[high5ths]

I was actually thrilled that for transit directions in NYC, Maps just gave me a button to the Embark app, which won the MTA App Quest for best subway navigation in the city. It has a better interface than Google Maps for transit, anyway. It's obviously an extra step to go to another app, but if the experience is better in the long run, I'm willing to go with it.

Google Maps has been annoying on iOS for a while -- ever since they updated their Android app to use vectors, while ignoring the iOS version, it's felt much slower and I figured it was just a matter of time before they abandoned iOS completely.

[r00fus]

You realize that Google Maps iOS app is an Apple product, right? They worked closely with Google, but it's not Google's code.

[untog]

I was actually thrilled that for transit directions in NYC, Maps just gave me a button to the Embark app

I don't understand how you can be thrilled about that. It's a link to the App Store, and represents one less option available to you.