International data: without question.

Location-aware searches: I've seen several mentions of a search for Lexington Ave in Manhattan returning the address in Brooklyn. But I've never had Google maps work consistently with this kind of thing, either. I always have to specify "San Francisco," even when I'm standing in San Francisco, for it to return an address that's not in the east bay. And I read a CNET article yesterday where the testers found it "shocking" that they couldn't type random phrases into Apple's maps -- like "crooked street" for Lombard -- and have it come up with a usable result. But who actually does that?

Stores in the wrong place: Here's where all the "look at the silly 3D flyover pictures!!" just add noise. There's no way to tell how widespread a problem this is without reporting it. And presumably, stores are going to report it to Apple if they're not listed. From my experience -- which again, isn't worth much, since I'm living in the sweet spot for this kind of thing -- it's come up with more options than Google maps did.

And I totally forgot to mention the lack of transit directions. Which is a big deal, except -- again, here in SF -- nobody relies on Google for transit directions anyway, since they're not as accurate as NextBus or third-party apps. In theory it's good for the developers of transit apps, but at the moment it's a drag for users because it's not nearly as convenient.

Ultimately what I'm saying is that they had an untenable situation -- let Google continue to have a monopoly on mapping data, or try to introduce an alternative -- and they went with something that works a majority of the time for a large part of their audience (only in the US or major cities in Europe) and has one clear improvement in the form of turn-by-turn directions. But to hear the tech sites describe it, it's a comically disastrous failure that doesn't work for anyone, simply driven by a petty decision on Apple's part. I'd just want to hear a more accurate account of what's really going on.