[MetalMASK]

Interesting point but I'd like to see some feedback from real Chinese user(s). (although I am Chinese, I am not currently physically in China so cannot test it out).

The major difference between the two maps is that the Apple one has more POIs (and it looks even more cluttered because it contains Chinese characters). As noted by beering, the base map are essentially the same in this particular example. IOS6 maps are criticized for missing spatial features in the base map (i.e., road network, waterbodies, .etc), which largely due to the use of OSM instead of commercial database.

I am not seeing a counter example here. The comparison is even based on different map range (note the IOS6 map covers a larger region than the google map example).

What I've heard is that Google maps works really bad in some rural part of Europe, e.g., South France. Maybe look for some examples there.