There has been lots of justified bashing of Apple for the new, prematurely released mapping system in iOS6. Last week I saw iOS6 for the first time on my son's iPhone 4 and now my iPhone 4S. Several observations:
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- These 3D views are the best I have seen on the Internet. Google has 3D renderings of cities, but they are not as good because they are 3D models draped with aerial imagery. Look at the side by side comparison of the same scene below from my iPhone 4S:
In some sense this stumble is a good thing for Apple. With Tim Cook's apology last week, Apple has been introduced to the idea of humility. Apple also has a lot of money to put behind fixing this black eye. Finally, from what I see in the comparison above, as well as the comparative experience of navigating in 3D in the iOS 6 Map Viewer versus Google Earth, I think for this particular corner of Boston, Apple produces a better rendition of reality.