> Apple of the past would do everything they could to be the best.

Sigh... Which Apple? Scott? Jobs I/Markkula? Sculley? Spindler? Amelio? Jobs II? You are aware that this all started before 2007? The Performa series, released under Spindlers watch, were arguably the lowest point in Apple's history. So let's not get too hyperbolic about the state of Siri, which is considerably better than you allude to. As to accuracy, Google links into the biggest search engine in the world, and Google seem to be ethically challenged when examining that data.

> They have had plenty of time now to make Apple Maps better. Here is a great comparison.

That is subjective. Objectively, Apples maps are significantly better than they were upon release 6 years ago. As I already pointed out, Google have a 7 year head start in an area that is neither parties core business, so good enough is all they need to be. Google Maps are useless to me as they cannot find my address. Apple maps can. For me, in and around London, Apple's maps have been objectively better than Googles. YMMV.

As to the article; building footprints make for better mapping? That's, like, your opinion man...

http://macdailynews.com/2018/02/22/apple-maps-vs-google-maps...

>“Relative to Google Maps, Apple Maps estimated trip times were on average 8% longer (i.e worse) and Waze estimates are 3% shorter (i.e. better),” Grabowski writes. “Using Apple Maps, I on average arrived 1% faster than initially estimated, versus 2% slower with Google Maps and 11% slower with Waze. In other words, Apple sandbags its estimates so that users on average arrive at the predicted time or slightly sooner. Google and Waze are overly optimistic in their predictions and thus their users arrive later than expected.”