Google has confirmed that it will be bringing back support for Apple Watch to the Maps app for iPhone and iPad at some point in the future. In a statement issued Tuesday to AppleInsider, a spokesperson for the search giant said: “We removed Apple Watch support from our latest iOS release, but expect to support it again in the future”.
The company provided no explanation for the removal of Apple Watch functionality from Maps for iOS, which went largely unnoticed because it wasn’t mentioned in App Store release notes.
As we reported yesterday, recent updates to major iPhone apps like Google Maps, eBay, Amazon and Target came stripped of all Apple Watch support, perhaps indicating that watchOS features in them were not widely used.
Google brought its Maps app to Apple Watch in September 2015, with features like turn-by-turn driving, walking and transit directions for recently visited points of interest. The app lacked other features found in Apple’s Maps for Apple Watch, such as no conventional map view and the inability to conduct searches without a tethered iPhone.