You can now use Apple Maps on an Android phone, but don’t expect a smooth ride just yet

For years now, Apple and Google have been developing software and services for their users that fill the same niches. We’ve got Safari and Chrome, Apple Pay and Google Wallet, and countless others. Sometimes those efforts end up being extended across platform lines — you can run Gmail on an iPhone just fine — while others are much more locked down to that single ecosystem. Today we’re getting some news about at least one way the barriers between these worlds are starting to come down a little, as Apple Maps gets easier for non-Apple users to enjoy.

Apple Maps has been available as a web service, just like Google Maps, through a beta test that began last summer. And while that opened the door for Apple’s mapping solution to PC users, the same wasn’t true on Android, where the site wasn’t compatible with the mobile Chrome browser.

Now 9to5Google reports that Apple Maps has dropped the “beta” from its URL (we’re still seeing a beta label in the web interface, however), and more critically, is finally usable in Chrome on Android.

The mobile Apple Maps experience isn’t quite as impressive as it is on desktop — at least for the moment — and appears to be lacking features like Look Around (Apple’s answer to Street View). Navigation is also a bit rough, and we’re probably not going to be abandoning the Google Maps app for purposes of getting around anytime soon. But at least for exploration and discovery, having Apple Maps accessible on the web like this opens up new options that Android previously lacked.

For as good as Google Maps is, some of what Apple Maps can pull off is seriously impressive (its Look Around transitions on desktop put Street View navigation to shame) and we’re going to be very interested in seeing if more of those best parts end up making the transition to mobile.