It's been deployed globally on tens of millions of devices removing the existing solution.

That's the level of expectation that I'm giving it.

In contrast with Android where Google can remove most of the apps and majority of users stuck with 2.x versions won't even know.

On the serious note, I guess this sucks most for US users. In other parts of the world transit data was not available anyway, so nobody cares.

> In contrast with Android where Google can remove most of the apps and majority of users stuck with 2.x versions won't even know.

This isn't the place for childish digs at competitors. Apple removed maps and replaced it with an inferior version for millions of their customers. As a result, the poor quality of these maps has made front page news.

Trying to invoke "Android isn't up to date" is childish and uninformed. Maps is distributed via the Play Store. You are wrong in every substantial respect.

Not sure about childish, but regarding uninformed: there is some information for you: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

To compare this to the iOS6 (released just a couple of days ago) is left as an exercise for you :)

I'm aware of the point he is making. Maps is an app distributed through the Play Store. It is not distributed by installing a specific version of the OS.

At least understand the platform you are criticising before assuming it operates in the same restrictive way as others.

There are over 500 cities covered with Transit Information, all around the world. http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/text.html#mdy

Except the non-US mapping data seems to suck more than the US one, so they do care.

It should be given the same level of expectation as the thing it replaced. If Apple had run this maps app as an optional beta program, and not replaced the google maps app, things would have been a whole lot better. Then they could've waited for iOS 7 to make it default, just like they did with the messages beta for OS X.

This makes very good sense. A gradual migration rather than a shock transition would not only have saved Apple's arse but also the consumers & the overall user experience.

Fair or not, it's a first release that's directly replacing a much more mature and complete product. Is it really unreasonable to expect a comparable feature set? Downgrading the iOS Maps application like this is a remarkably un-consumer friendly thing for Apple to do.

The amazing thing for me is that the Google Maps App on my original iPhone 3G was way better than this new one.