It's a first generation product. By putting it out there and getting actual user feedback, this should accelerate the development.
Even if Apple has, let's say, 90% of the map data/information that Google does, the minute you are sent to the wrong location, or to a store that doesn't exist, or try to get transit directions and can't, or get routed via the most convoluted route possible to your destination, the Maps app has failed.
Turn by turn navigation is awesome though. Once they've worked out the kinks I'm sure this experience will be better overall.
If it's so awesome, why didn't you buy a standalone GPS or an Android phone over the last few years? Because it's nifty but for most iPhone users this is not a must-have feature. Which is why Apple can get away with shipping a crap maps app.
-Looking straight ahead, grab phone and hold down Home button. -Siri chirps -"I need directions to foo" -"Here are directions to foo" -"In X miles turn Y on N"
The only time I touched the phone was to hold down the Home button. Never once looked away from the road. It's amazing.
Edit: Two presses if you want audio instructions. Google Now opens maps which doesn't do audio instructions apparently rather than navigation which does. There's a button for navigation in the maps app.
However, is it a mission-critical app? What percentage of the userbase actually needs maps on a day to day basis? What did you do in 2005 when your GPS completely failed? You call the destination... it's not like you don't have a phone in your hand. Failing that, you ask a nearby stranger.
I presume Apple went ahead because Maps is likely less important to their userbase than, say, the Music app and definitely less critical than the browser.
It's not "mission-critical," but by that criterion neither is any part of iOS that's not talk and text and maaaybe basic web browsing. Mapping is surely one of the bigger raisons d'être for smartphones, otherwise people might as well buy an S40 Nokia.
Even in 2010, 5 years after they launched, they got the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica wrong. This rendered Google Maps worthless. They should have just shelved the whole project right then.
Don't even get me started on Waldseemüller. So much worse than worthless!
And while you may have considered it a "fifth generation product", Google Maps went virtually untouched between iOS 1.1.3 and iOS 5.1. Although its map data was very accurate, its feature set was sorely lacking when compared to Google's map app on Android.
I sympathize with people who have encountered inaccuracies, but that hasn't been my experience so far. Hopefully, this will get worked out and we'll end up with a map app that is both accurate and has a competitive feature set.