Apple Inc. (AAPL) Gets Swiped By Nokia Corporation (NOK)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has certainly gotten an awful lot of heat over the last few days over the shortcomings of its mapping application which replaces the Maps app by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), which was very effective and popular on previous iPhone versions. For all of the hype over the positives in the initial days after the unveiling last week, now it seems that a lot of the headlines leading up to today’s official launch have revolved around a disappointing Maps feature that Apple created.

While Apple is down on this issue, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) decided it was time to kick it, as the company – which is putting all of its future success on the backs of Windows Phone 8 by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) with the risk of becoming forever irrelevant in the U.S. and other developed markets – decided to use this as an opportunity to not only pick on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), but it also touted its own Maps application which it has on its Lumia handsets and has been used by other smartphone makers.

In a Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) blog post: “Unlike our competitors, which are financing their location assets with advertising or licensing mapping content from third parties, we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps. In other words, we truly understand that maps and location-based apps must be accurate, provide the best quality and be accessible basically anywhere. That’s been standard practice at Nokia for the past six years, and we also understand that ‘pretty’ isn’t enough.”

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) wasn’t just part of that note, but it also was the subject of a “comparison” by Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK), as the Finland-based company touted its mapping and location services as better than what was on the iPhone 5 and on the Samsung Galaxy S3, an Android phone by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG).

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) must be having a bad day when its handsets are dominating Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK), yet Nokia has the confidence in its mapping service to highlight it. It may take more than a better mapping service for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Nokia to make significant inroads on the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) market share. Investors in Apple stock, however, like hedge-fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management, are certainly counting on iPhone 5 sales to outpace the disappointment of the mapping application.