Tim Cook responding to bad press makes sense, but having bad publicity doesn't necessarily mean a product is awful. "Apple Maps fail hard after Steve Jobs dies" is a big headline, and it's no surprise that news agencies pick up on that regardless of how much substance it has.
And realistically, I don't think it says much. First, tech sites are obviously going to pick up on this release. It continues the narrative they've had going for months. Second, even if there had been no stories about Apple Maps, we'd be seeing tons of stories about this release. Very few people had issues with mobile Safari before Chrome came out, but the response to that was huge as well.
There's no getting around it. For most of the world Apple Maps was truly awful, it was particularly bad here in Australia to the point that it was useless and even life threatening. I'm not sure why you're even trying to argue the point, it has been written about and commented on everywhere around the world, and the overwhelming consensus is; Apple Maps was a step backwards.
You can't just dismiss the criticism because it made for a good headline.
All right. Outside of the US, it may have been bad. I don't have any personal experience with that, so I'll concede that point. The original comment was "It had real difficulty everywhere except (parts of) California". I pointed out that that was a hyperbole. Apple Maps is fine in the vast majority of the United States, and fine with a significant portion of iOS users.
I am in Florida and use Apple Maps to travel all over the state. It was wrong countless times, from location of restaurants to taking me to wrong addresses because I did not spell "northeast" as NE. Worst of all it did not find most local businesses. Unless you have personally used it to travel all over the US, how can you say it works everywhere?
I can say it's been fine in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I've been using it since June, and I just haven't encountered any problems that seem to plague everyone else on the Internet. Maybe it's just good luck on my part, but whatever. At least everyone can be happy now :)
And realistically, I don't think it says much. First, tech sites are obviously going to pick up on this release. It continues the narrative they've had going for months. Second, even if there had been no stories about Apple Maps, we'd be seeing tons of stories about this release. Very few people had issues with mobile Safari before Chrome came out, but the response to that was huge as well.