I'm very pleased with how far Apple Maps has come. It only continues to get better over time. There are still some subtle things that I pick up on, notably turns identified as "slight left/right turns" that are not anywhere near being "slight," but it's something I'm aware of and I can compensate for in real time. I'm very impressed with how well Apple Maps handles rotaries / traffic circles, detours, and road blockages due to accidents, construction, and such. I sometimes question why Maps is sending me along a different route that I've traveled on many times only to find out that one of the roads I was counting on is temporarily blocked or a bridge is out.
I regularly use Maps on trips even when I know the route by heart. Maps is very good at giving me early warnings of detours that I was not expecting. On one recent trip Maps/Siri simply said "Take the next exit!" without further explanation. On this particular trip my wife was ahead of me by about 30 mins in a different vehicle but ended up stopped for more than an hour and a half. I was able to avoid the blockage altogether. Of course Waze is even better in this regard, but only if you are near an area where there are people actively crowdsourcing live data into the app. I found it very useful driving around Boston, but where I live very few if any people are feeding in live data, especially the horse & buggy vehicles.
I also use Maps extensively to get information on local stores and restaurants before I head out because some of these venues have variable hours from day to day and different days of the week that they are open or closed. The venue's operating schedule and hours of operation are right there in the Maps app along with a link to the venue's web page and contact information. In the case of restaurants the menus are typically available on the restaurant's web sites.
I do occasionally use Google Maps but primarily when I want to post directions to a destination on a web page or via a QR code on printed media. It works fine for everyone including Apple, Microsoft, Android, etc., users. But Apple Maps is my go-to tool for navigation and location based discovery.
