The days of Google Maps being vastly better than Apple Maps are fast disappearing. It is about 95% parity for Australia and UK at least and any differences are being eliminated rapidly. And the touted advantages of Street View aren't there since the data is at least 4 years out of date in some countries.
The fact is that Maps aren't something you can dramatically keep improving. You reach the "everything is mapped" point and then it becomes a keeping everything up to date scenario.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but it's still a lot worse than Google Maps in Japan. I'm sure it will come in time, but it's a difficult problem and one that google has a better handle on with it's background in "big data".
> The days of Google Maps being vastly better than Apple Maps are fast disappearing. It is about 95% parity [...]
Not where I live (Tokyo), it isn't.
I have an iPad mini (got it for free!! :] ), which has a nice large display, and I'd really like to be able to use a mapping app on it when I'm at home, but using Apple Maps is painful compared to Google Maps (which I have on my phone). The presentation in Apple Maps is very pretty (well, as long as you don't turn on satellite view and notice the super low-resolution images...), but the data/integration just isn't there.
If you live in Cupertino, of course, Apple Maps probably has fewer issues...
I'm not quite sure that this is true. I've been noticing many more house addresses in captchas recently, indicating that Google is working to make sure that home addresses in Maps accurately correspond to those in the real world. While improvements of this nature are far less noticeable, they demonstrate that many of the remaining improvements to the product are being made 'under the hood'.
The fact is that Maps aren't something you can dramatically keep improving. You reach the "everything is mapped" point and then it becomes a keeping everything up to date scenario.