That's an iPhone app. There is no iPad equivalent now.

No, it's crap. Problems found so far:

Major roads not properly labelled. For example, the A414 between Chelmsford and Harlow is not labelled A414. Instead the app uses the local road names, which changes as the road progress through Ongar and towards North Weald. Any other road Atlas calls it the A414. That is what it is known as, that is what is on all the road signs.

Interestingly, if you follow the A12 through Colchester and towards Ipswich, the A12 labels vanish, replaced by local street names when the road turns into a single carriageway, and return when it turns back into a dual carriageway. Clearly, major routes are only given their numbers when they are "motorway like" in configuration. For navigation when preparing for a long journey driving, this is not helpful especially if you do not know the area.

Also the satellite imagery is awful. Locally, my town (Chelmsford) when zoomed is is just a messy blur of pixels. It is not the highly detailed views previously used. Roads are completely missing in Hybrid mode (mine included), so using the helpful hybrid mode to give you an idea of the area with a map overlay is pointless now.

Likewise, if you look at Colchester - a major city - you will notice two things - most importantly, it's completely covered in cloud. Secondly, and given the first problem which makes this almost redundant, it's monochrome.

Large towns have lost their labels. Continuing the A12 theme, Kelvedon (north eat of Chelmsford) is labelled. However, Witham, a much larger town, is not.

There just seems to be so much wrong with this iteration of the app. Shoddy data, poor imagery, poor and inconsistent labelling. It's a mess.

Initial impressions are a bit meh overall (with iOS 6, I've not even looked at Maps since I never really used it before).

On an iPhone 4.

pluses
Moving the 'bluetooth' options to the top level in Settings
Do Not Disturb
The way the app store now downloads apps & updates is more logical
The new Phone number pad is nice

minuses
Passbook is at the moment an idea waiting for a use.
The new Apps/iTunes interface is less usable than the old one
Taking podcasts out of the Music app and forcing you to use the god-awful Podcasts app

I also have an original iPad, which of course isn't getting iOS 6 at all. I see no good reason as it stands to upgrade either item of hardware. As a result, iOS 6 is pretty much passing me by in the main and I can't say I'm really bothered by the fact.

Apparently if you delete the Podcasts app, they return to the Music app.

I am not disagreeing with you. My local village is not even mentioned in the addresses. Loads of local stores and banks are in the wrong place and the maps app does not allow you to move the pin to the correct location. Yes there are teething problems but it is a version 1.0. Windows was not decent until 3.1. Under the old google maps I was in the correct location but now I have magically moved 90 yards.

Hang on, though. TomTom are not some fly-by-night start-up company. They have as much map data as just about anyone in the satnav business. If they are the main partner with Apple here, how come it's so rubbish?

You should expect better - even for a version 1 - with that kind of pedigree.

I'd contest that. Sure, it's a largely re-written app, but it's replacing a perfectly functional existing app - Apple just wants to change the map-provider in order to provide all sorts of additional functionality. If changing the mapping provider broke existing functionality, it shouldn't have been released.

As far as the consumer or end user is concerned, this is version 6. Just because they are using different data does not mean that it’s right to take such a step backwards.

http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19659736

If Steve were alive, he’d probably be firing a few people.

I had someone on Twitter trying to justify the poor quality, saying that it was “worse in beta” - well that is to be expected, but that does not exonerate Apple from really, really screwing this up.

I see that TomTom are distancing themselves from Apple's Map App...

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19659736

I haven't been offered the upgrade yet. Reading this I may not bother.

Question I have seen on other sites: Would Steve have signed off on the Map App?

Very good question.

Doesn't seem to have worked for me.

Steve is dead. Nobody can say what he would have done. It's time to let him rest in peace.

(aside from the point that Steve had his fair share of clunkers too).

You have to ask - does the map data include pace names? If so, there are a LOT of mis-placed locations, and places which either have no name or the wrong name. Is that n the TomTom data, or has Apple somehow munged it?