that Google doesn't have can help sell more devices and entice developers to build unique apps for iPhone users.


In the short term, Google will lose some ad revenue and miss out on data about what local businesses people are searching for—which it uses to pitch retailers on buying certain ads. Longer term, it is likely to hurt Google's ability to generate map-related revenue, according to former Google employees.

A Google spokeswoman said it would be premature to comment on something that hasn't happened.

Apple's turnabout on Google goes well beyond maps. How the war plays out will help shape how people use technology for years to come.

"Apple is aiming squarely at Google on multiple dimensions," says Rajeev Chand, a managing director at investment bank Rutberg & Co., citing mapping and Web search. "Google and Apple are in a battle over data, devices, services, and the future of computing. This is the historic battle of today."

For years, Apple and Google were models of cooperation. Each largely stuck to its separate world—Apple made computers and other hardware; Google offered Web search and sold online ads. Apple's longtime chief, Steve Jobs, had close relations with Google chief Eric Schmidt, who sat on Apple's board of directors from 2006 until 2009.

The rise of the iPhone and other smartphones changed all that. Mr. Jobs felt blindsided by Google's push into mobile devices with its own Android operating system. Google has since entered the hardware business directly, buying Motorola Mobility Holdings, which makes phones. Google recently also launched a music, movie, book and mobile-app store to compete with Apple's iTunes. Android-phone shipments now surpass iPhone shipments globally.

Some Google executives privately say they think Apple is trying to wean iPhone users away from using traditional Web search on its phones.

The use of Google search on the iPhone is believed by several mobile industry analysts to generate the majority of Google's mobile search-ad revenue. Google has accelerated its plans to develop its own voice-activated search assistant for Android-powered mobile devices, which is expected to launch later this year, these people said.

Apple's goal is to develop a "holistic" technology that integrates maps with other Apple software, says a person briefed on the strategy. For instance, if Apple's iCalendar program knows that a person has a meeting across town soon, and traffic is backing up, it might alert the person about road conditions.

Originally, Apple's iPhone strengthened ties between the two companies. On Halloween in 2006—just months before the iPhone was announced—Apple's product-marketing head, Phil Schiller, and other executives met with Google engineers to determine how the iPhone could use Google's mapping data to let people see their locations and get directions. At the meeting, one Google employee attended wearing a nun costume.

The two companies struck a quid pro quo: When an iPhone user opened the mapping app, Apple would send Google information about the position of a particular phone. Google would then return mapping images and other data. The January 2007 iPhone news release called Google's mapping service "groundbreaking."

Google's release of Android, the rival smartphone operating system, started souring things. In 2008, Mr. Jobs warned Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that if they continued with Android, Apple would head to court and claim Android copied the iPhone. Google proceeded, and Apple sued a slew of Android-device manufacturers. The cases are still making their way through the courts.

Maps added to the rancor. That same year, Apple executives including Mr. Schiller sat down with Google executives, including Vic Gundotra, then a vice president in charge of Google's mobile apps, to renew the agreement over the iPhone's mapping app.

New tensions emerged when Apple grew concerned that Google was aggressively gathering data from the app, according to people familiar with Apple's thinking. Mr. Schiller worried it could compromise users' privacy, these people said.

Google executives felt Apple was unreasonable in insisting on controlling the look of the maps app and enabling only some of its features—like an "a la carte menu" where Google provided only the "back end" technology that powers it, according to a Google executive.

The two sides bickered over a Google Maps feature called Street View, which lets people see an actual photo as if they are standing in the street. Apple wanted to incorporate Street View on the iPhone just as Google already offered it for Android phones. Google initially withheld the feature, frustrating Apple executives, according to people on both sides of the debate.

Apple executives also wanted to include Google's turn-by-turn-navigation service in the iPhone—a feature popular with Android users because it lets people treat their phones as in-car GPS devices. Google wouldn't allow it, according to people on both sides. One of these people said Google viewed Apple's terms as unfair.

Google executives, meantime, also bristled at Apple's refusal to add features that would help Google. For instance, Google wanted to emphasize its brand name more prominently within the maps app. It also wanted Apple to enable its service designed to find friends nearby, dubbed Latitude, which Apple refrained from doing, said people on both sides.

Relations between Messrs. Schiller and Gundotra got tense. Jeff Huber, then a Google vice president of engineering, eventually started handling talks with Apple as Mr. Gundotra moved on to a new project within Google, people familiar with the matter said.

In 2009, Mr. Schmidt confided in colleagues his concern over the fraying relationship, one of these people said. Around that same time, Mr. Jobs decided that location services were too important for Apple to rely on a partner that was also becoming a formidable competitor, says a person familiar with the matter.

So Mr. Jobs began looking outside Apple for talent to build its own mapping technology. In 2009, Apple bought a small Los Angeles company, Placebase, that was trying to build a service like Google Maps. When the Placebase team arrived in Apple headquarters in Cupertino, they formed Apple's new "geo team"—and initially sat across the hall from Mr. Jobs.

In August 2009, Mr. Schmidt quit the Apple board, with Mr. Jobs citing the growing competition in a news release. The relationship deteriorated further when Apple decided to enter the lucrative business of selling mobile advertising—until then, a business dominated by Google and smaller mobile ad firms. Mr. Jobs courted a mobile-ad service, AdMob, but Google snatched the company for $750 million in November 2009.

In January 2010, Apple bought an AdMob rival, Quattro Wireless. The fight left Mr. Jobs more eager to sever ties. Shortly after the acquisition, he told Apple employees in an all-hands meeting, that Google's behavior suggested that its "Don't be evil" corporate motto was "bull—," according to former Apple employees. The comment was understood to imply that Google had betrayed its relationship with Apple by entering its turf.

Google executives, including CEO Mr. Page, have publicly said that Google began work on Android in 2005, before it knew of Apple's plans for the iPhone.

When Apple in 2010 bought Poly9, a maker of zoomable 3-D maps, it raised alarms at Google, says a person familiar with Google's reaction, which took it as a sign that Apple was serious about building its own service. Poly9, a small company based in Quebec, had built technology similar to Google's own satellite mapping service, Google Earth, which allows users to browse around a three-dimensional globe.

Meanwhile, Apple's geo team worked on features that might be able to one-up Google. Apple kept the details secret, even in-house. When one member of the geo team asked another what he was working on, he did little more than shrug, says one person familiar with the matter.

Apple had catching up to do. Employees worked on mapping designs to sub out Google's from the iPhone. They began work on a navigation app that resembles an in-car GPS device, says a person familiar with the project.

Apple also began licensing data about road-traffic conditions and local businesses from around the world. Apple needed more data for a critical step: building its new "geocoder," the code that translates longitudes and latitudes into actual addresses.

Apple wasn't pleased with Google's geocoding in part because Google's geocoder wouldn't let Apple use it unless Apple also showed a Google map every time it did so.

So Apple engineers worked on building their own geocoder. In a sign of the geo team's growing importance, Apple moved it into the esteemed iOS software unit, which is run by Scott Forstall, who oversees many of Apple's top priority projects.

Apple quietly launched its geocoder last fall inside its latest iPhone software. It has remained all but unnoticed outside a small circle of software pros.

Since Apple released its own geocoder, every time iPhone users open its map app, it is Apple's technology that translates their position, not Google's. Software developers can also use a version of the Apple technology, CLGeocoder, to build apps that let users, for instance, tell their friends what neighborhood they are in or search for nearby eateries.

With Mr. Page now running Google and Tim Cook at Apple's helm, the companies aren't bickering much in public. But the rivalry is heating up.

Members of the Google Maps team in recent months have told colleagues they worry about Apple replacing their program, given that as many as half the people who access Google Maps own Apple devices, says someone familiar with the matter.

The Google Maps team takes solace in the growth in Android devices, which preload Google Maps.

Knowing that Apple might reveal its new mapping software the week of June 11, Google scheduled a news conference for June 6. The purpose: to unveil "the next dimension of Google Maps."