[bane]

A little over a decade ago I was working for a company that needed map data for Beijing to produce some wall maps. We quickly found out that, at least with the dozen or so geospatial data providers we contacted at the time, the data we wanted was simply not available in the West (if it even existed at all)! The rumor in the industry was that the Chinese government didn't want accurate map data to leave the country for fear that it would be used for military planning purposes by invading powers.

All was almost a disaster until a co-worker returned from a year in Beijing and brought a small stack of locally produced paper maps of the city back with him, with careful notes where they were "not accurate". We kept 4 or 5 interns busy for a summer converting the various paper maps into digital vector data we were able to use with our GIS systems.

So the fact that less than a generation later, people are complaining that the iOS maps lack sufficient detail of the countryside or whatever is almost mindboggling to me.

On a similar note, recent travels in Seoul have also reminded me how bad our GPS systems are no matter the provider. The average GPS most people use to get around with has astonishing levels of detail[1] by anyone's standards. Would that google maps had that level of detail even in just big cities I'd be amazed.

[1] - Some sample screenshots http://www.navigadget.com/index.php/tag/inavi and yes, they do really look that good.

edit this is pretty good http://map.baidu.com/