The idea of google maps on the iPhone is that you can use EDGE to access them from anywhere.
I respectfully disagree. How you choose to use Google Maps differs from how I might choose to use Google Maps. I don't think there's a "right way" to use it. I hope Apple isn't trying to dictate how people use the tool on the iPhone. The point is that you should have the tool whenever you DO have internet.
The iPhone is not what made Google Maps the most popular internet map service in the world. Google Maps has been chained to the desk for years, but that didn't stop it. It was innovation that made it the most popular. Most of that innovation doesn't work within the Safari browser. You need the widget. The fact that it became available for phones was the cherry on top. Apple had the potential to have a device that could access google maps in more locations than someone's home or workplace. If I had the Touch, and I met my friends at the local coffee shop and we wanted to go to some new hot club, I would like to use my Touch to look it up on the internet and map it with Google Maps. I do that now with my iPhone. Sure
I can currently access the maps while I'm driving now with my iPhone, but that doesn't do my friends any good in their cars unless they are following me, and quite often, they aren't. So if I had the touch, my situation would be EXACTLY like the situation that my friends currently have with my iPhone: they have access to the map inside the coffee shop, but they don't have access to it on the way. Are they glad that I have Google Maps even though they don't have access to it while they are driving? Of course! They had access to the map earlier and they were able to write down the directions. Isn't that better than not having the map at all?
Someone is going to mod their Touch to add the google maps widget within the first few weeks. Mark my words.
With the Touch not having EDGE, only wifi, you are limited to hot spots. This eliminates 99% of the time people actually need a map on their phone.
By saying that 99% of the time people will use their Touch they won't have access to Google Maps you are also saying that they won't have access to the internet at all. You are saying that 99% of the time people are using their Touches they won't have access to the internet. That is NOT how Apple is marketing the Touch. They are marketing it as an internet device with an iPod, not an iPod that can get on the internet 1% of the time.
