The Apple Corporation is one of the world’s technology leaders.  They have made monumental advancements in a variety of fields.  Case in point, Plum Voice is a leading provider of IVR systems and speech recognition software, and we took notice when Apple created Siri, the intuitive speech recognition software included on the iPhone 4S and above.  The application boasts some of the most impressive automatic speech recognition capabilities to ever be produced and marketed.

Apple’s advancements in the field of speech recognition are just one example of the many groundbreaking technologies they have developed and released.  Companies operating in a variety of fields within the tech sector can credit Apple with being a technology leader, influencing the way they develop and market products.

This isn’t to say, however, that Apple doesn’t have some stiff competition from other market leaders like Google or Amazon.  There is intense rivalry between the tech giants, and this competition has spilled over into the actual products marketed to end users.

Apple released the iPhone 5 last Friday, and while it is probably the most anticipated smartphone to hit the consumer market, the phone is not flawless. Consumers and reviewers were quick to notice that the iPhone 5, and indeed every Apple device operating iOS 6 or above, did not have any Google-produced software pre-loaded.

So what does this mean for all those eventual iPhone 5 owners out there (or any other Apple users for that matter)?  Applications like Google Maps and YouTube will not come preloaded on the device, like they have in previous versions of iOS.  The applications are still available, but users will need to find and download them in the app store.

For all of you holding out, waiting for Google to release a Google Maps program compatible with iOS 6, you might be waiting a long time.  Per Anna Leach in The Register, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt has said that they have not developed Google applications for the phone and don’t intend to anytime soon.

Leach goes on to say that “Schmidt revealed that execs at top tech companies chat among themselves a lot, but that obviously doesn’t stop the power play that has seen Google’s map service booted out of the iPhone.  Apple and Google are locked in a battle for supremacy in the mobile tech arena; the search giant’s Android operating system is at the heart of smartphones and tablets competing against Apple’s iPhones and iPads.”

While this may be a normal response by one company to stiff competition from another, the implications of the decision will be far reaching.  Apple Maps can’t hold a candle to Google Maps, simply because Apple doesn’t have the type of location data and scouting tools that Google uses to power its applications.

The issue will ultimately resolve itself one way or another.  Google will either license their programs for use in iOS 6, or Apple will significantly improve their maps applications.