I launched Google Maps for mobile in 2005. In 2006, Eric Schmidt was worried that Yahoo Go was a killer app. My claim that Google Maps was the real killer app fell on deaf ears. :)
This is a total non sequitor, but huh, your last comment on this account was in 2012. Do you use others, or just only speak when you feel you have something incredibly cool (which this tidbit certainly is!) to add?
Why not? How do you define "killer app"? Maps is one of my very highest used apps, alongside chat/text/email. I'd say it's more revolutionary than all of those, because chat/text/email were just mobile versions of apps perfected on desktop, but a mobile map app shows you exactly where you are, which changes everything. I've traveled internationally both in the pre- and post- smartphone era, and let me tell you, travel is way easier now.
That's what I remember about it too. It was such a drastic improvement over the old MapQuest site where you'd have to click arrows around the edges of the map and wait for it to load to scroll around the map. I was immediately sold on it (even though I was still just printing out directions to take with me in the car).
