The other day I got my iPhone 5 on the mail, but it wouldn't activate because of a SIM card error. So, I get it the car, look up the closest Verizon store on Apple maps using my old iPhone, and drive there.
I end up at a run down strip mall with no Verizon store in sight. So, I load up Google maps is Safari, and it finds and takes me to an actual Verizon store about 3 miles away.
So yes, people are having actual problems with Apple maps.
This type of stuff happened with Google maps too, but everyone seems to forget that. A year or so ago in Houston I was following Google maps to a theater and ended up in the middle of some suburban neighborhood.
Let's just all remember that the old maps app was not flawless.
Using the Google Maps app, this never happened to me in hundreds and hundreds of routes.
Using the ios6 maps app for the first time, to locate a verizon store to go and order my iphone 5, it failed to find a Verizon store I knew was there from previous research. I had to settle for mapping the street and finding the store myself.
I'm not saying the old maps app didn't do that to you, just that the rate of that sort of occurrence, given the evidence I've seen, was much lower in ios5 maps than it is in ios6.
I can't compare against iOS 6, because I haven't updated my phone. But I did indeed have Google drop me off in the wrong place several times. I had it send me into the suburbs of Bellevue looking for a Home Depot that didn't exist. Last week it sent me 4 blocks away from the restaurant I was looking for (and told me it was on the wrong side of the road, a common issue with Google Maps).
I still think the new Maps has notable issues from everything I've read, but Google-based Maps was by no means perfect.
There very well can be a communications cascading effect as well. How many people complaining right now about iOS 6 Maps are doing so because their friends are. Just as it's cool to be the one with the new iPhone 5, it's also cool to be one of the one's that is late to the appointment because your Maps app told you to take a left instead of a right. You're one of the crowd, and you have something different.
Maybe they should have released Maps as a downloadable app. Maybe they should have waited another year. Maybe they should have... They didn't and outside of transit* there is nothing that is absolutely terrible about the app. It's immature, sure, but it's not the worst thing to happen to the international community since the invention of the atomic weapon.
* If you know any objective-c and are complaining about the lack of transit options, contact your local public transportation authority and develop an app on your own.
I end up at a run down strip mall with no Verizon store in sight. So, I load up Google maps is Safari, and it finds and takes me to an actual Verizon store about 3 miles away.
So yes, people are having actual problems with Apple maps.