Apple will let you pick Google Maps as default navigation app in the EU soon

The European Union has scrutinized Apple for the past few years mainly over allegations of anti-competitive practices. One criticized practice is not letting people choose default apps on iPhones. Now, a new document released by Apple announces plans to enable setting default apps for navigation and translation soon in the EU, in order to comply with regulations.

This change means you will finally be able to set Google Maps as a default app for navigation.

This update is to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act or DMA. The document published by the company underlines all the actions that Apple has taken so far to comply with the regulations as well. The document clearly mentions that in the spring of 2025, Apple will add support for setting default apps for navigation and translation.

Yep, this only applies to the EU, but lucky EU users will be able to set Google Maps as the default navigation app. Although Apple Maps has been improving in recent years, many users still feel like Google Maps is more reliable or they prefer it for a plethora of reasons. Those people will have the choice of which one to use as a default on their iPhone.

This applies to translation apps as well, so you would be able to pick Google Translate as default as well.

As for when, Apple's document mentions spring 2025, which could most likely mean we'll see the change in iOS 18.4, which is expected to debut in April.

With iOS 18.2, it became known that some default app categories that were thought to be exclusive to the EU would be supported globally. Those are messaging and calling apps.

Apple has not mentioned if the default app setting for navigation and translation would be expanding globally, but it would be nice to see it worldwide.