iOS 6 available

Actually, it'll be good to see this smug wee git get his comeuppance.

And it was a great idea to drop Street View for what is, in effect, sky view, which is for the benefit of whom, exactly - this fella?? 

I guess if you live in San Francisco, it's pretty good. Or in the Botanical Gardens next to Sydney Opera House.

It seems that the Hoover Dam area is being redeveloped by Alton Towers:

Brilliant. Really liked that one 6th.Replicant.   

Best bit of new maps is the way Apple has resolved the current dispute between China and Japan over a clutch of small islands both are claiming, thus giving rise to protests against Japanese businesses in China, Japanese people being attacked, arson, Japanese cars smashed up, etc.

Why didn't they just ask Apple? It had the obvious solution all along...

Yup, that's what it looks like, even on the climb on the other end! 

This 3D gimmick merely distorts the map.

Apple has promised to improve its maps.

The stories seem never ending.

Is this one of the biggest PR disasters Apple has committed?

I'm sure it will sort things out soon (not sure how, given the huge corrections needed).

It's very easy to be racist amongst all this and say, 'well what do you expect from a maps-app made in a nation where purportedly 1/5th of its adult citizens can't find their own country on a map of the globe'. But not only is that racist and over-stereotypical, it ignores the fact that Google is also American and imo they did a great job.

In Apple's defence, I think a major contributing issue is that Google has had years to refine and improve its maps software. I do still remember the non-descript blurry images from the early days of Google Maps and Google Earth, and I remember that in the UK, only the main cities were rendered as anything but indecipherable blobs. The pressure Apple was under, in order to be seen as successful, is that right from the start their maps software had to be seen to be at least as good as what Google already had. And obviously, it wasn’t going to be, as has been proved to be the case. But surely Apple must have known the risks.

It wouldn't be racist at all to say that.  It would be xenophobic however...

Google maps (satellite) is still at least 4 years out of date whether on iPhone or not.

I have just checked and our house still doesn't have the conservatory we had built in August 2008.

Streetview is over 3 years (at least) in our area. (A city and not 'in the sticks'.)

Most GPS systems still think the top of our road didn't go one-way over 4 years ago either. (Even after updates.)

These things are all flawed and should not be relied upon.

Kind of a moot point really as most people realise that sat imagery, and even moreso the street view will never be up to date.  The standard maps however, there's not really any excuse in this day and age to not have it up to date.