And come to think of it, why not force Apple to offer users a choice of browser too? – but I digress.

Everyone seems to love to hate Microsoft, and yet on all versions of Windows I am able to choose which is the default application I use for browsing, image editing, video playing, and so on.

It’s time for Apple to enable users to choose the default applications in the same manner.

Here’s the thing: except for flyover and Siri, Apple’s Maps app is not competitive with Google’s Maps app, or even Bing’s or Here’s. On the road, Waze is way better. Maps are a competitive category as it stands, without Apple.

That said, I’m fine with getting it wrong. If Apple comes out with something better, hats off. But if they do, we can agree it will be for their silo alone. And that too is a deal-killer for many of us. You and me included.

Personally, I would never buy an Apple product, with their crazy stance on patents and how closed they’ve become. I got my first and last Apple product in 2004, a Powerbook, never again. But I don’t see why more competition is a bad thing.

I’ve been using Google’s Maps app in traffic since it came onto the iPhone in early December, in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington and the Bay Area, and I’ve only seen it miss a jam once: when I was about ten cars behind an accident in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel a couple weeks ago. The jam didn’t show up for about 20 minutes on all the map apps I checked: Google’s, Apple’s and Nokia’s Here.

Do you use it to route you to destinations before you depart? Try it. Look at the alternate routes. It’s kind of amazing, I think. On Saturday it took us to San Rafael from SFO by way of the Bay Bridge and the Richmond Bridge through the East Bay. The map also gave choices through San Francisco (19th and Van Ness were the two), with estimated times for each, given current traffic, which we could clearly see, with its red stretches. Instinctively I would never have taken the East Bay route, but we breezed through and arrived exactly when Google Maps said we would.

Likewise with the subways in New York, which is our primary use of the app. It’s sometimes wrong (e.g. when subways don’t arrive exactly when it says), but those times are surprisingly rare.

Anyway, I invite you to give it another chance or two.

We compared the Apple Maps app vs. Google’s when driving from New York to Washington, D.C. twice recently, and there was no comparison. Google’s app saw traffic that Apple’s didn’t see, and re-routed based on the live traffic situation. I didn’t put that finding in this post because I didn’t want to harp too much.

Maybe you’re right.

Do you think Google came up with the current Maps app because Apple competed with them on an app-vs-app basis, or because iOS has umpty-million users and is a market best addressed by actually having a good maps app there? Or both? (I dunno. Just guessing here.)

Please Apple, don’t listen this harping, many of us are more than happy with your maps app.