One of my fellow Australians posted. Here's my review of Google Maps, using his post as a basis for my post ;)

My findings: For searching. Google Maps has a much better autocomplete all round. Faster, more readable and elegant. Once you have selected an entry then Apple Maps jumps straight there. Google Maps does a handy move animation showing me the relative location, although it slows things down a litte. I LOVE this feature. For panning. Apple Maps is equivalent to Google Maps. Apple Maps has a fade in transition for loaded tiles which is a nice touch. For POIs. Apple Maps is showing me a few POIs - often in the wrong place. Google Maps is showing me all key POIs in exactly the right place. Google Maps is the first mapping product to get my home address correct (TomTom, Navigon, Garmin, Apple).

For UI. Google Maps has a nicer UI. Apple Maps requires you to click on a small button which goes to a separate screen with more options. I really like the sidebar that Google implemented.

Overall. Google Maps has much better street data and nicer UI. Apple Maps had a smooth UI, showed POIs in the wrong spot here in Australia.

I think the competition is great. Looking forward to seeing if Apple can lift their socks on the next incarnation of Maps - they have a LONG way to go.

Sorry but where in Australia are you that Google Maps is showing POIs ?

And which POIs are inaccurate exactly ?

My findings:

For searching. Google Maps has a much better autocomplete all round. Faster, more readable and elegant. Once you have selected an entry then Apple Maps jumps straight there. Google Maps does this pointless move animation making it about 2-3x slower.

For panning. Apple Maps is definitely smoother and has a higher frame rate. Especially if you have traffic/hybrid mode enable in which case even on my iPhone 5 Google Maps is lagging really badly. The biggest difference is that Apple Maps shows you a checkerboard for missing tiles whilst Google Maps has a blurred image. Apple Maps also has a fade in transition for loaded tiles which is a nice touch.

For POIs. Apple Maps is showing me lots of restaurants, bars etc. Google Maps is showing me nothing. This is in both Sydney and Melbourne.

For UI. Google Maps has a much better UI with info card. Apple Maps requires you to click on a small button which goes to a separate screen with more options. I really hate the sidebar that Google implemented. It is far too difficult to click with the tiny button especially one handed. And it isn't that intuitive that the street view picture is actually a button.

Overall. Google Maps has much better street data. Apple Maps had a much smoother UI, actually showed POIs here in Australia and the inbuilt 3D view is better implemented. The 2.0 versions of both apps should be real nice.

I've found that in Melbourne that while Apples maps have a lot of data, its all very very stale. I live I'm the Eastern suburbs, a lot of the places of interest are very old. Shops that haven't been there for years are listed, and large points like Universities are completely absent. It makes finding a particular shop or business near impossible.

The road data is good buy very old. Roads that are listed have has buildings on them for years, dead ends aren't, just general mapping issues there. For some reason they've listed half the tram stops as train stations too, which doesn't really help.

I want to love them. The vector map tiles are silky smooth an very easy to navigate. The app is well thought out and easy to use. I just wish they'd used better sources for their data.

Googler here. I'm seeing POIs in Melbourne and Sydney - you're seeing nothing? Even zoomed all the way in? It sounds like a bug. Could you provide a link of where you're looking? If you tap and hold in the viewport, slide up the address page, and hit share you can copy a url.