So, use your paying customers as beta testers? Not an ideal solution.
iOS maps is in the same position that AndroidOS was in a year or two after the iPhone appeared. Substandard in comparison, largely functional with big gaps, but an expectation of quick improvement.
Then they sell you and your data to advertisers.
I'd rather pay for something than be sold.
How many did you pay for?
But you don't just rip out something millions of people depend upon for a function as critical as safe navigation in unfamiliar areas and replace it with something that has constant, pervasive issues performing its basic operations. A custom Maps application and dataset is a good business move, but you have to make sure it's at least a minimum viable product before you do the kind of rollout that Apple has done.
When Google replaces Gmail with the shinier "Googmail" and 25%+ of mail to the new service comes back undeliverable, and there's no reasonable method to revert to plain old Gmail, you'll have a comparable quagmire. The fact is that while Apple's Maps may occasionally work sort of well, the failure rates are unacceptably high; too high for anyone to trust the program any more.
It will take years to undo the damage from this, and I fully expect a good portion of people to swap iPhone for Android as a result.
Guess what? Maps is hard. Why did Nokia buy Navteq in 2008 for a whopping $8B? Why do you think Amazon recently choose to license Navteq maps from Nokia for their Kindle tablets' Maps API?
Given that Amazon makes $7 million profit a quarter and Apple makes $4M profit an hour like Gruber sneeringly likes to remind us[1], is it wrong to expect better maps from a phone that costs much more than a run of the mill cheap Android phone? What excuse is there for driving directions that direct you to drive on train tracks? [2]
[1] http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit-corr...
Judging by all the cars parked on both sides of the track, there's probably a driveable surface there too. Not uncommon.
Apple sells an experience — the whole package. They always have. That's why Antennagate, a hardware issue, and Maps, a software issue, are equally frustrating and newsworthy. Apple proposes to remove the hardware/software distinction and deliver a magical device that just works.
Maps no longer just work for many people. And that's the problem with magic. It's very brittle. The clock strikes midnight and everyone turns back into a pumpkin, the ball is over. And so many people are frustrated, because they pay a premium for this abstraction, this magic, and it has disappeared, and that annoys them, and it scares them, because if Maps can stop working when it used to work, then so can my Phone, and my Email, and all my kids' baby pictures, and overnight, Apple's customers no longer feel in control.
I like the new maps (I live in Austin, the data seems pretty solid.) But this letter is a big deal. For the first time that I'm aware of, Apple has publicly admitted that there is no Wizard of Oz, and they're just a man behind the curtain, and would you please bear with us while we iron out the glitches?