According to iPhone and iPad vendors in Russia, the location-search service integrated in Apple's newest mobile operating system - iOS 6, which will become available for download on September 19 - will be powered by the country's leading search engine, Yandex.

The disclosure - which is another indication of the soured relations between Apple and Google - underscores that Russian search biggie Yandex will power the mapping service for the users of the forthcoming iPhone 5 in the country.

Apple's move to have Yandex's location-search service integrated in the iOS 6 is a noteworthy one, especially in the wake of the fact that all the previous versions of Apple's mobile software had Google features bundled in them.

Noting that the map tools for the iOS 6 users had apparently been developed by Apple itself, with a service earlier offered by Google having been replaced, Alexander Patsay - director of program management at software maker Parallels Holding in Moscow - said that a test of the developer version of iOS 6 has revealed the integration of Yandex's geographical search with the new software's Maps application.

With LiveInternet. ru statistics revealing that Yandex's Internet-search market share was 60.5 percent vis-a-vis Google's 26.6 percent in August, UralSib Capital analyst Konstantin Belov said that the inclusion of Yandex. Maps into iOS 6 will help Yandex retain its search-market dominance, as well as "expand its position in ecosystems created by Apple and Google."