(image via NYT/Blog)

Remember MapQuest? Remember how useless it was? How it was decidedly user unfriendly? Remember how it was the butt of map jokes, if there were map jokes? Well this is MapQuest’s lucky day because they are no longer the suckiest map maker out there. It’s now Apple.

A few months ago when Apple announced they’d be ditching Google Maps for their own homegrown service I remember reading a Google response that went something like, “Good luck with that.” See, Google had been making its map application for years before it showed up on phones so by the time it landed in our hands many of the kinks had been worked out. Plus, it grew up in a time where the competition was MapQuest so expectations were pretty low. Poor Apple had a pretty impossible task ahead of it to start with but damn, this thing they’ve foisted on their consumers is pathetic.

So what has Google done? They’ve moved on. Maps are so 2010. Life is now about location, location, location. Google has released Field Trip, a new app (Android only for now and something tells me Apple will find a way to keep it that way) that lets you know when you’re near something interesting. Say you’re walking down W 72nd St. in Manhattan. Field Trip, like a modern day Clippy, jumps up and says, “Hey, you’re standing right where John Lennon got shot!” Neat. Soon it will also say, “And by the way, Zabar’s is around the corner having a sale on knishes.”

Field Trip is a map with a brain and fun one at that. More on Field Trip here.

@dwlz: A man using Apple Maps walks into a bar…or maybe a hotel. Or possibly a church.