“In the Studio,” Javelin’s Noah Doyle Unfolds an Intricate Mobile Mapping Ecosystem

Editor’s Note: TechCrunch columnist Semil Shah is based in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @semil

“In the Studio” this week features a guest who had the presence of mind to invest in a new mapping technology about a decade ago, eventually joined the company as a senior executive, and oversaw that company’s sale to Google, where he spent four years managing enterprise products for Google Earth and Maps before becoming a full-time early-stage investor.

Noah Doyle, now a managing director at Javelin Venture Partners, offers a fascinating perspective on Apple’s big announcement this week regarding maps on iOS devices. While the news was certainly big, Doyle — who has more than seven years experience working on maps, originally with Keyhole and most recently with Google — believes this week’s events were a long time in the making. He describes the maps relationship between Apple and Google as one that started as a mutually beneficial collaboration, then transformed into a marriage, and now will officially part ways.

In this brief discussion, we focus on maps entirely. So, if you’re like me and geek out on maps, cartography and mobile, you’re going to love listening to Doyle share his expertise and opinions on what iOS users will gain and lose with this transition to their own mapping products, what the effect will be on Google and their Android ecosystem looking into the future, and what application developers should be thinking about as a result of this shift as they build the next suite of products and services on top of Apple’s own maps.