Setting aside how one views/classifies the companies, you don't have to assume anything: Google's maps have qualitatively better data than Apple's because they've literally been driving & photographing much of the world's roadways. Apple shows no indication of having this kind of commitment and even if they did, Google has a significant, years-ahead lead.
So your theory is that Google must have better data about what is in a specific place, and how to get there from somewhere else, because they have a photo of that place, from the street?
Well, according the featured article we're commenting on, yes, that's about half of it in a nutshell. The other half is the algorithms they're running on all this street view data they're collecting.
Is it really that crazy a notion that actually driving the roads and collecting all kinds of data from it yields higher accuracy maps than just licensing less robust data sets from others?
trying to reverse engineer a photo of a property from the street into meaningful information, vs using data collected from businesses dedicated to providing mapping/location data, and information provided by people expressly interested in improving the available data?
Look, obviously there's more to it than _just_ street view and algorithms. The article also talks about manual reviews, corrections, and verifications by lots of human staff. Google also allows businesses to add/update their listings. I've done it for ours. I've then had someone from Google call me to confirm it too. They also have Skybox imaging now as well as Waze.
I focus on street view because it is a big source of data (per the FA) and a testament to the comitmment and effort that's gone into it. In the U.S., how many other map makers actually drove 99% of the roads on thier map? Maybe that doesn't make a difference to you, but I think the central premise of this article and the general consensus of most users is that it does.
