Nor will it, most likely.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster recently surveyed 20 Apple Stores in the United States. He found iPhone 5 inventory in just four of them. Those four stores were located in smaller cities, and the few iPhone 5 units they had were for Sprint. His take on Apple’s mapping misstep? It’s not causing much user backlash. “Demand remains high,” Munster explained. “The bottom line is that consumers do not seem to be overly concerned about the shortcomings of Maps.”

Apple certainly knew this, so why apologize, particularly when such a rare and humble admission of fallibility would only draw further attention to the issue? To seize control of a media narrative run amok and to turn it into one that enhances the Apple brand that it earlier tarnished. As one source familiar with the Apple PR machine told AllThingsD, “How quickly did things go from ‘This never would have happened under Steve’ to ‘Holy shit, the CEO of the most powerful company in tech just came clean and took responsibility for a mistake?’ Hours, right?”

So while Apple’s maps mess was a clear embarrassment for the company, Cook’s empathetic and contrite apology — and the company’s followthrough on it, pointing users to mapping alternatives — have minimized damage to the Apple brand.

“Given the insatiable demand for the iPhone 5, we do not expect the map issue to impact [demand],” said Topeka analyst Brian White. “Longer term, we believe this apology will help Apple further its brand of trust with customers and it is only a matter of time before the company delivers a great map experience.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Apple: Here Are Some Map Apps That Actually Work
• Tim Cook on Apple Maps: “We Are Extremely Sorry”
• Nokia: Map Apps Can’t Be Built Overnight. Just Look at Apple’s.
• Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions
• Apple Maps App Takes Reality Distortion to a Whole New Level

[Image credit: Someecards]

For quite a while, it seemed all you had to do was slap a beta tag on something and people would forgive just about anything. Heck, Gmail was in beta for darn near an eternity.

But, the challenge with Apple’s mapping move is that it was replacing something that worked. Sure, the Google-powered Maps app for the iPhone lacked turn-by-turn navigation. And that was a downside for the iPhone, to be sure.

But the Maps app did the most important thing — it got you where you were going.

The second issue that came back to bite Apple was its hubris in rolling out its mapping service. When Apple introduced its homegrown maps for the iPhone and iPad, it billed the development as a significant advance over the Google-created cartography it was replacing.

Onstage, iOS boss Scott Forstall sang the praises of Apple’s maps, and, on its Web site, Apple said its creation just might be “the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever.”

As noted by the Web site Digital Inspiration, that claim is no longer there. In its place, Apple says simply that the maps have “a beautiful vector-based interface that scales and zooms with ease.” Apple isn’t even claiming the maps are accurate or will get you where you want to go.

Clearly, Apple is singing a different tune these days, with the company promising to improve the service and CEO Tim Cook apologizing to customers and the company even taking to promoting rival services.

“At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers,” Cook said on Apple’s Web site. “With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.”

This morning, a new “Featured” category appeared in the App Store: “Find maps for your iPhone/iPad.” It showcases mapping apps from MapQuest, Microsoft’s Bing, Waze and TeleNav, among others, and it’s being promoted on the front page of the storefront. Apple has also posted a new page on its Web site explaining how to add Web site icons for Google and Nokia maps to an iOS device.

Another unusual move. Unprecedented, too. But it’s a very savvy one from a PR standpoint. It reinforces the idea that the company cares about the user experience and makes Cook’s apology that much more genuine. It also might go a long way toward stanching defections to alternative platforms with strong mapping solutions. And while it doesn’t make the pain of this particular debacle any easier to bear for Apple, the fact that the company is taking a cut of the sales on the mapping apps it’s recommending certainly doesn’t hurt any.

But multiple sources familiar with Apple’s thinking say the company felt it had no choice but to replace Google Maps with its own, because of a disagreement over a key feature: Voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions.

Spoken turn-by-turn navigation has been a free service offered through Google’s Android mobile OS for a few years now. But it was never part of the deal that brought Google’s Maps to iOS. And sources say Apple very much wanted it to be. Requiring iPhone users to look directly at handsets for directions and manually move through each step — while Android users enjoyed native voice-guided instructions — put Apple at a clear disadvantage in the mobile space. And having chosen Google as its original mapping partner, the iPhone maker was now in a position where an archrival was calling the shots on functionality important to the iOS maps feature set.

And this caused Apple — which typically enjoys very tight control over its products — no end of philosophical discomfort, sources say. Apple pushed Google hard to provide the data it needed to bring voice-guided navigation to iOS. But according to people familiar with Google’s thinking, the search giant, which had invested massive sums in creating that data and views it as a key feature of Android, wasn’t willing to simply hand it over to a competing platform.

And if there were terms under which it might have agreed to do so, Apple wasn’t offering them. Sources tell AllThingsD that Google, for example, wanted more say in the iOS maps feature set. It wasn’t happy simply providing back-end data. It asked for in-app branding. Apple declined. It suggested adding Google Latitude. Again, Apple declined. And these became major points of contention between the two companies, whose relationship was already deteriorating for a variety of other reasons, including Apple’s concern that Google was gathering too much user data from the app.

“There were a number of issues inflaming negotiations, but voice navigation was the biggest,” one source familiar with Apple and Google’s negotiations told AllThingsD. “Ultimately, it was a deal-breaker.”

At that point, Apple, which had already begun quietly acquiring mapping companies, fast-tracked development of an in-house maps app with voice-guided navigation, with an eye toward making it a tentpole feature of iOS 6. And when Apple realized that it would indeed reach that goal, sources say, it decided to dump Google Maps entirely — even though there was significant time left on its contract with the search giant, as first reported by The Verge. It announced Maps at WWDC in June to the surprise of some, but not to Google, which was well aware the deal was sticks and rags at this point. Then Apple officially launched the app with iOS 6 in September, and now it’s paying the price for what some insiders say was a necessary move made a bit too hastily.

“Apple knew it had a lot of catching up to do in maps,” a person briefed on Apple’s strategy told AllThingsD. “But, given what’s happened the past few days, I think they felt they were farther along than they actually are.”

Hence the current PR debacle from which the company continues to suffer. But Apple is not the only company to be bruised by this rough transition. Gloat as it may over Apple’s mapping missteps, Google suffered a blow when Apple ended the pair’s deal. And it is indeed scrambling to roll out a standalone mapping application for iOS. Google Maps were used by a large portion of iPhone owners, especially in the U.S. And to abruptly lose that user base, particularly one on a rival mobile platform, is a blow. As one geolocation executive observed, “A hundred million devices upgraded is a big body drop” for Google.

Apple declined to comment on the thinking that led to Google’s ouster from Apple Maps. Google did the same thing, though it did take the opportunity to tout its own mapping service: “We believe Google Maps are the most comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use maps in the world. Our goal is to make Google Maps available to everyone who wants to use it, regardless of device, browser, or operating system.”

Liz Gannes contributed to this report

Is Google working on a new version of its Maps app for Apple devices on the new iOS 6 operating system and will Apple allow it into its app store?

A:

Google has hinted that it wants Google Maps on the iPhone and iPad, though it’s been vague about it, saying only: “Our goal is to make Google Maps available to everyone who wants to use it, regardless of device, browser, or operating system.” And, in a blog post, a Google official said: “We look forward to providing amazing Google Maps experiences on iOS.”

This could mean Google is building an app, or it could refer to the Google Maps mobile web site, which is already available on the iPhone 5, via the phone’s browser, at maps.google.com. A top Google official has reportedly denied Google has an iPhone maps app ready and waiting, saying such a development would be up to Apple.

Q:

Since Apple no longer includes a built-in YouTube app for the iPhone, is Google, which owns YouTube, making one available?

A:

Yes. It was available when the iPhone 5 launched and has worked well for me. It’s in Apple’s app store and you can learn about it at: http://bit.ly/Vyhh0b.

Q:

I have an iPhone 4S and I entered some appointments for a trip this week. I love how my iPhone automatically adjusts to the local time zone, but I was shocked to find that my appointments were showing on my iPhone an hour earlier than I had scheduled them for. Does the iOS 6 upgrade fix this issue?

A:

No upgrade is needed. This is easily fixed by setting a feature called “Time Zone Support,” which locks appointments so they appear as they did in your home time zone, even while you’re traveling. It’s found in Settings, under the Calendar section of “Mail, Contacts, Calendars.”

Here’s an explanation from Apple: http://bit.ly/VynkS9.

Email Walt at mossberg.@wsj.com.

Of course, they’d be happiest if would-be iPhone buyers would buy one of their devices instead. But, for those who do stick with Apple, Nokia is offering up its mobile maps as an alternative.

Nokia has been offering voice-guided navigation for iOS and Android users — via the mobile Web — since earlier this year.

“Nokia Maps is award winning,” Nokia said via its official Twitter page. “There is no need to be stuck with another mapping service on your smartphone.”

Other Nokia workers have posted additional messages pointing disgruntled iPhone users to Nokia’s mobile mapping Web site.

It’s the latest move by Nokia to capitalize on the Apple Maps backlash. The company posted a blog last week touting the strength of its approach and investment in mapping as one of the selling points of its phones.

Nokia is, of course, just one of many options for iPhone owners unhappy with Apple’s new maps. Google has its own mobile maps Web site, and there are lots of companies that have native apps for the iPhone, with many offering turn-by-turn navigation.

Swiss railway operator SBB says the design of a new clock app on the iPad copies its signature — and trademarked — clock.

“The rights for this design of the watch are (owned) by the SBB,” a railway spokesperson told AllThingsD. “We are in contact with Apple to seek together an agreement about the rights.”

The clock is the design of Swiss engineer Hans Hilfiker, with licensed versions selling for hundreds of dollars.

An Apple representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Design issues aside, the clock is a welcome addition to the iPad, which until now has bizarrely lacked the alarm clock and timer features found on other iOS devices.

Sure, yesterday was spent downloading iOS 6 on the iPhone you hope to replace, but what is there to do today besides drive around town listening to that thick old iPhone 4S read turn-by-turn directions?

Well, fear not, Apple lover. AllThingsD has a few things to keep you busy and whet your appetite for your soon to be new best friend.

First is a schematic block diagram (PDF) posted to Apple’s developer Web site.

Next up is a 3-D rendering commissioned by the folks at Sketchfab. Sure, you can’t actually touch the phone or make calls. But you can twirl it around and see that Lightning connector that will soon make you spend hundreds of dollars on adapters.

One note on the 3-D model. It requires your browser to have WebGL turned on, which is often off by default. In Safari, for example, you can enable it by going to the Advanced tab in the “Safari preferences” menu. From there, click the Show Develop menu and choose “enable WebGL” from the develop menu. Then reload the page.

For those who don’t have WebGL capability or don’t want the hassle, here are a couple still image captures.

Image via The Amazing iOS6 Maps

Though it has been widely available for only about a day now, mounting complaints over the Maps app have already badly tarnished it as inaccurate, glitch-ridden and generally a poor substitute for the Google Maps-driven app that it replaces. Among the recurring criticisms of the app: It offers no information about public transportation; searches for an in-town destination sometimes return results for an entirely different city; it occasionally mistakes farms for airports; some of its Dali-esque flyover imagery is lousy; and it places gas stations in utterly untenable locations (the Amazing iOS6 Maps Tumblr is gleefully cataloging them all).

Apple urged patience. “Customers around the world are upgrading to iOS 6 with over 200 new features including Apple Maps, our first map service,” spokeswoman Trudy Muller told AllThingsD. “We are excited to offer this service with innovative new features like Flyover and Siri integration, and free turn by turn navigation. We launched this new map service knowing that it is a major initiative and we are just getting started with it. We are continuously improving it, and as Maps is a crowd-based solution, the more people use it, the better it will get. We’re also working with developers to integrate some of the amazing transit apps in the App Store into iOS Maps. We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better.”

Nonetheless, it’s an embarrassment for a company that prides itself on making “great products.” To be clear, Maps, which draws some of its data from TomTom, can be quite slick when it works well; the Flyover feature is nice, as is the addition of voice navigation and crowdsourced traffic data. But none of those things matters much if Maps continues to stumble with its core functionality by returning inaccurate mapping data and directions. (Anecdotally, I used Maps for directions to the San Jose courthouse during the Apple-Samsung trial and ended up at a dead end in Campbell.)

Amazing iOS 6 Maps

The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

TomTom noted that it delivers the raw map materials to many companies, but the end result is largely out of its hands. “We supply maps and related content to the majority of handheld players, including RIM, HTC, Samsung, AOL (MapQuest Mobile), Apple and, yes, Google (for the areas where they don’t make their own maps),” the company said in a statement. “When people use a map, their experience is determined by two things. Firstly, the underlying content, notably the maps. This is what TomTom is currently supplying the mobile industry with and it is what gives their maps the best foundation. Secondly, user experience is determined by adding additional features to the map application, such as visual imagery. This is typically defined and created by the handset manufacturers and third-party software providers on the basis of their own vision and needs.”

Amazing iOS 6 Maps

Now, there’s no question that Apple will improve Maps over time. Sources tell AllThingsD that the team assigned to the app is under lockdown right now working to fix it. But it’s unfortunate that it was ever released in this condition in the first place. Mapping applications are awfully hard to do well. Apple certainly knows this. And for a while, at least, it has a rough road ahead.

[Images via The Amazing iOS 6 Maps]

However, new data from Chitika shows a massive adoption in just the first 24 hours that the software was available. The firm said that, within the first day, iOS 6 peaked at more than 15 percent of Web traffic to its mobile ad network, and has remained at that level.

That doesn’t mean that 15 percent of devices are using the new operating system, since presumably those upgrading on the first day are heavy users more likely to access the Web on a daily basis. Still, it’s a staggering achievement.

By comparison, Chitika notes that the latest version of Android — Jelly Bean — achieved just a 1.5 percent adoption in its first two months.

Android, of course, uses a different distribution method, with Google making a version available to device makers who then test and customize the operating system, which must be then tested again by cellular carriers before being allowed on the network.

Past versions of iOS also gained ground fast, but not as fast as iOS 6. With iOS 5, which itself was a record-breaking launch, it took nearly three days from its release date on October 12th to reach the 15 percent threshold.

As I neared the gate, I simply pulled out my just-updated iPhone and a bar code appeared that was scanned in, taking the place of a physical ticket.

Major League Baseball is among the first entities to try out Passbook, the iOS 6 feature that allows tickets, gift cards and boarding passes to be stored in a single spot on the iPhone.

Starting with games on Thursday, the league is supporting Passbook tickets with four teams: The San Francisco Giants, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals.

The league has been an early adopter of mobile ticketing, supporting cellphone tickets since 2007, though until now it has used a less elegant text-message-based option.

MLB was among those on hand for the iPhone 5 launch last week, along with representatives from Sephora and Starbucks, which will both support Passbook for their loyalty cards.

Apple released iOS 6, which includes Passbook for the iPhone, earlier on Wednesday. The free update works on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the soon-to-go-on-sale iPhone 5.

As other phone makers push near field communication to make transactions even more seamless, Apple has said it is focused for now on Passbook, which still requires the use of bar codes for loyalty cards, tickets and boarding passes to be scanned.