I don't think anyone minds that Apple is competing. I've been fiercely critical of the new iOS 6 maps, and I welcome competition. I can't speak for others, bu

I don't think anyone minds that Apple is competing. I've been fiercely critical of the new iOS 6 maps, and I welcome competition. I can't speak for others, but what bothers me is not that Apple released a different mapping solution, but that the new map app is just so unbelievably terrible for many people [1]. Even with the third-party add-ons, you still can't use Apple maps to plan an inter-city itinerary, or one that crosses the "territory" of multiple transit agencies. In some American cities, that means you can't use iOS 6 maps to plan a trip across town. These are things that did work in iOS 5. I completely understand how it makes business sense for Apple to develop it's own mapping product, but that doesn't mean that they have to release software that is missing huge chunks of functionality. There seems to be this false dichotomy that Apple had two options: "release a product that is nowhere near ready to ship," and "rely on Google forever." There is a third option, which is "develop maps secretly, do the first two 90%'s of the work, then drop Google maps." Many on HN have argued that maps can't improve until they are used. That is doubtlessly true for some aspects: POIs, especially businesses, aren't going to be added until Apple maps gain mind-share, and there will be errors in the data that Apple bought until someone bothers to tell Apple to correct it. I can forgive Apple for that. But those are the things belong to the third 90% of the work. If anything, this piece at Daring Fireball just reinforces the idea that Apple has a problem somewhere in the chain of command. It really seems like there's nothing that would have prevented Apple from waiting another 6 to 12 months to announce it's mapping product, except that someone drastically underestimated how difficult it would be to compete with Google. Frankly, I think that's why iOS 6 doesn't have transit directions--the only thing you can do with a late product is drop features or push back the ship date.[2] I really do welcome all the things that Apple is trying to do maps in iOS 6, and I think they will have a good product in a year's time (or maybe two). That does not, however, mean that I want or will accept broken maps on my phone in the interim. [1] Apparently this is everyone in Japan, a dude in Portugal, and many people who use public transit to get around in big American cities. For some, the addition of turn-by-turn is a bigger gain than the loss of public transit and street-view. [2] This is also why I can't see the third-party transit thing as a viable solution. The end-game is that Apple will bring transit in-house the same way they did with the rest of maps. Actually, maybe it's a brilliant strategy on Apple's part to pick really good team to do transit directions. Embark seems to be doing a good job, but they seem to be focusing on just a few transit systems in big cities, with no inter-city transit. Hopefully Apple will acquire them and provide the resources to have really complete coverage.